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From reading John's letter, I was thinking bet you these guys are going to interpret it as him seeking some sort of endorsement. I don't think he should have m
by chegra 15y ago
From reading John's letter, I was thinking bet you these guys are going to interpret it as him seeking some sort of endorsement.
I don't think he should have mentioned Raspberry Pi. It takes the letter into areas that you wouldn't want to discuss.
The letter lacked few concrete examples of what should be done to bring UK back on top of the computing world. Do we bring back the TV program? What exactly do we teach? What language do we teach? What else can be done? Could you provide examples of other country improving their computer literacy successfully. Being too vague means the person who is reading the article will have to think for themselves. Ideally, you would want them to do as little work as possible.
I think the letter was too long. For the first couple paragraphs, I was thinking would he hurry up and get to it; I need to get back to programming. I think the people in the government office reaction would be worst.
You fail to state your qualifications. In an ideal world, an appeal to authority should not work, but the care in which your material is being handled is some function of the person who writes it.
- cabalamat 15y ago> From reading John's letter, I was thinking bet you these guys are going to interpret it as him seeking some sort of endorsement. I don't think he should have mentioned Raspberry Pi. It takes the letter into areas that you wouldn't want to discuss. From a point of view of the sort of people who in fact would read the letter, you might be right. But from the point of view of the ideal recipient of the letter -- someone who cares about computing education -- giving examples of relevant projects is the right thing to do, because examples help to get the point across. Unfortunately politicians don't get computers or the internet, which is why we need new ones who do. Next May, Pirate Party UK will contest elections across the country; I myself intend to stand as a candidate for Edinburgh Council. We're hoping to duplicate our recent success in Berlin across the UK. If Pirates are elected and we receive similar letters about computing education, we won't simply ignore them, we'll act on them.