Feedback wanted on programming introduction (Python in Windows)

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
<cut>  In an environment with other folks that the student can seek
> help from it works well, but in a book it's rather off-putting: "hey, 
> it's page 90!, when are we getting to do real programming?".

Well, in the college where I used to train my pupils I had written a 
number of 'modules' (as in the semester was split into modules).

Here are some names of my modules:

The Computer
(Mostly History)

Storing and Finding Data.
Depending Module - The Computer
Included OS where Mac OS X, Debian (Ubuntu these days) and Windows XP

Text processing
Depending Module - Storing and Finding Data
Open-Office, Word, Notepad given as examples, emphasizing that writing 
text does not have anything to do with mark-up.

Data processing
Depending Module - Storing and Finding Data
Open-Office, Excell, grep, sed & awk

Basic Networking
Depending Module, Text and Data processing
This was mostly a fun session to give something lighter after the 
previous heavier modules. Showing http, ftp, nntp, bittorrent and 
different chat systems

Collaboration and Research
Depending Module, Basic Networking
This concentrates primarily on how to use collaboration tools and how to 
  write search queries that have more chance to give back what you are 
looking for.

The modules above had tests written for them.
The tests where platform specific, though you needed to choose 2 
platforms from the given 3. And all tests must have been successful for 
passing the module (otherwise you needed to redo the module)

So my module 'Introduction Programming', did not start on page whatever, 
but it did say you needed to have passed modules, x,y and z first.

Oh and I don't know about real programming either, the first chapters 
relied on printing out paper using scissors to cut out functional blocks 
and rearrange them so that they would do a specific task.

I used to teach a bit of Python because in my opinion it is the simplest 
platform independent language available, however my students where 
allowed to do it in whatever language they liked (including pseudo 
code), as long as they can show me the source code and explain it line 
for line.

Most of them however did use Python because it was a convenient way for 
them to be sure they solved the problem correctly. But then again this 
was college and the lessons where only voluntary

About 80% of any given class did show up though, probably because I 
promised them how to find their homework more easily on the net and 
change it so the teachers wouldn't notice and in the advance courses 
(which programming is part of) I promised them to give them enough 
knowledge so they can bypass the schools firewall/filter.

-- 
MPH
http://blog.dcuktec.com
'If consumed, best digested with added seasoning to own preference.'