Michael, We will begin expanding our college-level Python-based materials from CS1 (intro) to high school this summer. Our goals are, briefly:
- create an engaging new method for teaching intro to CS - use robots and Python - each student has her own robot (a "personal robot") - robots are designed to be used, not built or "hacked on" (ie, no exposed electronics or wiring) - we are designing a robot, software, and curricular materials - designed to have a great appeal to all students, especially those non-traditional students (women and minorities) - focus on "computation" not robots, programming, mechanical engineering, or electronics This is being created by the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE): http://www.roboteducation.org/ The IPRE is hosted at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Bryn Mawr College (an all-women's liberal arts college). The materials-in-progress can be found on our wiki, here: http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Introduction_to_Computer_Science_via_Robots This summer I'll begin teaching high school teachers in the Philadelphia region the materials. At this year's ACM SIGCSE (Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education) it was mentioned that 25% of all colleges are using Python in some fashion. I predict that within 5 to 7 years Python will be the leader in CS1 languages used in colleges, which will trigger their appeal in high school AP and other courses. Let me know if you would like any more information. Thanks! -Doug Michael Tobis wrote: > I will be writing an article in the next Python Papers ( > http://pythonpapers.cgpublisher.com/ ) ; a survey of Python in > pre-college education, and an introduction to the issues raised by the > still highly unresolved interface between software and education. > > The article will be broad rather than deep, but hopefully will provide > enough extra push to preserve the momentum of discussion in the Python > community about deeper issues that got such an enormous boost at the > last PyCon. > > I'm a fairly quick writer so I will put off the writing until the last > week. I have about two weeks to collect information. > > In addition to the stuff mentioned on > http://www.python.org/community/sigs/current/edu-sig/ I intend to also > touch on > Crunchy Frog > Alice > Patapata > Jython and web-based environments > the PyCon 2007 keynotes by Goldberg, Lefkowitz and Krstic > > Please contact me directly or reply to this message if you know of any > other projects or ideas that are deserving of mention in this article. > I'd like to complete my research for this survey article by April 2. > > I am also interested in hearing from you if > - you have taught classes in Python as a first programming language, > especially for pre-college age audiences > - you have released software that is targeted at beginning > programmers which either exposes Python or uses Python under the hood > - you are developing such software > - you have or can point me to any historical background, especially > about CP4E > > This may also serve as an occasion to update the edu-sig page! > > Michael Tobis > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "edupython" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/edupython?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
