[Edu-sig] Let's work together on this...

[Jeffrey Elkner]

Hi Jeff,

I really liked your posting from yesterday and think you are right on the mark with the benefit of creating a repository of programs for "new programmers".

I'm working with several student interns this summer developing curriculum materials for Arlington Public School's new "Intro to IT" course.  I plan to make the OLPC a center piece technology for that course.  We are working on a beginners graphics API called gasp:

https://launchpad.net/gasp

students love the power a library like this gives them to create fun to play games programs even as beginners.

Steve Holden was kind enough to stop by my school and give an impromptu demonstration of how to design a network game server for games like checkers and battleship:

http://linus.yhspatriot.net/cs/netprog/HomePage

I have my students working on versions of these games as end of year projects.  By mid July I will have the best results of their efforts polished up a bit, annotated, and put on the Python Bibliotheca:

http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/pyBiblio

I'll then be sure to edit your new wiki to fill in links to the work we are doing wherever appropriate.  What I like most about the wiki is that it will give us ideas for future projects.

Thanks for taking the time to set it up!

jeff elkner
open book project
http://ibiblio.org/obp


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Jeff Rush jeff at taupro.com
Sat May 26 10:46:25 CEST 2007 wrote:

While there are those who enjoy solving abstract problems, programming or
otherwise, if seems to me that if we're going to tackle CP4E (computer
programming for everyone, for those not aware of the history), we have to make
programming not the end-goal but the tool for doing the things in which those
people are interested.  CP4E will never make the vast majority of people
programming geeks.

So it seems to me that it would advance the cause, of programming in general
and Python specifically, if a repository of resources were assembled.  I'm
sure some of these exist scattered across the net but some I've never been
able to find.  And non-programmers can be so impatient in rummaging through
sites, understandably wanting to get on with solving their problem.

I tossed together a very rough wiki page of some ideas I've been kicking
around.  These resources attempt to answer a response I get frequently when I
push the learning of Python, that of "but what would I -do- with Python once I
learned it?".

  http://wiki.python.org/moin/Advocacy/ProgrammingForNewprogrammers

I call that group "new programmers" - somehow calling them normal or average
folk seems mildly insulting to someone, and calling them "non-programmers"
isn't accurate if our goal is to teach them programming, albeit non-vocational
style.  "Non-professional programmers"?  "Typical" people?  "Making People
Programming-Literate"?

-Jeff