[Edu-sig] CS teaching approaches

[roberto]

sorry for this very late reply to your posts,
unfortunately, gmail didn't append your replies to my original mail

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Andy Judkis <ajudkis at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> The How Things Work component is what's really important a lot of the
>> time, and it's not just the personal computer on your desk that's
>> important to comprehend.  We need to explain about larger systems,
>> institutions, in which computers play a role.  This includes
>> explaining about social networking software, not making kids simply
>> guess or imagine what's going on behind the scenes.
(+1)
i think the approach H.T.W. is really good for all the reasons you've
highlighted and beyond:
are you aware of serious web resources with this way of learning in
mind ? of course, especially tailored to math and/or CS

>>
>
> Agreed.  I think that familiarity with this stuff at some basic level is
> important for all citizens, not just future tech geeks.
>
> Which kind of brings it back to Roberto's original post -- what should you
> teach in a middle school CS class?  I wouldn't focus on formal programming
> at all -- at that age, I suspect that very few kids will find it compelling.
>  I'd point to http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/ACMK12CSModel.html and also
> http://csunplugged.org/ for more ideas.
>
> Thanks,
> Andy
thank you very much again;

i'd like to add here that my very first goal starting the thread was
to know which approaches are currently in use to teach/learn CS, i.e.
*how* to learn it more than *what* to learn, in the CS domain;

with regard to this side of the topic, the first reply was perfectly
on track, since i think the route

Flowcharts
pseudocode
then actual programming:

is one of the most diffused way of introducing CS, at least in high schools

for sake of correctness, i must also say that it happens frequently
that the *what* drives the *how-to*;

thank you in advance if anyone has other ideas to share

ps: i hope gmail will not mix the replies again :)
-- 
roberto