Re: [ppig-discuss] Students choose programming language?

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 3/05/16 10:07 AM, Peter Sim wrote:

Greetings

I'm a secondary/high school teacher. I'm also enrolled in a masters 
paper on teaching programming.


Is anyone aware of any literature concerning students being able to 
choose the language they use to learn programming? In our particular 
case it's going to be Scratch vs Python.


Thanks heaps if you're able to help me.


I've looked, and while there's a lot about school-intended programming
languages, the only thing I found that seemed relevant is

https://www.kidscodecs.com/how-to-pick-a-programming-language/

One idea in that page is that students might learn programming as a
way of adapting something else.  A thing that leaps to my mind is
NetLogo https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ which I had a lot of
fun with myself.

There's the obvious point that people of any age can't choose a language
they've never heard of. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_educational_programming_languages#Children

has a long list of programming languages meant for children, and I could
not make a meaningful choice from them myself.  I certainly couldn't
make a choice between Scratch and Alice, for example.

So I think the starting question is "HOW would they choose"?
And another one: "do they all have to choose the SAME language?"

http://nzacditt.org.nz/resources/programming-and-cs/level-1-programming-python
mentions other languages but all the resources I checked seem to be for 
Python.


The more I think about it, the more I think that having the students 
spend a couple
of weeks finding out about your two alternatives in order to make an 
informed choice

could be a valuable lesson in itself.

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Re: [ppig-discuss] Students choose programming language?

[Guzdial, Mark]

Betsy DiSalvo did a nice paper comparing exactly these two languages: 
https://computinged.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/african-american-students-prefer-graphical-or-text-based-programming-languages-depending-on-career-goals/



- Mark


From: ppig-discuss@googlegroups.com  on behalf 
of Peter Sim 
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2016 6:07:27 PM
To: ppig-discuss@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ppig-discuss] Students choose programming language?

Greetings

I'm a secondary/high school teacher. I'm also enrolled in a masters paper on 
teaching programming.

Is anyone aware of any literature concerning students being able to choose the 
language they use to learn programming? In our particular case it's going to be 
Scratch vs Python.

Thanks heaps if you're able to help me.

Peter Sim
TiC Digital Technologies


[Bream Bay College Shield]<http://www.breambaycollege.school.nz/>   Bream 
Bay College
Te Kura Tuarua o Whanga-?-T?mure

Peter Snell Road
Ruakaka, Northland 0116
New Zealand

BBC Digital 
Technologies<https://googledrive.com/host/0B7F7vzHehzzKT1dwNXJoamNxanM/>

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[ppig-discuss] Students choose programming language?

[Peter Sim]

Greetings

I'm a secondary/high school teacher. I'm also enrolled in a masters paper
on teaching programming.

Is anyone aware of any literature concerning students being able to choose
the language they use to learn programming? In our particular case it's
going to be Scratch vs Python.

Thanks heaps if you're able to help me.

*Peter Sim*
TiC Digital Technologies

[image: Bream Bay College Shield]  Bream
Bay College
Te Kura Tuarua o Whanga-ā-Tāmure

Peter Snell Road
Ruakaka, Northland 0116
New Zealand

BBC Digital Technologies


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