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“Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python” is a free book (as in, open source) and a free eBook (as in, no cost to download) that teaches you how to program in the Python programming language. Each chapter gives you the complete source code for a new game, and then teaches the programming concepts from the example.

“Invent with Python” was written to be understandable by kids as young as 10 to 12 years old, although it is great for anyone of any age who has never programmed before.

All of these ideas could be part of both software engineering and computer science, but I fear—as far as I can tell—that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.

The BlueJ environment was developed as part of a university research project about teaching object-orientation to beginners. The system is being developed and maintained by a joint research group at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. The project is supported by Sun Microsystems. The aim of BlueJ is to provide an easy-to-use teaching environment for the Java language that facilitates the teaching of Java to first year students. Special emphasis has been placed on visualisation and interaction techniques to create a highly interactive environment that encourages experimentation and exploration. BlueJ is based on the Blue system. Blue is an integrated teaching environment and language, developed at the University of Sydney and Monash University, Australia. BlueJ provides a Blue-like environment for the Java language.

Problets are problem solving software assistants for learning, reinforcement and assessment of programming concepts. They are designed to help students learn programming concepts through small-scale problem-solving, and as a supplement to large-scale programming traditionally used in introductory programming courses. At this site, you can find out more about the capabilities of the problets, their pedagogy, and about using them in your courses.

Obviously there are a huge range of teaching approaches to novice programming across the world, but let's take the Barnes and Kolling "Objects First With Java" text book and Blue J environment . It's very popular (ranked as number 1 in three of the Amazon technical books categories for what it's worth) and used as an introductory text in many computer science departments. One of the features of this well designed textbook is that it aims to teach high level concepts as a priority over lower level language constructs. The BlueJ environment enables students to experiment with object orientation by calling methods on objects in a graphical environment. The text book encourages students to read code before they write it, and "wire in" small segments of their own code into a pre-written program. The lecture slides which come with the book give specific instruction and worked examples; students typically recieve this sort of instruction before working on small examples in the lab. In fact, working on small examples after a lecture on programming concepts is in my experience a fairly common pattern in first year instruction.

Kirschner, Sweller and Clark recommend the practices of a) providing worked examples for students to read and b) providing process worksheets which explain to students the processes they should go through when solving problems.These are both sensible suggestions but I wouldn't say they were unusual for computer science teaching. I would suggest that we tend to use a mixed bag of instructional techniques rather than basing our pedagogy on pure theory. And so therefore: we probably get our first year teaching right at least part of the time. Which is a bit of a comfort.

As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

CS4HS (Computer Science for High School) is a workshop sponsored by Google to promote Computer Science in high school curriculum. With a grant from Google's Education Group, colleges develop a 2 day program for local high school CS teachers that incorporates informational talks by industry leaders, and discussions on new and emerging CS curricula at the high school level. On this site, you'll find information on how to hold a CS4HS workshop at your University, information for workshop attendees, and other helpful resources. We currently offer CS4HS grants in the US, Canada, and EMEA.

An online tool to practice problems from our Building Java Programs, 2nd edition textbook and from the University of Washington's introductory Java programming courses. Click a textbook chapter or category below to view its available problems.

Designed for a diverse audience, this course examines some of the fundamental ideas behind the science of computing. This course, like the field of Computer Science in general, is more than just the study of how to use computers. At the highest level, this course focuses on studying algorithms which are step-by-step methods for accomplishing a complex task. Algorithms are useful in more places than you might imagine. Algorithms specify the work that must be done for large, complex tasks like sequencing the human genome and indexing and searching for web pages. But, algorithms can also describe how people can approach problems like finding a path out of a maze or solving a rubix cube. Understanding how to solve problems in a step-by-step fashion is useful for more than just computer scientists. In this course, we will investigate the types of problems we currently know how to solve with computation. We will compare different algorithms that solve the same problem and determine which are the most efficient. We will learn how modern computers perform computation by covering hardware and software topics on how data is stored and how instructions are executed. We will also survey the wide range of areas within computer science, including robotics, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. To obtain hands-on experience with algorithms, we will be using a new programming environment called Scratch. Scratch enables beginners to create sophisticated programs by simply dragging and dropping predefined instruction blocks. Thus, we will acquire experience decomposing problems into well-defined steps without the fear of frustrating ``syntax'' errors. CS 202 can be used to satisfy the Quantitative Reasoning A (QR-A) and Natural Sciences requirements. CS 202 can also be used as part of a certificate in Computer Sciences.

CS10, The Beauty and Joy of Computing, is an exciting new course offered by the UC Berkeley EECS Dept. Computing has changed the world in profound ways. It has opened up wonderful new ways for people to connect, design, research, play, create, and express themselves. However, just using a computer is only a small part of the picture. The real transformative and empowering experience comes when one learns how to program the computer, to translate ideas into code. This course will teach students how to do exactly that, using BYOB (based on Scratch), one of the friendliest programming languages ever invented. It's purely graphical, which means programming involves simply dragging blocks around, and building bigger blocks out of smaller blocks.

This programming project is from Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau's CS202 "Introduction to Computation" course at UW-Madison. The project description includes: an overview for the project, which involves creating an animated music video or poem a set of inspiring example projects suggestions for good documentation practices an evaluation outline

Consider greenfoot as a combination between a framework for creating two-dimensional grid assignments in Java and an integrated development environment (class browser, editor, compiler, execution, etc.) suitable for novice programmers. While greenfoot supports the full Java language, it is especially useful for programming exercises that have a visual element. In greenfoot object visualisation and object interaction are the key elements. If you know BlueJ and a microworld framework (like Karel the Robot or the AP Marine Biology Case Study) consider greenfoot as the best from both: object interaction (BlueJ) and object visualisation (microworlds).