The Machine: A computer science education podcast

Mark White (VP for Research & Innovation) and Kathryn Kiely (Industry Services Manager) spoke with Rob about research activities at WIT. What kind of work goes on? How important is it to the Institute? What does it mean for students? What does it mean for SMEs? Recorded remotely during the Covid19 lockdown.

Rob and podcast regular Colm Dunphy sat down with former student Danny O'Dwyer, now well known across d'internet for the documentaries he's created at NoClip and his work in the world of video games journalism. They discuss Danny's journey from student to web developer to games journalist to media entrepreneur. Danny was in WIT to chat with current students about the game dev industry and then facilitated a seminar for faculty about crafting digital stories. Thanks to the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (https://www.teachingandlearning.ie) for funding this seminar. 

You can find all of Danny's documentaries at http://youtube.com/noclipvideo 

As a special Christmas treat, we present a radio nativity play which was produced by computing students from WIT back in 2012, made in conjunction with Beat 102-103. It was shortlisted for a number of radio awards at the time and always raises a smile from Rob when he listens. It's a fairly irreverent retelling of the famous story, so if you're easily offended please switch off now. 

The bulk of the work was carried out by four students (in 2012!) who are now all working away with their own careers. We won't name names, but everyone involved should be proud of this work. It's mighty craic, as long as you don't take it too seriously. You might also recognise a few other familiar voices in there if you're an avid radio listener in Ireland. Hope you enjoy and a wishing all our listeners a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

WIT has an Open Day coming up for prospective students. We thought it'd be a good to publish a podcast answering some of the frequently asked questions we're regularly asked about computing courses at WIT. We gathered a collection of Course Leaders from various programmes to have a chat with Rob O'Connor: Mary Lyng [BSc Software Systems Development]; Mairead Meagher [BSc (Hons) Applied Computing]; John Sheppard [BSc (Hons) Computer Forensics & Security]; Sinead O'Riordan [BSc Multimedia Applications Development and BSc (Hons) Creative Computing] and TJ McDonald [BSc Information Technology]. Details about these courses and more information about the Dept. of Computing & Mathematics can be found at https://bit.ly/33agj20 

Two students of the HDip in Computer Science at WIT were drafted in to describe their experiences of being a student on a totally online programme. Sarah Barron and Bernard Thompson were very generous and forthcoming with their answers! Also on hand were lecturing staff Eamonn de Leastar and Colm Dunphy to give the experience from a teaching perspective.

It's hard to imagine life without the Internet. Podcasts wouldn't exist without the infrastructure provided by a collection of interconnect technologies and networks. But how does it all work? Rob chats with networking lecturers Richard Frisby and Amanda Freeman-Gater to break it all down and explain the relevant protocols and standards that allow all internet services to operate.

Follow The Machine @machine_podcast on Twitter or Facebook.

As it's #CodeWeek across the EU, we thought we'd record an episode offering advice on starting coding with younger folk (primary and secondary school age children). We spoke about some of our personal experiences working with schools and mentoring with CodeDojo. On the panel were podcast regulars Siobhan Drohan and Brenda Mullally, along with another WIT faculty member Frank Walsh. Our guest was primary school teacher Kate Warren, Deputy Principal of Gaelscoil Port Lairge, who's partnered with Siobhan and Brenda to deliver all sorts of innovative activities based around coding and problem-solving skills.

During the podcast, we reference a number of resources which are linked here:

Scratch Jr - https://www.scratchjr.org

Scratch - https://scratch.mit.edu 

Sphero - https://www.sphero.com

Bee-Bot - https://bit.ly/2kqXlUx

Makey Makey - https://makeymakey.com 

Hour of Code - https://hourofcode.com

Coder Dojo - https://coderdojo.com

As always, if you'd like to get in touch you'll find us @machine_podcast on Twitter or on Facebook.

We've all gotten questions like "what laptop should I buy?", "any recommendations for a computer?" or "is this a good deal for a PC?" The short answer to all those questions is  "it depends!" Host Rob O'Connor goes through some of the considerations you should make when thinking about buying a new laptop/desktop/computer. The panel go through some of the headline specs of machines and then some other aspects that aren't always apparent to the novice techie.

In what is likely to be the final episode of The Machine for this season, Rob chatted with some outgoing final year undergraduate computing students about their time at WIT: Dimitra Zucharelli, Ciaran Roche and Emma Ní Bhriain. The offered advice they wished they could have heard as first years and discussed some of the technical skills they learned over their four years. They also reflected on the social and personal growth they experienced as students. 

Follow The Machine on Twitter @machine_podcast or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/machinepodcast 

Rob is joined by Siobhan Drohan and Brenda Mullally to discuss a few tech news stories making headlines this week. 

- Canada is becoming a tech hub thanks to President Trump's immigration policies

- Myspace loses all user data prior to 2016

- Google announces Stadia, their new cloud gaming platform

Follow The Machine on Twitter @machine_podcast or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/machinepodcast