Paul Sutton

Technology

Code Club 4/12/2021 update

The next Club will be on Saturday 4th December 2021 @ Paignton Library. Please contact the library to book.

We will carry on with what we were doing last session, hopefully expand on what we were doing with the Micro:bit

In order to try and support this further, I have created a little connector board to help connect components to the Micro:bit computer.

Connector Board 1

Board and servo. The issue with the servo normally is that connecting to a Micro:bit with croc clips you need a solid connection. If you remove the connector you are simply left with very thin, multi core wire.

Connector Board 2

This board just bridges the gap, plug the board connector in to the top.

Connector Board 3

Then connect the crocodile clip(s) to the other set of connectors

Connector Board 4

A close up of the connection.

Please note: There is nothing special about doing this, I just soldered this up in the hope it may make things easier at code club. The servo could be swapped out for other sensors, for example a moisture sensor.

Update 2/12/2021

I have also created an LED board to go with the overall set of boards being created.

Connector Board 4

Links

Tags

#CodeClub,#FreeCodeCamp,#Microbit,#Scratch,#Electronics, #Technology,#Problem,#Solving

OpenLearn : Childhood in the digital age

I have just started a 12 hour OpenLearn course, Childhood in the digital age. However I really need to be working in a school to do this course as the first activity asks

What do you think? How might technology hinder children’s physical, social and cognitive development, and how might it provide exciting opportunities for learning?

Make a note of you thoughts at the start of this course. Use a notebook or digital notepad that you can refer back to at a later date.

So while I can answer the question. I would really like to answer this and other course activities, following discussion with children / young people and teachers, in order to help me answer this with an informed and evidence based approach.

I may therefore defer going any further until I am able to do this. Adds value to working as a TA if I can also use this as a way to help with OU Open Learn courses.

In the meantime I am open to offers of employment.

REFERENCES

TAGS

#OpenLearn,#OpenUniversity.#Course,#Childhood,#Technology, #OpenToWork,#LookingForEmployment.

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Contribute to f-droid

This was originally shared on Mastodon, so am sharing here for any of my followers who may be interested.

  • F-droid is looking for project contributors. There is a good article here with some more information.

The contribution page is also here

Looks like lots of opportunities to get involved. If you are interested you can also get in touch with IzzyOnDroid.

You can join Mastodon here then connect with IssyOnDroid and ask how to get involved.

I am on Mastodon here

#freesoftware,#fdroid,#contribution,#foss,#repository, #android,#technology,#programming,#testing,#docs, #development,#software

Towards a Small Web – Howest 2020

This was on earlier so am posting the recording.

You can re-watch at the link here

About : 1h12 mins

Interesting idea and concepts.

Warning There is some swearing in this video, otherwise it is great

Speakers

#smallweb,#technology,#webcast,#ethical,#privacy

Online and remote learning : Lets not forget privacy.

This is an excellent article by the Free software foundation on the importance of maintaing user / learner privacy while they are learning online.

Some interesting points being raised and some serious concerns about privacy, use of webcams and monitoring of students during tests etc.

Learners need to ask questions and not just accept this as the new normal.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/remote-education-does-not-require-giving-up-rights-to-freedom-and-privacy

#learning,#education,#online,#technology,#freedom,#privacy,#freesoftware,#fsf.

At Paignton virtual Code Club, we are now approaching the end of the Scratch modules. Well done to everyone. The next step is probably to progress to Python [2][3].

If you don't feel ready to do lots of typing, you may want to look at Trinket and blocks. Then perhaps move to the Code Club modules [3].

Blocks, as the name suggests, is a block based system. The difference here is, that the blocks are all Python statements and code. So combining these allow you to easily start coding in Python.

To get started you need to sign up for an account on the Trinket website [1]

trinket

Click you user name and select new trinket and then select blocks

select blocks

You are now presented with your development area.

dev area

You may want to change your project title to something meaningful.

change title

You can select the category of block, then simply use click / drag in similar way as you would with Scratch.

So in this example I am just going to draw a square.

draw square

As we are using turtle, you will need to change the pen up, block so that it says pen down.

change command

Adding comments to your code is important, as it helps you keep track of what the code is doing and helps with debugging also helps others understand your code.

add comment

You can also view the Python code that is produced, this can be copy / pasted to IDE so you can just run the Python code on its own.

![View Python]

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zleap/blogmedia/master/trinket/square-python-code.png

Finally you can share your project with others.

share

Hopefully this is helpful.

Resources

1 Trinket 2 Python 3 Code Club python Modules

#codeclub,#paignton,#trinket,#python,#coding,#skills,#technology

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South Devon Tech Jam – March 2020

sdtjlogo

The next Tech jam will be on Saturday 14th March 2020. Following on from the previous jam in February

Paignton Library and information Centre.

Time : 11am to 15:00 Cost : £2

Website : http://www.sdtj.org.uk.

What have :-

It may be good to have a discussion on the Tech Pledge which I posted about a while back.

#southdevon,#technology,#meetup,#event,#paignton,#coding,#hardware,#retropie

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

FreeBSD 1

Further to my post on Vultures-eye earlier . I spent some time last night installing FreeBSD with the view to getting the game working. The page on freshports.

I also joined #freebsd on irc.freenode.net to ask for any help.

Once I had downloaded the ISO file and created an install DVD. I set about installing it. Text based installer is easy to use. Very similar to Slackware.

Once installed, I set about installing nethack with the package manager. (pkg install <packagename ) Once installed I realised that I probably need to run this through X.

I then set about installing X11 on the target netbook. This was painless, once installed started X11 with startx then ran the vulture-nethack game

Worth noting the config file can be found in /usr/home/user/.vulture as: vulture.conf

You may want to: Change the game window size Turn off music if you want to play the game and :-

  • watch a video
  • listen to other music.

The game worked fine, so I can get back to playing again.

The only issue I did seem to have was setting up a normal user account, this failed during the install process, not quite sure why, but I just added a new user with adduser from the root prompt. One thing to note about BSD is the user home director is in a different place. But that much different to under Linux.

I also installed prboom which is a free Doom game.

Given that I have never actually touched BSD at all. The ease of use is down to the great work of the developer team(s).

FreeBSD Handbook

#freebsd, #unix, #nethack, #technology, #computing, #irc, #freenode, #support, #install, #configure, #x11, #setup, #netbook

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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South Devon Tech Jam reminder – Feb 2020

sdtjlogo

The February 2020 tech jam will be on Saturday 8th February at Paignton Library and information Centre.

Time : 11am to 15:00 Cost : £2

Website : http://www.sdtj.org.uk.

What are we hoping to have :-

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#southdevon,#technology,#meetup,#event,#paignton,#coding,#hardware,#retropie

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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Adult filters – Compensation

A bbc report on 24th Jan 2020, covers the continuing problem of trying to protect young people from accessing adult material while using the Internet.

This scheme has been dropped, and the companies trying to develop the solution, spending millions, quite rightly want compensation.

This policy seems to have been doomed from the start, firstly it seems no one actually knows how to do this, the UK government also failed to inform the EU, so the implementation was delayed by six months, and industry experts were not convinced the policy would even work as users would find a way to circumvent the filters.

In addition to this, uploading of passports and other ID information raises serious privacy concerns.

There is wide acknowledgement something has to be done, but no one seems to have come up with a solution yet.

The solution(s) may have nothing to do with technology. It is about education, educate people properly on how to behave, how to treat others, equality and making everyone feel valued. This starts at home and is enforced in schools. Of course adults really need to set the example. Not sure how that is going to happen when you get vile trolling of people.

We have many laws, surely we need to start enforcing them. We should also hold parent / guardians responsible, perhaps the prospect of actual jail and a long term criminal record will result in action.

We need a gender diverse workforce in schools too, as that way we can have positive male AND female role models, Some schools hardly have any male staff, why is this, esp in 2020 when we are meant to have the equality act.

Another bbc article yesterday 25/2/2020 Facebook and YouTube moderators sign PTSD disclosure really does highlight the issue. Something is clearly NOT working,

#bbc, #news, #technology, #UK, #filters, #privacy, #compensation, #adult, #material

You can find me on Friendica at [email protected]

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