[Edu-sig] Could there be a new test, call it AP something else?

[kirby urner]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Litvin <litvin at skylit.com> wrote:
>
>
> Me too -- by a factor of two.  At least.  So what?  First language discussions flare up regularly on the ap-compsci listserve.  In this forum, Python would win, of course. :)  I am all for Python, but I don't believe in the "objects first" approach.  The College Board's CS Development Committee seems to be gradually moving away from heavy duty OOP back to algorithms.
>
> Gary Litvin
> www.skylit.com
>

"Heavy duty OOP" sounds somewhat extraneous to Algebra 2, I agree.

However, if you show the 2 + 2 is adding two objects (2 .__add__(2)
the same thing), is that "objects first"?

Teacher projecting:

>>> dir (2)  #   saying:  "2 has internals, is an object with methods"

So many gradations.

Ideally, we start earlier with the computers and then have more than
just the one high school math course in which to develop this
thinking.

MFTDA looks like a compressed version of what we could easily spread
out across a wider time span.  Could be a whole series, more like
Saxon.

Kirby