The Machine: A computer science education podcast

Latest Episodes:

Bluffer's Guide To Artificial Intelligence Feb 27, 2019

Show notes

Ahead of the AI2 Applied Artificial Intelligence (www.ai2.ie) conference taking place in Kilkenny this week, Rob sat down with Glen Collins (Conference Director) and Susan Gallagher (Engineers Ireland) to chat about some of the main technical issues surrounding AI in 2019. What is Machine Learning? How computationally intensive is it? Will AI take all our jobs? (No!)

Technology Enhanced Learning Feb 15, 2019

Show notes

How can technology assist in the learning experience? How have these systems evolved over the years? What kind of access opportunities to education can they provide? A very interesting discussion on this episode of the podcast between Laura Widger and Pete Windle of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning (CTEL) at WIT, Emma Fahey a 3rd year computing student and our host, Rob O’Connor.

Evolution of Mobile App Development Feb 01, 2019

Show notes

How did we get here from there? Rob O'Connor is joined by podcast regulars Siobhan Drohan and Eamonn De Leastar along with Jason Blood and Padraig Howlin of Distilled (DoneDeal, Daft.ie and Adverts.ie) to discuss how developing apps for mobile has changed from the early 2000s up to the present day. WAP and J2ME, evolving to iOS and Android platforms, eventually getting to the newer languages such as Swift and Kotlin and their associated toolsets. The panel also discuss the as-yet-unrealised goal of cross-platform development. Finally, Rob gets some cooking analogies in there too ...

Tech Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

We have a festive themed episode today! Rob is joined by Mairead Meagher, Siobhan Drohan, Brenda Mullally and Colm Dunphy to reminisce about tech gifts from years gone by, make some recommendations for tech gift for this Christmas and even predict some trends for the future. Ho Ho Ho!

Efficiency Nov 30, 2018

Show notes

This podcast is all about efficiency! The panel (Mairead Meagher, Siobhan Drohan, Peter Carew and Rob O'Connor) discuss the concept of efficiency, how it relates to computing and writing elegant algorithms. This is also the longest episode of The Machine so far, so they weren't very efficient with their chat in the studio ...

BONUS! HDip in Computer Science/ICT Skills Nov 16, 2018

Show notes

A special bonus edition of The Machine! Colm Dunphy, Eamonn de Leastar, Joan Mangan and Rob O'Connor discuss the part-time HDip in Computer Science/ICT Skills currently on offer at WIT. This follows on from the previous episode in which the panel discussed how adult learners can approach IT. You can learn more about the HDip on offer at https://www.wit.ie/ictskills

Approaching IT as an Adult Learner Nov 16, 2018

Show notes

Eamonn de Leastar and Colm Dunphy join Rob for this podcast episode in which they discuss how someone might get into ICT from another industry. They discuss what skills an individual could bring from another industry into IT, whether programming is the only game in town (it's not!) and the importance of "soft" skills.

Beginner's Guide To Web Development Nov 09, 2018

Show notes

Eamonn de Leastar and Brenda Mullally join Rob on this episode of the podcast to discuss Web Development. They contrast the difference between the Web and the Internet, then look at static sites built using HTML/CSS before moving onto Content Management Systems. Finally they introduce the world of Scripting (Client Side and Server Side) and discuss Web Apps. They also give advice on how to start dabbling with some web development.

Data & Big Data Oct 25, 2018

Show notes

Everything you wanted to know about Data but were afraid to ask! Rob is joined by Brenda Mullally and Siobhan Drohan for a chat about Data. What is it? How is stored? What's Big Data and what does it mean for you? They also explore some ethical dilemmas. So this episode includes maths, programming, science, ethics and philosophy!

Advice On How To Start Coding Oct 12, 2018

Show notes

Following on from the last podcast in which the panel attempted to describe what programming is, this time the same group (Siobhan Drohan, Eamon De Leastar, Mairead Meagher and Rob O’Connor) talk about how a complete beginner can dip their toe in the world of coding. During the discussion, they mention a number of (mostly) free tools that you can find at the links below, presented in the order in which they appear (we think!): Code.org (Hour of Code) - https://studio.code.org/courses Processing - https://processing.org The Coding Train - https://thecodingtrain.com Free Coding Camp - https://www.freecodecamp.org Stack Overflow - https://stackoverflow.com Sphereo Mini - https://www.sphero.com/sphero-mini Coder Dojo - https://coderdojo.com Scratch - https://scratch.mit.edu Glitch - https://glitch.com W3 Schools - https://www.w3schools.com Eclipse - https://www.eclipse.org/ide/