> Dan Shafer wrote: > > > Tough one, Marty, because there are so many free languages out there > > that educational administrators' first knee-jerk reaction (as Andre > > says in his reply) is to look to cost. But if you can get them past > > that point then I imagine Judy Perry will have some compelling > > educational arguments to bolster such a position. > Judy Perry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I dunno... maybe I'm at the wrong educational institution, because I can > tell you that where I am, admin-types would vastly prefer to pay > bucketloads of dollars for something that "everybody" uses and "everybody" > has heard of as opposed to a validly competitive free product.
Cost isn't really the issue. BlueJ is free, after all. It's more like, "why not teach c++, java, or some other "sexy" language that's actually used in the marketplace. I used to get the same thing with Pascal in my high school classes, but at least I could counter at the time that Pascal was used in the AP exam and some companies (like HP) used it a lot at the time. Now I'm struggling with "why teach intro programming in Scheme?" In my 8th grade class, which used RR, it's always been a battle, ever since I began the curriculum using HyperCard. Nobody had heard of HyperCard. Luckily, we're not a "subject area" class, so the administration doesn't really pay attention to what's being taught and I can do my own thing. I just like to have the arguuments lined up for when the question, "why use RR to teach programming?" does arise. Thanks for the support this list has given me! - marty -- Marty Billingsley ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
