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Catherine Curtis on 28 Jul 09Lake Powell
Programming -OK, on the programming thing, here are my thoughts.In
our curriculum our objective is not as much a specific LANGUAGE. One year I may
use HTML with Javascript, this past year I used LSL — what I want kids to know
that when they encounter programming and coding that there are certain
conventions. Some are case sensitive, some are not. How do you find out how to
add to what you know about programming? Do you know where to go to find
prewritten code? Can you hack it to make it work to do what you want it to
do?We spend about a week – two weeks but I require they know how to
handcode hyperlinks and images – they are just too important.But to take
12 weeks or 6 weeks to learn a whole language – yes maybe some value – but to me
the value is HOW is the language constructed or built. What are the conventions
and how do I educate myself if I am interested in pursuing. What comes out of
this time is kids who say either “I never want to do that” or “this is really
cool, I love coding.”They are doing very simplistic work (although the
LSL object languages were pretty advanced) but since we don’t have a full course
nor time in our curriculum, I do see this as an essential part of what I
teach.I’m not teaching it for the language sake but for the sake of
understanding the whole body of how languages work – we talk about the different
languages and what they are used for as part of Intro to Computer science and
have an immersive experience.To me, this is somewhat a comprimise
between leaving it out entirely or forcing everyone to take 12 weeks of it. I
just don’t know where 12 weeks would go in the curriculum.
