Hi Gerry, I'm cc'ing a number of folks (and a mailing list) on this reply in order to get you more feedback than I could alone provide. Firstly, the Python in Education Special Interest Group (edu-sig) is the place to start: http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig Dr. Andre Roberge is currently managing that part of the python web site, and I've included him in the cc list. You may want to consider joining our mailing list. Of interest in your deliberation may be the presentation given at PyCon 2009 by the Michigan University CS department on their decision to switch to Python in their CS 1 course: http://us.pycon.org/2009/conference/schedule/event/8/ (btw. You can look for TJHSST graduating senior, Filip Sufitchi, in the audience at the beginning of the presentation ;-) The essence of their findings is that CS majors performance was not effected by using Python in the first course, while everyone else (since half the students in their CS 1 classes are not CS majors), benefitted by leaving the CS 1 class with a tool they could actually use in their work in other fields. I included Dr. Charles Severance from U. of Michigan in the cc list as well. He has a book just out on the Google App Engine: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596800697/ The programming language for the Google App Engine is Python, so this book includes a good intro. The book is very well written and easy for bright high school students to understand. I'm working on a free, on-line, first year text book aimed at high school students: http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/index.xhtml (note: you can't view this document properly with Internet Explorer, but any other browser should work fine.) Since I'm not teaching CS this year, work on the book has slowed down, but I should be able to work on it during the Summer. The first 12 chapters are finished, making it a perfectly usable resource with which to start out. I hope this all helps. Thanks, and good luck! Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. jeff elkner On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Berry, Gerry J <GJBerry@fcps.edu> wrote:
Hope things are going well and that you are enjoying your job. I retired from TJ this past June but I am still doing some teaching there. I have received request for info on what a good first course in CS would be. After working with you and Shane Torbert, I think that for most high school students Python makes a lot of sense. Can you direct me to some good web sites that might help schools who want to set up a Python course at high school or middle school level. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Hope you have a terrific summer.
Python seems a very non-controversial pick, plus there's student leadership on this issue, i.e. if you allow a choice, see what happens. As Jeff points out, they don't seem to suffer, in aggregate, for choosing the better language. :) Actually, learning Python provides great motivation for then tackling C-family system languages, including Java. That's how you get on python-dev after all. What's up for grabs is what "computer science" has to mean, like how much game playing we might get away with. What's great about Python is it doesn't fall by the wayside like Alice might, or Scratch, but it's not either/or. Those two are for younger aged kids. You have your teddy bears, then you have your barbie dolls. Python is more barbie doll than teddy bear, i.e. just right for high school aged scholars. Then it keeps staying relevant. They come back and thank you later (according to reports). My lobbying position vis-a-vis Oregon is in support an entirely new four year track through the high school years, called DM in contrast to CM or AM, for "continuous" or "analog" math. They'd run in parallel (these tracks), which means green field development for our trials, while CM runs undisturbed, traditional precalc (including calc if accelerated). We'll have some calc too of course, lots of peer reviewed jabber on math-teach. The D tends to mean "digital" BTW, getting away from "discrete" as too weighed down with preconceptions already. Given our demographic is music savvy, they understand the transition from analog to digital in everyday life, to the point where nowadays getting an analog turntable for vinyl records is considered charmingly retro (I got us one for Christmas recently, listen to old Beatles and U2 with my family). Our goal is to have a lot of the "mathematics" of our day be "charmingly retro" one day soon, as we wean off the calculators and start using computer languages for real, including in government schools and community centers for older workers and hobbyists. We're focusing on FOSS because its free but also standard (easy to grab and install, if you move to another school, no need to worry about licensing if wanting to show off the Python you've learned to your next set of math teachers). I'll be doing a public talk on these themes end of this much, at OS Bridge, Portland's newest open source pow wow. See some of you there maybe? Kirby On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Jeff Elkner <jeff@elkner.net> wrote:
Hi Gerry,
I'm cc'ing a number of folks (and a mailing list) on this reply in order to get you more feedback than I could alone provide. Firstly, the Python in Education Special Interest Group (edu-sig) is the place to start:
http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig
Dr. Andre Roberge is currently managing that part of the python web site, and I've included him in the cc list. You may want to consider joining our mailing list.
Of interest in your deliberation may be the presentation given at PyCon 2009 by the Michigan University CS department on their decision to switch to Python in their CS 1 course:
http://us.pycon.org/2009/conference/schedule/event/8/
(btw. You can look for TJHSST graduating senior, Filip Sufitchi, in the audience at the beginning of the presentation ;-)
The essence of their findings is that CS majors performance was not effected by using Python in the first course, while everyone else (since half the students in their CS 1 classes are not CS majors), benefitted by leaving the CS 1 class with a tool they could actually use in their work in other fields. I included Dr. Charles Severance from U. of Michigan in the cc list as well. He has a book just out on the Google App Engine:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596800697/
The programming language for the Google App Engine is Python, so this book includes a good intro. The book is very well written and easy for bright high school students to understand.
I'm working on a free, on-line, first year text book aimed at high school students:
http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/index.xhtml
(note: you can't view this document properly with Internet Explorer, but any other browser should work fine.)
Since I'm not teaching CS this year, work on the book has slowed down, but I should be able to work on it during the Summer. The first 12 chapters are finished, making it a perfectly usable resource with which to start out.
I hope this all helps.
Thanks, and good luck! Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.
jeff elkner
On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Berry, Gerry J <GJBerry@fcps.edu> wrote:
Hope things are going well and that you are enjoying your job. I retired from TJ this past June but I am still doing some teaching there. I have received request for info on what a good first course in CS would be. After working with you and Shane Torbert, I think that for most high school students Python makes a lot of sense. Can you direct me to some good web sites that might help schools who want to set up a Python course at high school or middle school level. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Hope you have a terrific summer.
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
participants (2)
-
Jeff Elkner -
kirby urner