On 2004-09-14 10.02, Michael Toomim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 1) Most people don't need to learn how to program
Agree
> 2) How low [in terms of levels of abstraction] do you go?
Yep, that's difficult.
> 3) Education theory has been debating the validity of trying to teach
> generally transferrable skills for at least a century. I don't know of
> any specific results for the ability of programming skills to transfer
> to other aspects of life, but it seems that making a rigorous argument
> for it would be difficult.
My experience (I work as a teacher at a university) and some papers (which I
don't currently remember, but probably something from ESP, PPIG or some
similar venue) is that transfer works very poorly. Beginning programmers
doesn't see the similarity between, for example, an if-statement i C and one
in Pascal. Each programming language is a new skill/concept to learn.
So if I were to decide I would let the students/pupils in ages 10-15 learn
more about physics, technology in general, etc than programming.
jem
--
Jan Erik Mostr�m www.mostrom.pp.se
----------------------------------------------------------------------
PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce
PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
