You can do a lot of graphics with the turtle and no event handling. A question is how much you want to get into event handling, vs just generating pictures and animations and allowing sequential interaction with the mouse.
Turtle graphics takes a"first-person" point of view. Other simple graphics packages, also more aimed at a procedural flow: Zelle's package that I also use in my Hands-on Python Tutorial<http://anh.cs.luc.edu/python/hands-on>. Goldwasser and Lechter's a slightly fancier package cs1graphics. On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Vern Ceder <vce...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Brian, > > On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 10:58 AM, Brian Wilkinson <brian.wilkin...@ssfs.org > > wrote: > >> Hello everyone,**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Our upper school, looking to beef up their technology offerings, offered >> an introductory programming course this year using Python. I am normally a >> technology coordinator, supporting teachers and students, but was tapped to >> teach this class (which I have thoroughly enjoyed so far). The purpose of >> this course is to try and get kids excited about programming and so I would >> like to teach them a bit about graphics and GUI’s. My initial thought was >> just to have them work with tkinter, as that (to me) seems the easiest >> path. After doing some reading, it looks as though wxPython and pyQt are >> popular options as well. >> > > Great news! Every programming course (especially Python programming > course) in high school is win! > > >> So finally to the questions:**** >> >> ** ** >> >> 1) Is teaching basic graphics too ambitious for an introductory course? >> > > Not at all. > > >> **** >> >> 2) If the answer to #1 is no, do folks out there have suggestions for the >> best tool to use with the students? >> > > While there are many other tools, they all have the drawback of requiring > extra installation, etc. That may be okay for school machines, but it can > then be a bit of hassle for some kids if they want to install the same > environment at home. So personally, I always tried to keep things as simple > as possible. So my suggestion for an intro class would be to use the turtle > library - it can do a ton of things, even to the point of creating > reasonably fun games. Once you outgrow the turtle library, I'd suggest the > next step is PyGame... > > Good luck!! and keep us posted! > > JMHO, > > Vern > > >> >> >> ** >> >> I have enjoyed reading this group this year. It has been a big help.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Brian Wilkinson**** >> >> Sandy Spring Friends School**** >> >> Technology Resource Coordinator**** >> >> ** ** >> >> “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, *however >> improbable*, must be the truth.”**** >> >> ** ** >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig@python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig >> >> > > > -- > Vern Ceder > vce...@gmail.com, vce...@dogsinmotion.com > The Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed - http://bit.ly/bRsWDW > > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > -- Dr. Andrew N. Harrington Computer Science Department Loyola University Chicago Lakeshore office in the Math Department: 205 Loyola Hall http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh Phone: 773-915-7999 Fax: 312-915-7998 ahar...@luc.edu
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