Our ICT Coordinator would like to get programming back on the curriculum. Do any of your schools currently teach programming? If so, what language(s) are you using please? Pascal? Delphi?
And could anyone recommend any free (or dirt cheap) programming software? (bonus points for those available in MSI format)
You might want to try this question over at the TES forums as it's more curriculum-related.Originally Posted by kearton
Lots of people are finding Scratch to be quite good:
Scratch | Home | imagine, program, share
The language is capable enough to do interesting things with, but simple enough to learn. It has a nice GUI to avoid masses of typing. When your pupils have written a program (Scratch is good for games programming, which always helps interest children) they can share it online. Lots of other teachers are using it, so there are some good teaching resources available.
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David Hicks
kearton (9th October 2009)
Microsoft offer free express versions of many of there languages. Including Visual C++, C# and Basic.
You could also look at Free Pascal or FreeBASIC. Another option would be to setup an apache server and let them play with PHP.
EDIT: We're using Scratch, seams to be very popular. One girl used it to do her RE homework. Much to the confusion of the RE teacher. It's not an MSI, but does have a silent install. I think it only requires the files in program files, a startmenu shortcut and a registry entry to associate the file type. You could knock up an MSI in minutes using advanced installer.
Last edited by K.C.Leblanc; 9th October 2009 at 09:57 AM.
kearton (9th October 2009)
We use Microsoft VB express & C# express for programming as it's on the computing A level. They are free which is always good. We also use Scratch lower down the school which the kids seem to love.
kearton (9th October 2009)
Check out Microsoft SmallBasic. Technically it's still a WIP, but an ICT teacher in my last school started teaching it to Year 8 and they got on really well with it.
It covers the fundamentals of Basic with a very simple version of the language, then couples it with some heavily abstracted class libraries to do some quite complicated stuff very easily (such as loading images in real-time from Flickr with only a couple of lines of code). The beauty of it is that it lets the kids create something interesting without having to delve into the complexities of things like APIs and network protocols!
JJonas (9th October 2009), kearton (9th October 2009), laserblazer (9th October 2009), Ric_ (9th October 2009), t_h (10th October 2009)
Our IT teachers are trying to fit it in where they can. SmallBasic with younger kids.... really really nice programme, makes it nice and simple. Visual studio and that lot for the older kids.
I teach A Level Computing and currently use Python to introduce programming. A lot of teachers seem to prefer teaching Pascal and using Turbo Delphi, which is free. Turbo Downloads
Also the Microsoft Visual Express studio is free and contains Basic, C++ and C#. Downloads
DarkBasic - started writing a game in it, never got round to finishing it...
DarkBASIC - Home
Got a license for the school [ which was free ] no one ever used it....
Primary schools i've worked with have used Logo
At school we currently have scratch, Pascal is definitely the way to go to teach the basics because it's close to pseudocode (which alot of students write in GCSE & AVCE). It's very wordy, whether or not you get anything that's graphical is a different matter... I was at uni with 23 year olds who couldn't understand it on a comp sci degree.
Personally, if i was to teach (which i'd totally hate to do) i'd get ahold of Delphi 6/7 (should be freely avail) and make a simple calculator :-P
The closest we get at present is Flowol. The majority of the kids struggle with this not helped by the fact that the teachers don't understand it either!
At uni we use Python, which is free and very easy to learn and doesn't require much typing etc. There is also plenty of development environments, my favourtite is Pyscipter.
To print hello world the code is this:
print 'hello world'
Just started teaching Level OCR Web scripting and the students have to be able to annotate some supplied code, since they have no prior programming knowledge set up a linux box, gave the SSH acces and have just started teaching C.
lets face it if you learn C you can adapt to anything.
I think that sometimes, but not tonight!lets face it if you learn C you can adapt to anything
If it's a Windows environment I'd have them doing C# which is easier unless you get too hung up on the OO and reading C# for Sharp Kids"
which is based around the VS Express edition. Not that I have a clue about teaching the stuff, I just like the Hello World equivalent in there:
Console.WriteLine("Yo!");
I did PHP (which lead onto the MySQL unit) in Year 11 and VB.Net in Year 12.
Although we didn't use it, MS has a free compiler/editor for VB.Net as well.
My teacher wrote both the text books that we used.
You should also try out the original "SmallBASIC" freely available on the sourceforge web site. It's also an ideal platform for learning to program. Google SmallBASIC and click the link entitled "SmallBASIC | One more basic" - Enjoy !
OllieC (10th October 2009)
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