JCP Java in Education Working Group Meeting Minutes for March 31, 2020

Date

Tuesdsay, March 31, 2020, 8:30 am PST

Location

Teleconference

Agenda

Review current state of Java in Education, and how we can support and communicate the use of Java in educational environments - updates from Devoxx4Kids and other initiatives.

Attendees

Heather VanCura, PMO
Ken Fogel
Mike DeNicola, Fujitsu
Paul Buck, Eclipse Foundation
Marcus Biel
Amelia Eiras, Jonathan Gallimore, Tomitribe

Minutes

Heather reviewed the summary of our discussion on this topic from our last WG meeting. We followed up on actions from our last meeting.

As we discussed in our last meeting, Heather followed up on how to develop best practices for connecting developers to educators, and providing tools such as online resources on Oracle Academy for teaching Java. Heather reported on her meeting with Devoxx4Kids. Anyone can use the tools and workshops available for teaching Java to students (primary, secondary, university) via Devoxx4Kids, which also provides links to the main tools for teaching Java to students, Alice and Greenfoot. There is a Devoxx4Kids Git Hub organization you can contribute new workshops and adapt/fork/translate existing ones. Jonathan discussed making these tools available to after school groups such as Code Club, which is encouraged. The challenge is installing the programs on school machines. He suggested he could look into ways to access via browser.

We discussed how we can involve JUGs in connecting with their educational communities, particularly universities. Heather suggested getting feedback from some JUGs on their activities in this area; she will share feedback in our next meeting. Ken will share some points to include in a presentation to highlight new features in Java. Heather suggested the content from the webinar on Java 14 as a place to start, highlighting new features such as records, pattern matching and switch expressions, as well as features introduced in Java 8 like lambdas and streams that some who have not used Java in some time might not be aware of or utilizing. There are also resources available from Oracle Academy, including the Java Fundamentals course. Ken will review and bring some suggested points for our next meeting. Marcus brought up that it is good to keep content shorter, but can prove difficult when trying to teach how to use new features.

Next Steps

Heather to summarize meeting, arrange a time to meet with some JUG leads and report findings.

Ken to propose some content on new features in the Java platform that make it more appealing to students.

Next meeting April 14 at 8:30 am PDT.