88 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
Executable File
88 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
Executable File
Hacriculum is a collaborative effort to develop a comprehensive "hacker
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curriculum" that can help to shape well-rounded, imaginative, curious,
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and bright people into the hackers of tomorrow by focusing on key
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concepts that hackers, makers, and inventors value; Concepts like those
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codified in Stephen Levy's Hacker Ethic: sharing, openness, world
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improvement, and the technological creation of art and beauty. The
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hacriculum will eventually include material appropriate for all levels,
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including K-12, as well as higher education and adult students. The
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project is wide in scope and initially is being considered in several
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stages.
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# Expected Timeline
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### Phase 1: Development
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During the development phase, contributors will establish an
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infrastructure for collaboration and begin to brainstorm thoughts about
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how to approach the project. Broad overviews of grade and subject matter
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will begin to be prepared, and some initial courses will be pilot
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tested.
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### Phase 2: After school and weekend short courses for teens and adults
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### Phase 3: Home schooling and Independent Study Lessons
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### Phase 4: Charter School
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### Phase 5: Expansion
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# Funding
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Avenues of funding will be explored, including grants from educational
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foundations. Funding could also come from income from tution from short
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courses and home schooling lesson sales. A more formal budget will be
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put together soon.
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# Participants
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- [Ben Stanfield](User:Ben "wikilink")
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- Tino Dai
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# History
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The specific idea of a "hacker curriculum" isn't terribly unique, I've
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found. It seems to be on the tip of a lot of minds, but not something
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anyone has actually moved from concept to completion. As I've mentioned
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the idea over the past few weeks, each time it seems like the response
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is "ooh, I've been thinking about things like that," or "I've got a
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great idea for how to do that."
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For me, it started several years ago when a friend asked me why there
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wasn't more science fiction in high school and college English classes.
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After an extended discussion on the idea, it was left to percolate in my
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brain for quite awhile, until a casual discussion at HacDC turned to
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schooling experiences as another member and I swapped stories of our
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different paths in K-12 schools. That led to a discussion of the
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Hacriculum idea, and the initial plan presented above. Several weeks
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later, in a discussion with an NYC Resistor member, the topic of a
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hacker's booklist came up again, and I got a chance to share some of the
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ideas for the Hacriculum.
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And then, on July 29, 2008, other HacDC members began to discuss
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rudimentary programming technique classes for kids (and adults), and on
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the same day Hacriculum.org was registered and this wiki began.
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# Interesting References
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There are many really interesting discussions about what it takes to
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become a hacker. One of the ones that I have shared with many interested
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kids is from Eric Raymond:
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[1](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html) It is very good,
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covers the range of what it takes to be a software/systems hacker, and
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is radical enough to have some street cred. I also really like "Teach
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Yourself Programming in only 10 years" at
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[2](http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html) but it is a little much for
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someone who wants to start hacking today. My current personal favorite
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comes in the form of a recent juvenile novel by Cory Doctorow, "Little
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Brother" available for a free download at
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[3](http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/) or in hardcopy from
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Amazon.com at
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[4](http://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765319853/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217465350&sr=8-1)
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Pretty amazing that a book available for free online is currently Amazon
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\#1944 in books overall and \#1 in Computer Books for kids. It goes to
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show you how fast the world is changing... The cool thing about the book
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is that it gets the tech right, and includes some of what makes being a
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hacker important and worthwhile, far beyond just technology.
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[Category:Proposed_Projects](Category:Proposed_Projects "wikilink") |