I know this discussion evolved into a general discussion of technology/computers/programming education in schools, but you've got to remember what Kay wrote was the primary objective of her 13-year-old brother:
"He wants his site to be cooler than anyone else's at school" You can make all the determinations you want about what is "best" for this 13-year-old, but if they don't fit into his idea of what going to make "his site...cooler than anyone else's at school", then you've lost his interest before you begin. She should find out what he thinks will make his site cooler than anyone else's, then figure out a way to teach him how to make it so... by whatever means that involves. He's after achieving his immediate goal...not prepare for the future. Help him reach that immediate goal and he'll keep using whatever tools/methods got the results. People, especially kids, don't learn for learning's sake...they learn what's necessary to achieve their goals. Here's a suggestion: There are few people alive that don't like to look at pictures of themselves. Have him develop a photo gallery that he can use to add, update, and delete photos of himself and his friends. Instant cool based on the self-interest of everyone involved. Rick Rick Faircloth Prism Productions -----Original Message----- From: Jason Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 4:10 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: ColdFusion for kids Although I had chimed in teasing that I have a young daughter that may be a prodigy- I have to agree with this. It is dead on. Although it's nice to build any skill set in potential prodigy, just as you would push piano or violin on a brilliant talented musician, extra coloring for a kid with a fantastic design sense - programming on the same, - it is human interaction and intercommunication skills that are a priority - and computers while in some cases "loosely" can be argued that they are promoted - for the most part desensitize human interaction. Ironically - how much interaction is gained by chatting wtih people on this list - but it's still not the "same" as teaching civic classes, promoting 1 on 1 interaction and such. sorry for bantering- but It's just one of those things I believe in - eliminating cell phones for 9 years olds, encouraging interaction vs children sitting in front of a TV much less hiding in code. just my 2 cents. And I had to really agree with what the likes of what Dave and Jim mentioed. Some food for thought - IN todays tech future world - when do you think Computer Science and possible language classes will be required multilingual much like being forced for learn a foregin language like French or Spanish etc. jay miller P.S. - I failed Turbo Pascal horribly in 9 th grade. :) Jim Davis wrote: -----Original Message----- From: Dave Watts [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 2:22 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: ColdFusion for kids I hate to be a wet blanket, but I'm not a big fan of teaching CF programming to kids, for several reasons. First, I'm not sure that we should be teaching programming to kids generally; on the list of things that everyone should learn, I think it's pretty low. There's a difference between learning basic computer skills (which, sadly, are necessary for almost everyone nowadays) and learning how to program. I think it's a sad commentary on the state of the computer industry that people have to spend so much time learning basic computer skills, actually - these things are supposed to be easy to use, but of course they aren't, really. I'd much rather see every student have a firmer grasp on the "three Rs" than have them all able to churn out web applications. I'd rather see civics classes again, actually. I just don't think programming is all that important, I guess. My personal wish is that children got more lessons in "how to think" than in "what to think". In this case I think that programming may be a boon... Critical thinking is woefully misrepresented in American cirricula. Programming can encompass a good portion of those critical thinking skills that are so lacking today. Of course there are other ways, but in general I personally would rather less focus on rote learning and more focus on independent, critical thought and information gathering. Second, for those students who want to learn programming, I think it's more important to focus on core programming concepts than it is to teach the specifics of CFMX. I'd rather see them learn programming using a lower-level language than CFML, and a more general-purpose language, too. I think Java and Python would be better languages for learning how to program. I agree with this... In theory. I started a long time ago and we learned Turbo Pascal (turbo because you had strings!) in our "advanced computing" high school course ("basic computing" used, you guessed it! - BASIC). It was good, but the general concepts were available in anything. I still remember that I understood recursion first there. However it also didn't give me much to follow up on. I could program in T-Pascal on my TI-99/4A, but I really couldn't do much. Learning a web language may convince students to stick with it, if for no other reason than to keep up their own pages. I think with CF you have the potential to teach the concepts without the language getting in the way. Java may be a more useful stepping stone, but remember that most computer classes in grade school/high school are 45 minutes less than three time a week - an easy to pick up language that supports the concepts (CF, Python, perhaps even TCL or Pascal but I really don't think Java) would be, I think, better. CF also has the benefit of immediate fruit. You can "get your page up" very quickly and that sense of accomplishment is a large part of the learning process. There's also a sense of familiarity as we might assume that all kids in such a course are at least conversant with the web in general. Finally, for teaching purposes, you don't want to make things too easy - for example, if you wanted to teach someone about HTML, Notepad would be a better tool (I think) than Dreamweaver MX. I see this a lot, actually, now that I agree totally. Only use shortcuts after you know the long way 'round. That's all well and good - if he's going to start working today as a consultant. In the long run, again, I think he'd be better served by learning general programming theory rather than the specifics of languages that may well be obsolete by the time he's ready to work in the field. I would still argue that learning those theories may be easier in a language that gets in the way as little as possible. But I fully agree with you that whatever language is used, good programming has to come before "cool tricks". But I think that the simplest language that can teach those concepts should be used. That might not be CF of course, but it could be. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting.
