Software for teaching and learning
Below are software projects that I have built to address the needs of Digital Technologies/Solutions Students and Teachers. This group of software has been requested by (and given access to) over 150 teachers across Queensland.
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I have developed this software under an open source license, so that teachers and students can use, share and improve the software to meet their individual needs.
GameFrame
I developed GameFrame in response to a need for an engaging environment that leads students from graphical programming to text based code.
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GameFrame has been developed to take the excellent PyGame libraries and make them more accessible and easy to use for beginner to intermediate programmers. GameFrame aims to help with learning the concepts of text based game programming without getting caught up in the implementation details.
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GameFrame is set up as an event driven framework. Programmers define Rooms and Room Objects, then write functions to handle certain events such as collisions, button clicks and so on. Just define all the items of your game, then let it run. GameFrame handles the Game loop and collision detection, just register your object for an event and write the code that will run when that event occurs.
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My Query Tutor
My Query Tutor is a self contained set of tutorials and exercises wrapped up in a desktop application. Students can work at their own pace getting instant feedback and access to built in topic help and examples
GF Capture the Flag
GF Capture the Flag provides a virtual environment where students can compete against each other through code.
Using a simple Python 3 API, students code their autonomous bots to do battle against other students (across schools) in the capture the flag arena.
OurAPI
I developed OurAPI in direct response to Unit 4 of the Digital Solutions Syllabus. In particular, the need to teach REST API's. OurAPI runs locally on a students computer and is fully customizable to that any teacher can provide an API consistent with their teaching strategy. The application removes the complexity that is often encountered, such as requiring additional headers such as the UserAgent. In particular schools had the added burden of making requests through a secure proxy. OurAPI removes the roadblocks and provides an environment for teaching the core concepts. The software has become very popular and is not only being used as a teaching tools across a great number of schools, but has even been utilized directly in confirmed IA3 assessment tools.