[Edu-sig] Online CompSci course

[Jeffrey Elkner]

Hello again, Walter!

On 09 Mar 2001 10:14:49 +0000, Walter G. Ludwick wrote:
> OK, Jeff;  per your request (appended below), i'll subscribe to the
> edu-sig list and migrate this thread over there.  I'm a bit reticent
about
> mixing it up w/ all the Python techs in that forum (i have browsed the
> archives enough to know that i'd be out of my depth in most of the
> discussion on that list), but i can appreciate the need to widen the
> circle of involvement without making a human mail repeater of you :-)

Please don't be intimidated by the past traffic on the list.  The list
was originally set up
to discuss projects like yours, and the absense of such discussion is
due mostly to
the fact that the needed projects didn't exist.  You are looking into
changing that, so
getting things going on the list is important! ;-)

> Hey:  i just want you to know how much i appreciate your finding time
--
> in your hotel room late at nite, i guess -- to pursue this thread with
me.
>  I've just been reading with interest about your activities at this
year's
> Python conference in the following article by Jeff Shelton (of
> "ZopeNewbies" weblog fame):
> 
> >> http://weblogs.userland.com/zopeNewbies/2001/03/08
> 
> "An instructor and two students from Yorktown High School in
Arlington,
> Virginia were the next to speak. They have been using Python to teach
> programming skills, and are having incredible success. I had met one
of
> the students, Lex Berezhny, at last year's conference. As luck would
have
> it, I had the privilege of joining him for lunch twice this week. It's
a
> real head trip to sit with someone a third your age and realize that
he
> knows three times more than you about programming.
> ... the instructor, Jeffrey Elkner, showed a video produced for the
> purpose of convincing high school students they should study Python.
Who
> should appear in the video but Paul Everitt, Jim Fulton, and Guido van
> Rossum!" <<
> 
> I think it's really cool that you are promoting the efforts of your
> students in this way.
> 
> And i'd love to get a copy of that video.  I'm getting some
"competing"
> advice about building this course in connection with Phillip
Greenspun's
> "ARS Digita University" (http://aduni.org/), which i suspect might
involve
> some other language than Python (i.e. TCL/TK, or some other aspect of
the
> ACS architecture).  I am personally less enthusiastic about this
> alternative for a variety of reasons (i.e. software licenses that are
> somewhat more problematic [software prescribed by this proposed course
> must be free], risk of overbearing corporate influence, etc.), but i
must
> take an open-minded approach at this point.  So if there's a way you
can
> tell me to get a copy of that video, i would greatly appreciate it. 
> Thanks again, Jeff!


The video is far from finished.  The good news is that we recieved the
funding that we
needed at the conference to take it to the next level.  That said, I
would be glad to send
you a copy of what we have so far, but you need to understand that it is
still rough
at this point.

Thanks again for your interest in Python!

jeff