Python comes to Henry Sibley H.S.
Hi everyone, I'm excited to report that my proposal to offer an "Introduction to Computer Programming" course at the high school where I teach was accepted and 75 students have signed up for next fall. We're a high school of about 1500 students in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and I was hoping to get enough for one section. We'll need three sections to accomodate 75 students. Unfortunately, we don't have the computer lab space currently to offer three sections. I'm hopeful that given the obvious demand for the course a solution can be worked out by fall. I was initially inspired by Jeff Elkner's program at Yorktown and I know there are others teaching Python in high schools. As someone who hasn't taught programming before (my background is chemistry and physics), I'd definitely be interested in pointers to whatever curriculum repositories are available. Maybe it would be helpful to make some links to the schools that are using Python. Wishing-I-was-in-Long-Beach-next-week-ly yours, Tim -- Tim Wilson | Visit Sibley online: | Check out: Henry Sibley HS | http://www.isd197.k12.mn.us/ | http://www.zope.org/ W. St. Paul, MN | | http://slashdot.org/ wilson@visi.com | <dtml-var pithy_quote> | http://linux.com/
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Timothy Wilson wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'm excited to report that my proposal to offer an "Introduction to Computer Programming" course at the high school where I teach was accepted and 75 students have signed up for next fall. [snipped]
Do you have a URL pointing to your proposal? I'd be really interested to see it. -- Todd ------------------------------------------------------------- Todd A. Whittaker mailto:todd@thewhittakers.org http://www.thewhittakers.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Todd Whittaker wrote:
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Timothy Wilson wrote:
I'm excited to report that my proposal to offer an "Introduction to Computer Programming" course at the high school where I teach was accepted and 75 students have signed up for next fall. [snipped]
Do you have a URL pointing to your proposal? I'd be really interested to see it.
Calling it a "proposal" is probably overstating it. I simply filled out the paperwork that every teacher fills out when they propose a new course. The rationale for using Python won't be a surprise for any of you. Like many others, our school only offers AP Computer Programming right now. The result is that we only get 15 students enrolled. Not surprisingly, many students are scared away by the prospect of their first programming experience being in an AP class. After hearing of Jeff's work at Yorktown and following my own positive experience with Python, proposing a intro. course using Python was a no-brainer. No one asked any questions about the choice of Python as the language for the course. Here's the little blurb I put in the student registration guide: "This introductory course will emphasize the essentials of designing and implementing computer programs. The curriculum will include basic algorithms, data structures, and syntax of the Python programming language. The second semester will introduce object-oriented programming. Every student in the course will receive on CD, at no charge, an electronic copy of the text, other programming manuals and tutorials, and all the sofware required to develop complete Python programs for Windows, Linux, or MacOS." I'm now sure how much OOP we'll get to having never taught this before. I'm excited about this course. I hope we can find a way to make room for three sections. -Tim -- Tim Wilson | Visit Sibley online: | Check out: Henry Sibley HS | http://www.isd197.k12.mn.us/ | http://www.zope.org/ W. St. Paul, MN | | http://slashdot.org/ wilson@visi.com | <dtml-var pithy_quote> | http://linux.com/
I think I'll give up pursuing the "math through programming" thread with the math teachers. I'll stay in contact with the few with an interest who got in touch, but most of the time it's like talking to a brick wall. Fortunately, the computer science track covers a lot of the same material ('Concrete Mathematics', 'Art of Computer Programming'), so in some respects we can make up for deficiencies in the math curriculum by bolstering the computer programming curriculum. I see a large homeschooler market developing here, as many kids have computers at home but no competent teachers in school (Yorktown kids etc. are lucky). I hope those computer science/programming teachers who share this stuff with kids will continue putting a lot of it on the web in an accessible form, as for every kid in the classroom, there will be 100 at home with fewer options to learn in a group setting with a live teacher. I feel sorry for kids who just get the regular K-12 math curriculum these days. It's not relevant to their needs. But it's what the teachers are programmed to teach, and there's no sense arguing with essentially mindless automatons. I can think of better and more effective ways to rescue kids from a dead end curriculum and will be heading down those avenues instead. Kirby More in a similar vein: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/1876
participants (3)
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Kirby Urner -
Timothy Wilson -
Todd Whittaker