News and book reviews of Dragons Out Finnish book

It's great to get reviews and articles in different newspapers and websites. The latest ones to tell about the world about the Dragons Out book - bringing software testing to children - are Dimensio-magazine and Kakkonen Family association.

Dimensio-magazine is the MAOL's official magazine, bringing out topics important for all math teachers. They ran an interview with me already a year ago, and now they did a book review of the Dragons Out book. Tuomo Riekkinen from MAOL ry read the book and wrote many kind words in his book review here: Dragons Out - lohikäärmesatuja nuorille.

Kakkonen Family association is the family research association of Kakkonen Family, so it was great to get my story there, to tell everyone what yet another Kakkonen has accomplished. The article is here.

And only a week before I was on the front-page of Keski-Häme newspaper - or rather one of the dragons from book illustration by Adri Szell was there. It was a great piece about book donations to schools, 30 copies to Tuulos School, Tuuloksen koululle kirjalahjoitus. The book donation campaign continues for a bit longer until I run out of my preorder stock of the Finnish Dragons Out book - it's almost gone, so I'm in no hurry. I have more schools signing up their interest to receive donated books, too. Thanks all the interest and great to hear your feedback about the book!

The Brits are still working on the layout of my English version of the Dragons Out book. I hope the pandemic doesn't slow them down too much. It shouldn't be much longer.



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Article in Dimensio-magazine

I recently had a chance to write in the magazine of math teachers. Mathematics is one of the natural stepping stones towards software development and software testing. The association of math teachers (MAOL) has been interested in cooperation with me. They considered software testing to be an interesting angle for anyone interested in mathematics. I wrote about my book writing project and how software testing can be taught to children via a fantasy book. The article is in Finnish here: https://www.dimensiolehti.fi/opetetaan-lapsille-ohjelmistotestausta-fantasiakirjan-avulla/
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Amazing feedback and school visits

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 I recently got some  amazing feedback  from a 9-year-old reader through his dad. The Dragons Out book was an exciting Christmas present that the boy started reading on his own. He did the exercises at the end of the chapters and was really thrilled about them ("I did all of those great exercises!"). Upon asking why the book was so thrilling, he answered, "It was a great book because it had true things and fantasy side by side, and the exercises were fun!". It feels so good to hear such feedback - keep it coming! The unique approach of fantasy coupled with testing works. Remember my school visits, earlier? It is  again time to have school visits in Finland , too. It is especially nice now that face-to-face meetings are possible, and I don't need to access the school class virtually over a Teams meeting. That works too, yes, with a teacher facilitating in the class, but it is so much nicer and more concrete to meet and teach children face-to-face. I asked for som
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How it all started

I got my first idea for a book that would combine fantasy and software testing years ago. I wanted to find a way to make software testing interesting to kids. People in the software testing industry understand very well that there is always a shortage of software testing. It usually stems from not knowing enough about the importance of testing. Testing is easily considered a necessary evil. However, it is enormous fun and a profession of its own. Why not tell about the fun of software testing already to children in an engaging way? Dragons and knights found their way into my book. Finally, my sabbatical year gave me a chance to put some words together to make the story. I wrote the first draft of the first chapter in Finnish in late 2018 and sped up with the other chapters during the rest of my sabbatical in 2019.  There are many more steps to take, including deciding about the extent of illustration, negotiating with book publishers, and editing the book. But we'll get there soo
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