[Edu-sig] Beginner programs?

[Kirby Urner]

>I guess that's kind of where I'm going with my original question.  I've
>found a lot of examples, but they usually have many other "things"
>involved in them that we just haven't gotten too in class.  Even things
>that seem to be "simple" programs.  I guess I just need to keep coming
>up with ideas of problems to solve that will fit the knowledge we have
>at any given point and then present them to the class for discussion.
>Thanks again.
>
>Ryan

What I would suggest is you find out what these same students are 
learning in other course work, and try to play off that.  Allude
to their other subjects or tackle them directly.  Whatever they're
doing in math these days, do something in the same ballpark in 
Python.  But you needn't limit yourself to math.  There should 
be some angles on other subjects as well, e.g. if they're reading
a novel, copy a paragraph from it and encrypt it (simple letter
substitution), or if they're learning some history, try to figure
out how many days have passed since some event (e.g. 30,423).
I dunno, use your imagination.  The idea is to have what's 
going on in programming reinforce whatever content is already
filtering through their minds anyway.  That definitely includes
whatever they're learning in math, but there's no need to limit
your scope to that exclusively.

Kirby