[Edu-sig] Things to come

[Jeffrey Elkner]

On Fri, 12 May 2000, Arthur Siegel wrote:
> So can we say that curricula should lead - not language or interface?

I'm not exactly sure what this means (lead what?) but since it mentions
curricula and I'm a teacher, I felt compelled to reply ;-)  Actually, I think
Python the language is fully suitable as it is as a language for teaching
programming.  That doesn't mean it shouldn't be made better, only that it
doesn't need to be to be used as a teaching language.  The interface needs more
work, but is still far and away better than its alternatives (C++, Java, VB,
etc.)  Curricula, on the other hand are still sorely lacking, and Python will
not be adapted widely in schools without it.  The question then is what to do
to overcome this lack.  I am really interested to see how this develops.  One
of the things most attractive to me is the opportunity to be part of a
development effort that has the possibility of being collaborative in nature and
focused on the legitament needs of learners rather than profit driven and
characterized by salesmanship and hype.  I want it to be successful and I am
willing to put a lot of my own time into it for that reason.  I've already met
and am working with others who feel the same way.

If anyone has any time on their hands and wants to help out, it would be a big
help to me if we could get the livewires course materials put into some web
ready format.

These excellent middle school level materials can be found at:

http://yhslug.tux.org/obp/livewires

I have two students working on converting them into HTML.  They are volunteers
and the work is proceeding slower than I would like.  I will be learning to use
DocBook this summer, and will try to write Python tools to convert them into
DocBook, but I don't know yet how that will go.

Thanks in advance for all the help that I know is forthcoming  ;-)

jeff elkner
yorktown high school
arlington, va