Qt for teaching

hlinaae

Hi,

The Qt in Education program focuses on supporting schools and universities to use Qt for teaching programming, user interface development, 3D graphics, developing for mobile, for embedded - you name it.

We already have some teaching material available, and are in the process of developing more.
Have a look at "the Qt in Education pages":http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education, and let us know what you think.

Got good ideas for how to get more universities to see the benefits of using Qt for teaching? Or anything else on your mind regarding teaching (with) Qt? This is the place.

kamalakshantv

Seems to be a very good initiative. On the first look just found spelling mistake "Modle View Framework" it should have been Model.

Will go through the course material. Would like you to add some materials related to Mobile and Embedded Devices.

hlinaae

Thanks for catching the typo. Should be fixed now.

We are cooperating with Forum Nokia on Qt for Mobile material, and I agree about the wish for material for Embedded Devices. But first we'll finish this general Qt material - then we can move on. :)

Looking forward to more feedback.

andreiamenta

unfortunately it will be very difficult to get teachers used to visual studio or borland something to consider qt, but as a nice proverb tells us "a journey of a thousand miles starts with one small step".

sfilippidis

Keep up the good work! I am currently studying the lectures you already published and I can say that they are at the proper direction!

This semester I teach a university course on "Human-Computer Interaction" and I used C++ with Qt framework for the "lab" part of the course. Your lectures weren't ready then, but they will be valuable in next semesters, if I will be the lecturer of the specific course again.

So, keep up the good work! And a "bravo" for the licence you have chosen.

hlinaae

Happy you like the material so far!
And: Great to hear that you already teach Qt!

Could you please tell us more about how you use Qt? E.g. Which parts do you teach, and how much time do you spend on it? How much programming do the students know before they can attend your class? Other info or ideas you'd like to discuss or share?

sfilippidis

Well, this semester I tought a course on "Human-Computer Interaction" at the department of Informatics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. C++/Qt was my choise for the "practical" part of the course.

I have been using C++/Qt for more than a year and I am very excited with it's evolvement!

Within the course, I focused on the GUI part of the framework. Students have a good background on C++ (from a previous semester course on C++ programming). Since the educational material you develop know were not ready, I mainly used other resources such as the official Qt-book, Qt's tutorials, Qt's demos etc.

I have many ideas about how to use Qt in education, and I will be happy to participate in the QtDevNet "education-branch" of the community! ;)

hlinaae

Cool - thanks! Looking forward to further input and discussions. :)

kamalakshantv

I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo's here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it.

sfilippidis

[quote author="QtK" date="1276863107"]I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo's here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it. [/quote]

I suppose you could make a list of the typo's and send them to Hanne ;)

kamalakshantv

[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1276863204"][quote author="QtK" date="1276863107"]I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo's here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it. [/quote]

I suppose you could make a list of the typo's and send them to Hanne ;)[/quote]

Ya sure I am doing that, but it might take some time for me to list all of that.

gtpt

Hi,
I was reading this thread and "andreiamenta" caught my attention.
Two years ago, i started teaching C++/Qt in this School in Portugal: "Your text to link here...(ESDAS)":http://www.es-afonsosanches.pt

How did i find Qt?
I was looking for:

open source

multi platform

a project that has a quality and is adequate for teaching

Naturally i found Qt and started my research.
Very quickly i realized that C++ and Qt, along with some other important tools, were a very good solution for teaching OOP and creating applications with nice GUI.
This combination could be used from very simple, to complex programming, requiring only an adjustment to the students level and the goals defined for each subject int the curriculum.

The IDE was the only obstacle, but Qt Creator emerged and and is improving day after day.

This story could have an happy end like -” ... and they lived happily ever after.”, but then found the main obstacle.

I am not referring to the students, because they adapt easily to new situations. Teacher were, and still are, the problem.

There seems to be some kind of addiction to things like: Windows, Visual Basic, Visual Studio, and other visual blá, blá, blá.

And worse! People use this not because it's better. Not because it is more adequate for the task. Not because its a solution with a future.
They use it because is was always like this, and changing is not the easy path.

I'm not saying that Qt is here to save the World, or that everyone should use it.

I simply consider it a very good tool for teaching.

Congratulations for all the work started and yet to come.

“Long live Qt”

sfilippidis

[quote author="Hanne" date="1275403244"]...

We already have some teaching material available, and are in the process of developing more.
Have a look at "the Qt in Education pages":http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education, and let us know what you think.

...[/quote]

I see that you have added "slide content draft in odp-format" for L5-L6-...-L10 at

"http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education/qt-in-education-course-material(http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education/qt-in-education-course-material)":http://qt.nokia.com/services-partners/qt-in-education/qt-in-education-course-material

Nice! :)

I shall study them ASAP. ;)

andre

[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1276863204"][quote author="QtK" date="1276863107"]I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo's here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it. [/quote]

I suppose you could make a list of the typo's and send them to Hanne ;)[/quote]

Wouldn't it make sense to have them in a wiki or something like that, so that users can make such corrections themselves?

sfilippidis

[quote author="Andre" date="1278343859"][quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1276863204"][quote author="QtK" date="1276863107"]I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo&#39;s here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it. [/quote]

I suppose you could make a list of the typo&#39;s and send them to Hanne ;)[/quote]

Wouldn't it make sense to have them in a wiki or something like that, so that users can make such corrections themselves?[/quote]

Yes, this sounds even better! :)

hlinaae

[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1278344337"][quote author="Andre" date="1278343859"][quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1276863204"][quote author="QtK" date="1276863107"]I am currently reading the course materials and have found some typo&amp;#39;s here and there. May be someone can review it and fix it. [/quote]

I suppose you could make a list of the typo&amp;#39;s and send them to Hanne ;)[/quote]

Wouldn&#39;t it make sense to have them in a wiki or something like that, so that users can make such corrections themselves?[/quote]

Yes, this sounds even better! :)[/quote]

Agree! :)

I've now added a "wiki-page for this purpose":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Typos_and_Corrections_to_the_Qt_in_Education_Course_Material. Please go ahead and start adding to it.

andre

Not quite what I had in mind. I was suggesting to put the materials in such a form that people can edit them in a wiki-like manner so such changes and corrections can be done by the end users directly. Just having a wiki page with errors seems a bit poitless. We already have a bug tracking system that can be used for that, right?

hlinaae

Ah - OK, I see. That makes the task more complicated than I first thought, then. We write the material in Open Office, so not so easy to convert to from wiki-pages..

john_god

I just recently discover the Course Material lectures. Well, I don't know who did it, but they are so very good, I just have to say THANK YOU. I started learning Qt from the Qt book, from Qtcentre, and Qt assistant examples. So my knowledge of Qt is somewhat disperse, I try to do something, I go looking for it, and do it, not necessary the easy or the correct way. I didnt know about QSignalMapper, I didn't know lots of widgets and layout details wich are covered in the lectures. They are very well structured, so keep up the good work.

viswesr

The course materials are very useful. Like others, I feel it should also be in a wiki format for users to edit / contribute. We should also keep the presentation format as such (i.e easy for instructors to use in a time bound class lecture). The wiki format can focus on "Qt Essentials Curriculum Block".

Could we start a wiki for this? What do you all say?