[Edu-sig] Re: High School Programming for Newbies (Joseph Ehlers)

[Andy Judkis]

Hi Joe et al,

I've been reading this list for a month or so now, and was about to write my 
own introductory email, when your message came along, giving me a good 
opportunity to throw in my 2 cents.

My background: I was an engineer in the telecomm and computer industries for 
over 20 years, including the last 5 or so programming in Java.  My previous 
employer, an optical switch vendor called Tellium, closed its doors last 
year, and I made a long-contemplated move into teaching high school.  I now 
teach a course called Computer Applications II to 10th graders at a "career 
academy" in Monmouth County, NJ.  It's like a magnet school, for kids who 
are interested in careers in the health occupations.  The school is 
competitive to get into, and the kids are generally bright, with no real 
discipline issues at all.  I'm -very- fortunate to be starting my teaching 
career there.

I was given carte blanche to make my own curriculum, and I chose to make it 
a sort of "serious computer literacy" course, basically teaching stuff I 
think is interesting and/or important.  We learn some things about hardware 
and operating systems, some history of computers and the Internet, a fair 
bit of HTML and CSS (actually writing the tags, not using a WYSIWYG tool), a 
tiny bit of PHP, a bit of database and SQL . . . and some Python.  The 
course is a 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for the semester.  It's a 
required course, not an elective, so there's no self-selection of the 
students.  Some are naturally enthusiastic about the subject, but many are 
not.  I had no previous Python experience, and I'm not sure when or how I 
stumbled on it on the web -- but I read a bit and it seemed like a good fit.

This past fall was the first time this course was offered.  As things worked 
out, we had about 3 1/2 weeks for Python.  I tried to give the kids at least 
a taste of it, and was only partially successful.  I got some of my ideas 
and approaches from the Dawson book, and I liked it a lot.  If I was going 
to teach an entire Python course in high school, I would be happy to use it. 
The most important thing is that it's -fun-.   I got a desk copy of the 
Zelle book partway through the semester, and it looks to be more appropriate 
than Dawson for building the intellectual base for further work in the 
field -- certainly a worthy goal, but maybe better for college.  You could 
do a lot worse than to start off with the Dawson approach and mix in 
material from Zelle once the fun factor has been clearly established.

Another interesting book to look at is "Introduction to Computing and 
Programming in Python: A Multimedia Approach" by Mark Guzdial, which looks 
like it might split the difference somewhat -- more visual than Zelle, more 
intellectual than Dawson.  It teaches Python (actually Jython. . . ) by 
using it to manipulate images and sounds, in a programming environment 
called JES.

My original plan for our Python unit was to base it on the Livewires 
materials, but that immediately proved to be unworkable.  It seemed to 
presume a level of willingness to dig in and figure things out that I just 
couldn't get from them -- and I think my kids are a bit above average in 
that area.  Maybe the kids who sign up for the Livewires camp are already 
well-inclined towards programming?  Maybe there's a lot more to the course 
than what's in the handouts on the web?  I'd be interested to know more 
about how it's run, if anybody can tell me more.

What I ended up doing for the unit was to use the "guessing game" problem, 
much as it was in the Livewires course, to get some of the basics of 
variables, looping, and branching down -- but I had to walk the kids through 
it, repeating things many times.  We also used the Livewires module to do a 
little bit of very primitive graphics and animation. And that's all we got 
through.  No lists, no dictionaries, no file I/O, no objects. . . And even 
then, a substantial minority of the kids (maybe 20%) still didn't really 
"get it" very well.  A handful of kids totally got it and loved it, and I 
practically begged them to get the Dawson book and go on on their own.

Obviously, your mileage will vary.  I'd be interested to know a little 
more -- is your class an elective?  What grade level?

Best wishes,
    Andy Judkis
    ajudkis at verizon.net