[Edu-sig] [ANNC] pynguin-0.7 (python turtle graphics application)

[Lee Harr]

>> http://pynguin.googlecode.com/
>
> Lee, are you familiar with the Turtle Art activity in Sugar for the
> OLPC XO, also written in Python?

I had not seen it before.

I've used one of these "block" interfaces before with Lego Mindstorms
and found it confusing.

The TA one looks better though, since I can see right away that it's
pretty easy to create new functions and call them. I never did see a
way to do that with Mindstorms. I did not look very hard though.

Maybe I've just been writing code for so long that I can't see the
advantage of blocks over text anymore....


> It provides blocks for integrating
> Python code. You might want to talk to Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
> about his plans for expanding TA, some of which match yours.

I guess I'm not sure how far the whole turtle thing can go.

I really just wanted a single-window, real Python, system where my
students could get their feet wet with variables, loops, and conditionals.

So I made pynguin. It works pretty well for what I wanted.


> I have been thinking about how to integrate all of this into a
> curriculum where we would apply turtle graphics to many subjects
> starting in first grade or perhaps earlier, and later teach
> programming and Computer Science within this environment rather than
> purely as text.

I don't work with anyone that young. I don't know if they just are not
interested in the text interface or if it is beyond their abilities.

For me, programming is text. Though I do like syntax highlighting :o)

 		 	   		  
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