So I'm thinking more about CP4E and how that might look in the early grades. What if you're not in math class, not in a CS or preCS class of any kind. Still, you might get mileage out of Python.
Scenario: what a lot of kids do in early grades is memorize some states and capitals. In the USA, that often involves the 50 states, maybe the odd protectorate or whatever. In the EU, I imagine it's similar. In any case, geography begets data structures. We could do this stuff with dictionaries.
Fifth grade assignment: use Google or other search engine to find some data file containing 50 US states and their capitals; download to your local drive; write a Python program to snarf this data into a dictionary. Write a short quiz loop to ask yourself the capitals. Could be sixth grade, whatever.
The point is: we're always dealing with alphanumeric data, in structures. Yes, this is how to introduce XML as well, but I'm not suggesting we should only care about that. Python is blessed with VHLL data structures, and mixing them (a list of dictionaries of tuples) etc. is completely logical -- don't need to get with the Perl references and pointers way of thinking (because that's how you're thinking anyway). Indexing into a list with an integer, or into a mapping with a key word, is what I'd call a "paradigm academic experience" -- so why not do it in Python?
Following my own advice (5th grade assignment):
http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/test/dbork/data/USRegionState.daml http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763765.html
As the teacher, I'd probably just parse through either of these to generate a very simple plaintext version, 2-column e.g.
state capital state capital ...
According to my 12 year-old son who is in 6th grade:
I think it would be a better way to learn geography but not all kids know python.Some haven't even HEARD about python but learning it would speed up learning about geography too.
Anyways - that's his take on it. ;-)
Personally, I think it's a great suggestion. I know that flashcards can be useful, but creating your own game to learn stuff is even better. You get something you can use a lot in the future - anytime you have something you need to practice (songs, lines of a play, whatever), you could use this technique.
I've used file parsing a fair bit already - and I'm not a programmer either. Just somebody who uses python to get stuff done.
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