Hi Bryan I don't think I'm particularly watering things down. Rather taking it slow and going with the basics. The original idea came from David Brin's Salon article last year, which decried a lack of ability in finding a workable version of Basic to teach his son, and argued against 'scripting' languages (like Python). So I was focussing more on covering the basics of programming that I remember reading when I first learned basic at the age of 8 (which was, scarily, almost 30 years ago).
J Bryan wrote: > hi dethe (and everyone), > > i wanted to let you know that i'm a professional developer and have > recently started volunteering at a local high school teaching a > python. after months of going back and forth, i've decided to take > the approach of not watering down python even to kids that have never > programmed before. instead, i'm taking it slow. my goal is that > whatever they learn, no matter how much or how little, it will be > exactly the same style/kind/type of code that i use professionally. > i've decided to use "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, > Second Edition" (http://tinyurl.com/2vbx7u) as my text book and it's > working out well so far. my eight year old daughter has asked me teach > her the same things i teach the class and she is understanding > everything so far too. so, i'm not convinced that watering down > python for kids is the right way to teach python to kids. python is > easy enough already :) just my 2 cents worth... just wanted to give > you another option. > > bryan > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
