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Re: [LUG] Anyone tried CodeAcademy?

 

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Julian Hall wrote:

I read a BBC article the other day bemoaning poor ICT in schools.. one teacher said all they teach is Microsoft Office! Actually that second one might have been in a computer magazine, but the point is the same.

I've been told that there is the possibility of doing it (computer studies/programming) in some schools, but most schools won't teach it due to poor results affecting the schools rating... If this is true, then it's sad that schools have to push ratings over variety of subjects.

I learnt programming in O Level and A Level back in 1985-89 and even when I completed by degree as a mature student two years ago the same principles hold true whatever the language, Visual Basic. C++, Javascript etc. That's what needs to be taught IMHO - basic principles of programming, of course based around a modern language - and unlike when I did A Level, a language actually in use in industry.

After teaching scuba diving, and watching people learn about computers when I was learning myself, I'd say that what's needed is a very quick way to do "something" on a computer. Something that will always work and it'll very quickly weed out those who don't want to learn to program and those who do.

Going back to scuba - there were/are 2 main schools of thought some years back (but I understand things are changing now!) and I did both - one camp was from a sort of pseudo militaristic background where you had to basically prove yourself in a swimming pool for 6 months before you got anywhere near the sea, the other camp would give you a basic amount of pool training and classroom work and get you into open water very quickly. Often inside a week. The latter method was far superior IMO, despite it not being "British" as it very quickly got you people who wanted to carry on and those who just wanted to have a quick splash to see what it was all about...

So with programming - what's needed (IMO!) is something that works on a stand-alone computer - no network, server, web browser, etc. needed at all. Something that is fast to start, gives instant results and for those who want to learn more will give them a good and easy introduction and for those who've no aptitude for it, will let them very quickly move on to something else. Like woodwork.

I give you the Apple II, or BBC B... They "boot" in under a second, are fast enough for immediate use and produce instant results.

So lets just wind the clock back 34 years :-)

And I don't think there's anything wrong with good old BASIC either - well, a relatively modern implementation with structured concepts. Anyone who really is keen will very quickly pick up something else when they are ready. I started with BASIC on an HP9800 desktop thing, moved to the local time-sharing service via a TTY33 + acoustic modem, then to Apple II then to assembler, FORTRAN, Pascal, C, COBOL and it's a bit of a blur after that.. (probably the prolog). Currently I regularly program in C and PHP.

apt-get install brandy

(Bah. 'brandy' the GPL version of BBC Basic crashes my workstation too as it uses SDL )-:

The down-side is that it's almsot impossible to get a stand-alone computer to do anything these days. We're all too dependant on the LAN, local servers, an Internet connection, etc.

Could you imagine the sheer hassles involved with getting a class-room of "PCs" connecting via Wi-Fi to local servers and remote web applications?

Oh wait...

Gordon


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