In 1972 a bunch of geeks at Stanford University held a video game competition. The prize was a year’s subscription to Rolling Stone magazine and the game was Spacewar!, in which two monochrome spaceships attempt to shoot each other whilst avoiding the gravity well of a star. It was the first known organised video game competition.
Last year courseindex.com featured a story about a new centre for cyber security at Bletchley Park in the UK, a ‘Hogwarts for hackers’ designed to recruit the best young minds in I.T. in the fight against cyberterrorism and other computer-based threats to national security.
In today’s world of just-in-time learning, where it’s perfectly possible to get a degree-level education without needing to spend tens of thousands on an actual degree, a lot of what we need to learn can be had for free. It can also be had when we need it, rather than forming part of a three or four-year program and being forgotten by the time we come round to needing to use it.
Sometimes at school students miss something important due to absence, inattention, teacher sickness or sporting commitments. Alternatively they might struggle with the subject in general and need extra support to get them through the year with good grades. Conversely, some students may be particularly fascinated by a subject and wish to deepen their knowledge. In the case of geometry, which forms the foundation for many disciplines and, ultimately, careers, taking extra online classes from an expert can help students to really nail down this fundamental subject.
Cuddly Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is the figurehead of a new educational enterprise aimed at training the next generation of tech wizards and fast-tracking the most promising ones.
A virtual reality simulation of a nuclear facility is one of the new training tools presented at the 61st IAEA General Conference in September. Training specialists will be using it to navigate through realistic scenarios, threats and risks. The 3D tool is focused on preventative and protective measures against insider threats, and there are plans to cover other areas of nuclear security in the future.
What did the Romans ever do for us? Well, they gave us roads, sanitation, a legal system, and lots of cool gadgets. The Greeks weren’t half bad either. Some of the great engineering feats of history were accomplished two millennia or so before our own era, which we tend rather arrogantly to consider the pinnacle of technology.
The Open College in the UK is offering a course in Dog Psychology. Upon completion you will have earned the right to have after your name the designatory letters Dip.Dog.Psy and will be awarded with a Diploma Certificate bearing the title.
It’s a cruel fact that the world’s call centres and fast food restaurants are full of workers who have an arts degree but don’t know how to capitalise on it. World famous Central Saint Martins arts and design college aims to change this. It doesn’t just train people to be arty and then release them into the wild to fend for themselves – it also offers a trio of courses in business skills aimed at helping students live their dream and make a living from it.
Despite globalization, each country and region has its own business systems and culture. From one country to another there can be dramatic differences in how people view authority, how much personal responsibility they take for their companies’ fortunes, and how organisations are structured. Finance and accounting methods vary widely. HR practices are by no means homogeneous around the globe. So executives working in global business need to be made aware of these regional differences and develop the ability to function effectively within them and transition smoothly between them.
Bletchley Park, a suburb of Milton Keynes in England, was central to World War Two intelligence efforts. Scientists including Alan Turing designed the first ever electric programmable computer there (Colossus) and used it to crack the Nazi’s Enigma Code. Bletchley Park is synonymous with British codebreaking and also now houses the National Museum of Computing.
