Teaching Kids with NetRexx

[Dave Woodman]

Well, the summer term has come to an end here, and it is time to tell of the little “activity” that I undertook in my daughter’s primary school – some may remember the initial post from back in January.

 

After receiving advice on this form, I offered to introduce the kids to programming using one of NetRexx, Scratch or Alice, with the school to choose.  The school chose the language that they thought most represented the “real world,” and NetRexx was the winner.

 

So, I was given five 1 hour slots to teach at the end of term (one of which was cancelled)  - not long, but we covered blocks, loops, conditionals, basic maths, variable types and (of course) basic console input/output, with a heavy emphasis on experimentation – the whole thing was self-pacing.

 

This was the first time that the school had tried this, and next year I will be given a lot more time (yes, they want me back!) – the feedback from the kids being that the whole thing made them feel “grown up.”

 

So, for the next iteration, I am preparing an on-line class-room, complete with on-line terminal for compiler and editor, to add to the classroom experience. I intend that this will be based on Moodle, with the terminal being provided by Shellinabox, and editing with nano – this will support the early phases of learning without the need to install anything. Later work would, of course, require local installation, but hopefully the bug will have been caught by then...

 

Once I have something useable, I will post a link for this forum to provide feedback.

 

       Dave.

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[Robert L Hamilton]

For Sure:  please keep us posted on the class.

Bob Hamilton
Richardson Texas USA  75083-5065

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Dave Woodman <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Well, the summer term has come to an end here, and it is time to tell of the
> little “activity” that I undertook in my daughter’s primary school – some
> may remember the initial post from back in January.
>
>
>
> After receiving advice on this form, I offered to introduce the kids to
> programming using one of NetRexx, Scratch or Alice, with the school to
> choose.  The school chose the language that they thought most represented
> the “real world,” and NetRexx was the winner.
>
>
>
> So, I was given five 1 hour slots to teach at the end of term (one of which
> was cancelled)  - not long, but we covered blocks, loops, conditionals,
> basic maths, variable types and (of course) basic console input/output, with
> a heavy emphasis on experimentation – the whole thing was self-pacing.
>
>
>
> This was the first time that the school had tried this, and next year I will
> be given a lot more time (yes, they want me back!) – the feedback from the
> kids being that the whole thing made them feel “grown up.”
>
>
>
> So, for the next iteration, I am preparing an on-line class-room, complete
> with on-line terminal for compiler and editor, to add to the classroom
> experience. I intend that this will be based on Moodle, with the terminal
> being provided by Shellinabox, and editing with nano – this will support the
> early phases of learning without the need to install anything. Later work
> would, of course, require local installation, but hopefully the bug will
> have been caught by then...
>
>
>
> Once I have something useable, I will post a link for this forum to provide
> feedback.
>
>
>
>        Dave.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ibm-netrexx mailing list
> [hidden email]
> Online Archive : http://ibm-netrexx.215625.n3.nabble.com/
>
>

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