It all started with a little program called “Hello World”. Who knows where we’ll go from here but today was our first day of programming. I learned a few things about how to structure a programming lesson and by the end of the day everyone was clicking away. I found having the students highlight the beginning and end of the program and relevant points in between to be pretty successful. They had the hardest time figuring out what information on the page was actually supposed to be typed. Many of them were trying to figure out how to get the header (Name, Date, Period) formatted just right. I had pulled the assignment from another teacher who had modified another teachers and so on. Looking back I probably should have modified it myself.
One of the things I have to work on is getting the excitement level up. “You just wrote a program!”. Because everything happens in the Windows environment, command prompt and all, I don’t think they realize that they are giving the computer instructions at its very basic level. I have to figure out a way to get this point across.
I really enjoy reading your blog. I agree with most things that you post on your blog. Especially those that concern teaching computer classes and not assuming student knowledge or how long a task with take in class. I am a first year teacher, so everything is magnified even more for me. I teach AP Java, Visual Basic, Operating Systems, and Web Development in the computer lab. I hope to continue to read some great posts on your blog.
I am using Drupal as my content management system for class. I setup each student with their own blogs, have a class wiki, and have programming submit their homework online. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I do need to find an online quiz module for it though. Hope that is still going well.