[Edu-sig] CS0 course
Hi everyone,
As most people on this list are aware, I am very much interested in
promoting Python in education (think rur-ple and crunchy). However, I
feel I could do more locally and want to do more but for this I need a
bit of help and guidance.
To explain things properly, I have to make a small digression (which,
I hope, won't be construed as spam ;-) to explain the background.
In my day job, I am President of a tiny but wonderful university
(Université Sainte-Anne, www.usainteanne.ca) in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Sainte-Anne is an undergraduate university (400 students,
Faculty/student ratio: 1:10) offering programs in French Immersion,
Education, Business Administration, Bachelors of Arts (majors:
English, French, History), as well as a general B.Sc. (3 year degree,
no major). While it is located in a primarily English Canadian
province, Sainte-Anne is arguably the *best* place in North America to
study French. Our summer French immersion program (two 5-week terms)
attract a total of 550 students (more than during the regular year,
with every available bed in residence occupied!), about 125 of which
come from the U.S. and the rest from elsewhere in Canada; we have the
longest waiting list of any other similar programs offered in Canada.
(enough bragging ...)
We do not offer a course in computer programming. Business
administration student have a requirement to take two semester long
courses in "computer science" ("informatique", in French) - the
courses offered are one introduction to some standard business
software (read MS word and eXcel primarily) and one course on creation
of web pages, etc. Not exactly what I consider to be computer
science...
I'd like add a CS0 course (intro to computer science [read:
programming] for non cs students) that would introduce Python. Since
the courses we offer are all in French, the number of available
resources is rather limited... As I'm the only one that knows about
programming around, I'd have to teach it. While our students are
usually fluent in English, we do strive to provide a completely French
learning environment; as President, I could not give a bad example by
assigning a textbook (or other main resource) written in English.
Since I've never taught a programming course in my life (and only took
one, a fortran course, some 30 years ago), I can't draw very much on
previous experience.
Because of the demands of my job (read:fairly frequent travelling), I
can't plan on teaching 2 1.5 hours (or 3 one-hour) lectures a week,
every week. I'd like to have a course that could combine classroom
teaching combined with small projects that could be done in a
self-study mode (with me available to answer questions by email).
Something half-way between an independent study course and a
traditional lecture-based one.
Does anyone have experience with teaching a CS0 course structured like
this? Are you aware of any resources that I could use, mostly in
terms of assignments idea? (note: they have to be either in French, or
things that are short enough that I could translate them without
having to invest too much time)
Thanks for your time reading this message, and I welcome any
suggestion you may have.
André Roberge
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Re: [Edu-sig] CS0 course
You ask really interesting questions Andre. I see a huge market for niche authors wanting to specialize in computer language X crossed with human language Y. I think you'll agree that's a huge matrix of possibilities. When you factor in the "Python for Perl junkies" genre (i.e. assuming familiarity with computer language X0, here's computer language X1), and the fact that this bridging goes on with the human languages (e.g. Lithuanian for Dzongkha speakers), you end up staring at a really wide vista (of mostly deserted nothingness). In my view, words like __add__ and __slots__ are special to Python the language, like the list of keywords, but variable names, function names, class names, have wide latitude. People will do their various experiments around Unicode, still very new. I look forward to the many hand- crafted coding languages with those "made by elvynchyx" decorations or whatever gets your pesos. I bet you, a college president, using some free time, could help write a dynamite chapter book ala Who Is Fourier? (LEX) that mixed several languages but with heaviest emphasis on French -- maybe using lots of graphic motifs even starting it as an open source project, with graphic artists especially welcome? Practical? Just like maybe we could recruit aqua teens to someday teach __python__, other cartoon friends. Beloved characters like Big Bird aren't designed to grow up with their cohort. He'll never teach us complex numbers. Not a criticism -- BB is an MVP. Anyway, thank you for bringing up the whole question of how CS gypsies want to wander, vis-a-vis unicode and romanji, the various mixes and matches. I say "onward into the vast wilderness" -- it's stil a small, lonely planet, no matter how ya cut it. Plus lets keep an eye on maintaining useful code that already works, in whatever language. I'm not suggesting we gleefully start from scratch at every opportunity. Getting to the current crop of VHLLs hasn't been whatch'd call easy. Kirby PS: I think Daniel Ajoy writes beautiful Logo in Spanish, even though I (a) don't know Logo that well any more, if I ever did and (b) I'm really rusty with Spanish. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] CS0 course
Andre Roberge wrote: > Does anyone have experience with teaching a CS0 course structured like > this? Are you aware of any resources that I could use, mostly in > terms of assignments idea? (note: they have to be either in French, or > things that are short enough that I could translate them without > having to invest too much time) > > Thanks for your time reading this message, and I welcome any > suggestion you may have. Check in newsgroup fr.comp.lang.python. It is fairly active (nowhere near comp.lang.python), but I'm certain there are resources. -- -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] CS0 course
On 6/30/07, Scott David Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Andre Roberge wrote: > > > Does anyone have experience with teaching a CS0 course structured like > > this? Are you aware of any resources that I could use, mostly in > > terms of assignments idea? (note: they have to be either in French, or > > things that are short enough that I could translate them without > > having to invest too much time) > > > > Thanks for your time reading this message, and I welcome any > > suggestion you may have. > > Check in newsgroup fr.comp.lang.python. It is fairly active (nowhere > near comp.lang.python), but I'm certain there are resources. > > -- Thanks for the suggestion; I have been perusing fr.com.lang.python occasionally and should probably ask a similar question there. However, I am also well aware that the French education system is very different than the North American one. The Canadian and American education, while fairly different one from another, can be considered nearly identical when compared with the French system. French students generally have a much more rigorous mathematical background at a given age; the educational approach/style is very much "formal" rather than "informal". Also, there seems to be a lot more early specialization - so I don't think that courses like CS0 are very likely to exist within the French system. However, I will check... André > -- Scott David Daniels > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ___ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] CS0 course
> However, I am also well aware that the French education system is very > different than the North American one. The Canadian and American > education, while fairly different one from another, can be considered > nearly identical when compared with the French system. French > students generally have a much more rigorous mathematical background > at a given age; the educational approach/style is very much "formal" > rather than "informal". Also, there seems to be a lot more early > specialization - so I don't think that courses like CS0 are very > likely to exist within the French system. However, I will check... > > André Lots of moving targets in this picture. Given your idyllic circumstances, I'd think you'd want to customize and localize around your geographical context and expected student demographics, right down to the screen saver and local web server level. Plone has ways to customize all the menus and interface controls per whatever language. How about an inhouse Plone site, with CS0 spending at least a few hours dissecting it, in terms of MVC and the underlying Zope machinery. Zope is very big in Europe, I can say from personal experience. If you were a larger research university, I'd think developing Python bindings to some French-English phrase book database and translation service, ala Google's, would become a part of your infrastructure. Maybe such bindings already exist, in the sense of Python hacks (e.g. xml-rpc "translate this into French" requests to the server farm in The Dalles). As a curriculum writer, I have to assume increasing familiarity with Python among the pre-college set, at least in some parts of North America. CS0 will be easier if the ambient culture gets back on the track we were on with BASIC, per that Salon article 'Why Johnny Can't Code'. But a good CS0 has ways of not penalizing those who're just sampling. There're always more languages, or one could do that "leveling the playing field" thing and do it all in Scheme for a couple weeks, then switching to Python. This idea of "immersion" works well for computer languages, not just human ones (at least for students in the "good at languages" category -- which it sounds like your school attracts). Anyway, the challenges would be much the same in any language I would think. It's more finding the writers who'll commit to doing the work. Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
