Distributed Programming for Newbies
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Description
Distributed systems rule much of new technology today, as software programs exist across multiple computers, servers, phones, and smart devices. How can students learn to program these systems? Start with a visual programming environment, says Dr. Akos Ledeczi from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Ledeczi is an electrical and computer engineer who researches distributed systems and how to teach computer science. His research group created the NetsBlox block-based programming platform, based on Snap and similar to Scratch, but it also has capabilities built-in for distributed or parallel programming. Ledeczi discusses the NetsBlox platform, their curriculum for teaching high schoolers, and their Roboscape project to link NetsBlox with robotics and cybersecurity education.
Episode cover art photo by Alex Knight from Pexels.
Related Links
- Dr. Akos Ledezci: His profile from
- MATLAB: Programming software and platform focused on math and engineering.
- Scratch: Visual programming platform through MIT.
- Snap: Visual programming platform through Berkeley.
- NetsBlox: Visual programming platform with distributed computing capabilities, from Dr. Ledeczi's research group.
- Web APIs: List of common web APIs, from MDN Mozilla.
- Roboscape: Cybersecurity and robotics project integrating NetsBlox programming.
- ActivityBot 360: Educational and hobbyist robotics platform from Parallax.
- Anki addresses shutdown, ongoing support for robots: Article on the Anki going out of business, from The Robot Report.
- C2STEM: K-12 science curriculum integrating computational thinking.
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