Latest in Comments on Science and Academia
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Announcing open course “Agile Methods and Open Source”
Agile Methods and Open Source (AMOS) teaches agile methods in a university context using semester-long projects. The class sessions of 90 min. each cover half a semester to leave room for guest speakers. The following materials are available: All materials are in English. You can get an idea about this favorite course of mine using…
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Announcing open course “Advanced Design and Programming”
Advanced Design and Programming (ADAP) teaches principles and practices of advanced object-oriented design and programming using a semester-long project. The following materials are available: The spoken language in the videos is German, everything else is in English. The course materials (slides, videos) are available under the CC-BY 4.0 license. This means you can use my…
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Why informatics is everyone’s business in academia
Informatics (worse: Computing science; even worse: Computer science) is the discipline of automated data processing (where automation is both human independent and dependent, and data in context becomes information). The non-IT industry has learned the hard way over the last few decades that informatics is part of their core business, not just some support function.…
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What is meant by “teaching fundamentals”?
In my previous post I noted how students and professors are often talking past each other, where some the former want to learn immediately applicable knowledge and the latter want to teach long-lasting fundamentals. I also noted that there is no contradiction here, which begs the question what professors mean when the say they want…
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The place of professional certificates and the significance of an academic degree
My Twitter feed is alight with comments on Google’s six-month “career” certificate, which, according to this SVP, Google will treat as equivalent to a four-year Bachelor’s degree. Predictably, a large number of comments are from students who conclude from their own disappointed experience that all college programs are crap. They cheer on Google. Also predictably,…
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The art of inviting industry speakers to class
Over the last 10 years, I have consistently invited industry speakers to class, to talk about their experiences, to change the pace, and to lighten up the teaching. We recently passed the 100 external speaker mark! (Also includes some academic speakers.) Time to reflect on what makes a good industry talk that enriches student learning.…