Category: BOLT Program

A Walk in the Clouds (A Teacher’s Perspective on Cloud Computing)

Teacher Editorial | By Shelley Grey-Sortland (BOLT student)

Head in the Clouds
Cloud computing is one of the emerging education technologies that is impacting teachers and learners, inside and outside the classroom. But what is this ‘cloud’ anyway? Essentially, cloud computing means “storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive” (Griffith, 2016). The image below illustrates how a variety of devices can be used to access a myriad of applications on the cloud. So if you are using the Web to access your data or your programs then you are taking a walk in the clouds!

cloudcomputing
Title: Cloud Computing
Creator: Sam Johnston
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cloud_computing.svg
Copyright Information: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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Coding and Computational Thinking In Schools

Teacher Editorial | By Steven Montgomery (BOLT student)

Coding or computer programming in schools is becoming a big push in schools around the world. Political leaders have been looking at statistics and realised that technology fields will employ a growing number of citizens in the future.

Future Employment

“The US Department of Labor projects that one million jobs in computing will go unfilled by 2020. These are good jobs, jobs that would allow economic mobility and great earning potential over the course of a career. We know why these positions aren’t being filled—a lack of skilled candidates.” (Harel 2016)

raspberry_pi

During a visit to Google’s new Canadian operation in Waterloo, Ont., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged, “We need to do a lot better job of getting young people to understand what coding is and how it’s important.” (Silcoff 2016)

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