[Edu-sig] Need resource for beginners

[Laura Creighton]

Screen-scraping has proven to be a favourite introductory topic here.
People want to know when something has changed on any of a list of
favourite websites -- the 'are the concert dates announced yet?' problem.

The problem with using their math and physics problems, is that if they
find math and physics uninteresting, they will get the idea that
programming is unintersting -- or worse, only for scientists and engineers.

Can you get the students, ahead of time, to answer the question 'what do
you wish your comptuer could do'?  Or, more in general 'what would you
like to get out of this course?  Why are you here?'

The Raspberry Pi Foundation http://raspberrypi.org has a whole lot of
really useful, proven resources.  I'd start there rather than try to
roll my own lessons, especially since it sounds like this is your
first time doing this.

Best of luck, and let us know how it works out.

Laura