[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010, Dave Foxcroft wrote:
It is aimed at KS3 -KS4 but one of the teachers I met at BETT was using it with yr5/6 kids so maybe your 9 year old may be able to take to it. My 8 year old is going to have a go with it over the summer - he like the idea of being able to make his own games!I have one school interested in using it instead of the dreaded LOGO/roamer.
What's wrong with Logo then?Actually, I can think of lots of things - however, Logo was just coming into use when I was at uny. I wrote a cut-down version (In Apple Basic!) which just did the turtle graphics part of it all - on-screen, no remote turtle. I think my old school used it for a bit too. I've probably still got the disk, but don't have a drive capable of reading it anymore (Anyone here with An Apple ][ and a working drive? I have an Apple II, but the black magic smoke escaped out of the PSU last time I tried to power it up )-:
I also have a Big Trak - that was used in my old school for teaching simple programming too.
I started with BASIC - on some HP mini computer thing, then via TTY33 & acoustic modem to the local computer centre... then FORTRAN, then 6502 assembler... I did a bit of Pascal (actually a lot, as I have a summer job programming in it!) then C and it's been C almost all the way since then.. Someone did try to get me intersted in Algol at one point, but life was too short.... (And I treat PHP as sloppy, interpreted C) Uny tried to force CBMOL on me too, but I get that up as a bad joke... (Now think of the money I could have made fixing Y2K stuff!!!)
I think the schools in Edinburgh and surrounds tried to get into Modula 2 or a while as it was a bit pascal-like, but sort of better. Everyone was touting "structured programming" 30 years ago and that was the new kid on the block...
Now it seems all graphical IDEs and debuggers and not enough thinking for my liking. Maybe I'm just getting old - give me a makefile anyday...
Oh, I forgot Forth. How could I forget Forth. it's easilly done, guess I.If I had an 8 year old, I'd give them a toy like the Big Trak - there must be a modern equivalent?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_TrakThat was 31 years ago... Might make some effort into getting mine going again...
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq