pouët.net

cruzer: COBOL

Or COBOL++, aka ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL.

wireworld ftw!

it's a bit like lego to play with... could taught with a touch screen or with cheap led screens + uC device. http://www.quinapalus.com/wi-java.html
i've never understood it on a higher level ;). but kids are much more curious that i am at moment and they could learn how to think logical in interactive way without typing or any numbers involved (games in the classroom?)

http://www.quinapalus.com/wires4.html

We used to do "Niki, der Roboter" in School, where you had to give commands to a robot that stopped at walls, then you need to tell it to turn left...and so on. I recently bought a book on Kara, haven't read it yet though, but it seems similar.

Most university science students are forced through basic computer science. Where I went, this meant Java. It was a 2nd semester thing IIRC, meaning most of the failures had already transferred to history and religion and such, leaving only (I would argue) those with an above-average potential for grasping programming.

Of the 150 or so people taking the course that semester, more than half had to have the public/static/private/implements etc. shit explained to them repeatedly throughout the course. In the end I think about 50% passed the exam, which mostly dealt with what you'd find in an online tutorial called "your first introduction to OOP with Java", the rest being all the recursive Fibonacci shit. Of the approx 75 people who failed, i reckon about 5 weren't really trying.

Imagine those statistics, but with average 10-year-olds who mostly don't give a shit.

Give them BASIC. Like really basic BASIC. With line numbers.

You're all saying its impossible to learn kids to program in a semi-decent language. How many languages could you program at age 13,14? I bet the majority of the demoscene coders atleast did very advanced Basic or Pascal. Or already left them for C.

if i were a school teacher and had enough patience, freedom and time to teach some computer science basics to nowadays kids, that would be through a game modding project.

they would learn according to their tastes either basic music making, sound editing, 3d modeling, 2d composing, gamescript tweaking, or even 3d animation and motion capture! even the girls could be interested imho :) the project could be extended to some basic economics learning through marketing and sales role-playing... and why not imagine a mod competition against some other schools in teh world! that would make the kids from several different countries meet online and irl during a friendly gathering... people would then call that awesome pedagogic project the mini-scene!

now that would suppose superskilled teachers and understanding headmasters =)

Maybe also Lego Mindstorms NXT or the "traditional" one.

Ah, just came to mind now: http://www.alice.org/ :D (for 3D animation and similars teaching)

indeed broderick, robot battles are great learning way imho :)

Zest: I agree to a certain extent but I would aim for a bit less than a game mod :)

If I were a school teacher, the class goal would be something along the lines of pong..in 2d..in a simple basic-like language (no idea which) with a simple 2d graphics/collision library builtin.

hermes: i'm not sure pong graphics could motivate nowadays kids born with the playstation and counter-strike...

and it wouldn't be necessarily a releasable and über-playable game mod, but i'm sure that would be a great start to make them learn modern and useful basics by tweaking a pretty famous high-quality game engine. of course you would have to occult the boring or too complex processes...

I don't wanna read the whole thread, and will just point you to Alice wether you do know it already or not...

that Alice project is excellent.


oops sry :>

Zest: We are still talking about _elementary_ school children, right ? They shouldn't be allowed to play counterstrike, anyway :) But I see your point, so what about pong with nice and shiny 3d objects (gameplay still in 2d) :>

I took a quick look at Alice. It seems to be quite good (and open source!) but I have got the impression that it's more intended for 10+ year old students ?!
But I really liked the idea of combined UI based programming with text files, i.e. the fact that you can drag'n'drop instructions into the sourcecode.

There is one thing that should not be forgotten: Since we are talking about children in general, do not forget that the majority of them do not speak/understand english!

Those of us who were in grade school when the Apple ][ was out all learned BASIC and LOGO / LogoWriter coding. Never underestimate the glee a 9 year old gets from
10 ? "TIM RULZ LOL"; <-';'to make it not emit a newline
20 GOTO 10
or from infinite loops of scribbling in LOGO.

I think the key to success is LIMITS. Limit the amount of info they have to be confused by and they might make it.

...hence my two cents about the attention-span issue.

Attention-span issue ftw. so: Java = evil...

I know of a way to make LOGO more interesting for kids: make it in hardware. A machine of some serious size which draws on some really huge paper. Or better: with chalk on asphalt. :D Make the studies in summer, let the kids run around...

:)

:D

BUG could be a great sandbox for practical java learning :)

Too bad BUG is 299 US$. In the first lesson of my tutorial I give links for download of JDK and Eclipse. Both of them are free. It is difficult to demand that the parents pay because they don't believe that their children will really learn properly.

I'm already working on the second lesson.

Probably I'll get the first test pupils from an Austrian elementary school tomorrow. It's report day tomorrow, then they'll have a week of holidays, in which they could download the JDK and Eclipse and start programming.

Are you going to address the problems in the first tutorial before you do the second one?