As I have signed up to various science based courses, mostly with OpenLearn at the moment. I have signed up to the ScienceForums website.
This is a free message forum where you can discuss a wide range of science topics, ask questions, help others. It is quite advanced in places but this suits me fine. You can learn by just reading the questions and answers from different users.
As I am also on IRC then I have joined both physics and chemistry channels on Freenode. This is in order to ask questions or clarification. The physics channel is more useful for the astronomy and astrophysics based courses.
If you would like to try out different desktop environments on a GNU / Linux based OS then Debian offers a tool called tasksel. This will make it easier to choose a different desktop environment for example.
The tasksel tool runs as part of the text based installation routine but post install you may want to change something without having to resort to using synaptic or other graphical package manager or even using apt from the linux terminal or console.
You can also opt to install a webserver or ssh server.
Today at Code Club we had 8 attendees, which is a really good So we had more scratch, and did some more work on the website project.
There was some interest in Micro:bits but not that much. This is something for future sessions. Or even a dedicated session at the library for this. Which may work better.
I also trying and get a Lego Mindstorms Robot built, but this takes time.
We also had Lucy, from the Tech Jam drop in and this resulted in a few e-mail between myself and Lucy go discuss learning platforms.
As I am a STEM Ambassador. I attended some training today (17/1/2020) to help support the First Lego League Jr Expo event. This will running in June 2020.
We started out with a presentation on STEM Ambassadors, then we moved on to looking at the Lego WeDo kits, what we could do with them and how to use the various sensors that come with the kit. For example sound sensor, movement and distance sensor. The IDE for this is really easy to use. Scratch also has built in support (via a module) that supports WeDo.
In the afternoon we looked at what the Lego League Expo was and how schools can prepare for this event in June.
Each school received 2x Lego WeDO kits and 2x lego enginnering kits for the Expo.
Applications for mentoring organizations for this years Google summer of code are now open.
A timeline for the programme is available with student applications starting in March. This should give time for people to research any projects they want to help, learn additional software for example before starting.
I saw this on Twitter yesterday. The second release candidate (RC)for LibreOffice 6.4 has been released. You can read more on the Libreoffice blog announcement
I have been making some regular posts to Friendi.ca on the current NFL Football season. As we are now in post season, it seems this has been neglected a little.
WEEK 17
Week 17 Saw the current Superbowl champions fall to a shock 24-27 loss against the Miami Dolphins, which forced them in to a Wild card play off against the Tennessee Titans in Week 18 wild card game.
This game was lost 20-13.
Week 19
Week 19 saw the Divisional playoff games with the 49ers, Titans, Chefs and Packers all securing their places in the Conference Championship games.
The games look like:
Titans vs Chiefs
Packers vs 49ers
Which will be played on Sunday 19th January 2020 for a place in the Superbowl on 2nd Feb.
In the meantime the Pro Bowl will be played on Sunday January 26th.
