Ben Hencke wrote: >On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 02:41:29 -0800, David P Harris wrote: > > > >>Ben- >>I hate to differ, but whereas you and I were trained with >> >> > >I love to differ! :-) If we did not have differing opinions I would >not get to hear about this kind stuff. > > > >>Basic/Fortran/C etc, Smalltalk and its OO basis is actually more >>friendly towards kids. They learn to send messages to objects to get >>them to do their bidding. There is a good video about this at >>http://www.squeakland.org/sqmedia/sqmediahome.html (clips at least) >>which won 4 Emmys. >> >>David >> >> >> > > >I agree that OO has concepts that are simple to understand and >important to real programming problems, but they do add complexity esp >for 5th graders. With any OO you will still have to learn stuff like >variables, conditions, loops, etc the messaging, encapsulation, and >inheritance, factories, etc just adds layers that might take away from >the significant task of learning the basics. > >I don't suggest that they stay on basic for too long, after the basics >(har har) are mastered, and more syntactive OO language will be easier >to understand and definitely more useful. > >I think some of the decision needs to be based on how much time is >available to teach the kids. It is important to get to a point where >the kids understand what is going on so they can start experimenting >and making their own programs as fast as possible, this is the only >way to keep their interest. You don't want to turn out a new >generation of people that can only modify an existing program, they >should be able to write their own from scratch too. > >A more mature audience could probably sit through a few weeks of intro >and theory, but I think 5th graders will lose interest quickly and >when that happens it turns into a memorization task instead of >discovery and invention. > >- Ben >_______________________________________________ >http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive >View/change your membership options at >http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > > > Hi- Well, 'loving to differ' -- If you look at the Squeakland site, there are demonstrations of how quickly kids can get simple applications going. For example, they draw a car with the painting program, animate it by using the drag and drop scripting engine (EToys), then modify it to be controlled be a drawn steering wheel. They also learn how to draw a road system, and have the car stay on the road. The control structures naturally fall out of this discussion as they get to the point where they ask how to modify the behaviour with "What if..." kind of statement. :-) David _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist