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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi Andrew,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would have a look at RUR-PLE, at Livewires, and
also the book Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Michael
Dawson.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>RUR-PLE is great for a little while, it's a little
robot on the screen that can be programmed to move around mazes and so
forth using a very limited set of instructions. It's quite an eye-opener
to kids to see how a few simple constructs can lead to all kinds of unexpected
behavior. Go to <A
href="http://rur-ple.sourceforge.net/">http://rur-ple.sourceforge.net/</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think that the Livewires stuff (<A
href="http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/pyBiblio/livewires/course/">http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/pyBiblio/livewires/course/</A>)
is a good follow-on to RUR-PLE. It's very well organized as a Python
module built on top of pygame plus a set of instructional material and
game-oriented challenges. I found that even these simple challenges are
too hard for my kids (15 and 16 years old) to understand without a lot of
additional hand-holding.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Beware of assuming that things that are obvious to
those of us who are experienced programmers are going to be obvious to kids
who've never programmed at all. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>The idea
that someone with no previous exposure will find Python "readable" seems pretty
optimistic to me -- I'm sure there are kids like that but I haven't had any in
my classes. Something as trivial as</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial
size=2> for val in
range(10,0,-1):</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>
print val</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> print "Blastoff!"</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>is not self-explanatory to normal
people!</FONT></DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We're about to start a Python club of our own here
at my school, perhaps we can trade notes, maybe have our kids email one
another? A bunch of the kids here are excited by the prospect of a
regional programming competition for high-schoolers at New Jersey Institute of
Technology (<A
href="http://cs.njit.edu/contest/">http://cs.njit.edu/contest/</A>) It's
limited to Java and C++ this year but they said they'd consider expanding that
list for next year. . . </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Andy Judkis</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Academy of Allied Health and Science</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Neptune, NJ</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>