kirby urner wrote:
At issue is whether try-over-the-web is a way you need to go, granted
other language communities are trying it.
You've got Python out of the box if you're a Linux user, and so the
question is, if you're not a Linux user, do you even matter? When it
comes to server side architectures, probably not.
The big difference between doing it "in the cloud" and doing it with a
downloadable app on the student's computer is teacher interaction.
Sure, you could do even that with the right kind of networking, but we
will still need a central server if we want instructors to have a "wide
and deep" view of the students work in progress, not just a clipping
sent in an email. The immediate problem might be difficulties with
recursion, but if the teacher drills down into the lesson on for-loops
and sees some misunderstanding there, she might suggest that the student
do a few more problems in that area first.
Here's another scenario. Imagine a diverse set of students, with an
equally diverse collection of laptops, desktops, OS's, whatever. When a
student has some difficulty with his homework, he presses the HELP
button, and within minutes a "black belt" PyKata instructor is looking
at the student's work, and offering advice. These instructors could be
former students making a little money as tutors, or just doing it as a
favor for their younger classmates, or maybe helping the sophomore team
get ready for a competition.
I'm not seeing much downside to doing this as a web app, so I haven't
given much thought to making it a self-contained downloadable app.
-- Dave
************************************************************ *
* David MacQuigg, PhD email: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu * *
* Research Associate phone: USA 520-721-4583 * * *
* ECE Department, University of Arizona * * *
* 9320 East Mikelyn Lane * * *
* http://purl.net/macquigg Tucson, Arizona 85710 *
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