Friday, April 13, 2012

EduCamp @ SST

6:53 PM Posted by Genevieve No comments
On 13th April 2012 , SST had an EduCamp held at Learning Oasis 2 for students to sit in and listen to the talks given by their fellow schoolmates. This year, the students present would vote for the topics they want the students who are presenting to talk about.

Some of the topics they offer were:
a) Protection of networks
b) Are we controlled by Big Brother?
c) Photography and the modern social media
d) Smart devices taking over
e) Augmented reality + face detection
f) Fundamentals of SQL
g) Mobile devices liberate education
h) Game development theory
i) Basic game development
j) The integration of Aesthetics in OSes.
k) Tech startups
l) Hardware/Software programming.

At around 2.30, the EduCamp was about to start and people were doing last minute discussions and just hanging around, chatting with their friends. Soon, everyone got seated and the event started. First up was the introduction to EduCamp. EduCamp is somewhat barcamp where everything is related to Technology. However, EduCamp is related to education and has NO alcoholic drinks compared to a BarCamp.

SST EduCamp is about sharing ideas on Technology. Next up, they played a short video on how a normal EduCamp would look like. They introduced the special guest, Mr Daniel Chee, to the students.

After the short introduction, each present student was given a sticker to vote for the topics they would like to have present. The topics with the 4 most number of votes would be presenting their topic later on in another classroom. Each topic would have a session all to themselves. Each session lasts about 20 minutes.

As students got up table by table to vote, there are more talking between them and the whiteboard is getting covered by

However, all topics would be presented. 3 presentations would be taking place at the same time, only at different venues.

For the first session, we have Argumented reality and face detection in classroom 307, which started with them showing how one of their applications work with showing how they turn something into a 3D object. In classroom 308, we have Smart devices taking over. They showed graphs and talked about how computers would affect the world, for example, the amount of time it takes for people to adapt to the changes if PCs die out. And since they ended earlier, they had a little dialogue session with the students who were listening on to their presentation. And in classroom 309, we have The integration of Aesthetics in OSes. They talked about the Mac without the use of slides and talks about the trackpad, such as introducing an idea they have to "replace" the trackpad.

For the second session, we have Hardware and Software Programming in classroom 307. They started off by introducing Programming, like the History of Programming and the types of programming. They then moved on to introducing and letting us know more about Hardware and Software programming. And in classroom 308, we have Are we controlled by Big Brother? They played a video to talk about the cyber threats such as threats to shut down the site. The video talked about how cyber threats come about etc. After that, they talked about the video and they elaborated and talked about the main points in the video. They also talked about the differences of the different "companies". And in the 309 classroom, we have Photography and the modern social media. Jurvis, the presenter for this topic, talked about how children these days are glued to social media. He shared his project, which involves taking pictures of Kids in playground. He talked about how Social Media helps Photographers and NPOs to spread messages, how effective it was. He gave the example of Kony 2012, which turned out to be a hoax. However, he talked about how effective it was and how it drew people's attention.

For the third session, we have Fundamentals of SQLs in 307 classroom. They talked about what is SQL, how does it work etc. Which really is an introduction to SQL and what it does. It gives more information about SQL for the students to learn more about. In 308 classroom, Protection of Networks was being presented. They started off with giving an introduction on how website security works and how it is being solved. They also gave examples and the different ways that Hackers use. They came up with a story to show about hacking. After that, a Q&A happened. They also talked about the features. And in 309 classroom, Mobile devices liberate education is being presented. They used statistics and they posed a FAQ and gave their opinion. They posed questions and gave their main opinions on the question to help the audience understand more about their topic. They used a timeline to show the different restraints the parents give. They stated that it was the users that determine whether technology corrupts them or not.

And for the last session, we have Basic Game Development. They first introduced about Games, whether online or not. They talked abou\t Games Opposition, by saying how it is important to the game. They mentioned Game Rewards, which would keep the player on the game. They then talked about how games require an engine to run. In classroom 308, Game Development theory is presented. They pose questions, and answer them. They introduce what defines a video game, and what makes games interesting. They are talking about how one should make a video game. Like choosing an audience to aim the video game is at, where the game should be published etc. And lastly, we have Tech Startups in 309 classroom. After talking about Tech Startups and going through the Powerpoint Slide, they played a video on why Facebook snatched Instagram.

After all the groups have presented their topics, they went back to the Learning Oasis and had a dialogue session with Mr Daniel Chee. He talked about the different engines used to run Games. Of course, we have students asking him for his opinion.  Mr Chee gave examples of games and the things he does. He also talked about how he got into the game industry. He talked about the amount of money involved in making a video game. After that, the students were dismissed.