I am trying to teach my daughters how to program in python (summer vacation time, so it's time to teach something!) Now I am trying to prepare my notes on the subject, this is another opportunity to make things clearer to me, first of all.
My plan is to teach some basics, then doing stuff with the turtle library, and then to do some games with the pygames library (now i have to learn these libraries, to begin with...)
First of all programming is fun; it's a really enjoyable moment, when a program finally starts to work
Programming is a little bit like magic - in a sense we are creating things out of words. I think that this would also teach us about the value of words, and that their effect can be quite tangible as such. I think that programming has some bigger lessons in life: If something doesn't work with a computer than we tend to search for work around solutions; this search for work around solution can be useful in other situations, just ask this guy with the fire extinguisher. I think that the practice of programming is teaching us to get used to a mindset where we are more likely to look for another way of looking at the same problem.
Also: if we persist with this activity long enough then we will learn that there are a lot of trade offs involved in programming: sometimes greater speed comes with larger memory usage for example; in a sense computer programming is the land of trade offs. You get that quite a lot in life, where different choices have to be considered and evaluated with regards to their cost versus their benefit. I think it is a good idea to get some training in the art of trade offs.
Another aspect is that software is eating the world, which is another incentive to learn about it all... This article says that understanding how programs are written helps us understand the rules of how digitial systems work and helps to understand the assumptions made by the authors of the system; therefore they argue that understanding all this is required to 'fully participate in the discourse of our digital life' - so it would be somehow similar to civics. (" Metaphors of code—Structuring and broadening the discussion on teaching children to code" by Tomi Dufvaa and Mikko Dufva)
We are trying to use visual studio code with the microsoft python plugin.
- To set it up: first download python from here, then install it.
- Download visual studio code from here, then install it.
- In visual studio code: press 'Extensions' button on the vertical bar (lowest icon), search for Python and install the first one in the list
- Set autosave:
- in File menu: select Auto Save option, so that a checkmark appears
- in Code menu, select Preferences, then select settings, search for auto save, for Auto Save select afterDelay for Auto Save Delay select 1
If you are working with a language like Hebrew, then you need the bidi module to display text
- pip3 install python-bidi
- in the code you would display rtl text as follows:
from bidi.algorithm import get_display
print(get_display("שלום hello "))
Python as a language for introducing programming has its weak points: it has a very confusing syntax, at least I think that the it is confusing to a learner for the following reasons:
- The indentation business is quite confusing for a start, then some lines must end with a : symbol, followed by an increase in indentation; then watch out when indentation decreases, that means you get out of the block; that one is a too subtle cue for my liking.
- The whole object thing - objects are already a hard thing to grasp, then why do we need the self argument in member functions?
- Many features, sometimes more than one way to do things: functions can be called with positional argument, but also with keyword arguments here
On the other hand python wins as a scripting language because it has a lot of libraries available, and it has descent tooling, as it is the most used scripting language. Well, many things in the land of programming are far from ideal; Many arbitrary rules have their exceptions, take UNIX for example ('everything is a file', except for sockets; 'everything is a text file', except when it has a syntax; the unix permission thing...). On the other hand: sort of everything in programming is a kind of trade off, it's the land of trade offs.
Maybe the LUA programming language has a less annoying syntax, but it's not used as widely as python, and it comes with less libraries, meaning that not all 'batteries are included', which means that for any given task you are more likely to find the tools for Python, here they argue that this is the most important factor in programming language adoption.
However it turns out that in LUA there are good gaming libraries, like LOEVE 2D. This teaches us that occasionally there are lots of alternatives in software... And LUA has it's visual studio plugin here In this reddit discussion "How good is Lua as a language to teach children programming?" people argue that LUA is the better choice over python.
On the other hand: accessing a undefined variable in Lua is not an error, such variables get the nil value. I think the Python behavior of treating this as an error makes more sense. Also Lua likes to do implicit conversion, like converting a string to a number, when used in an arithmetic operation. I think this often results in difficult situations, so that type conversion in python makes more sense, to me.
This kind of argument can go and on, so lets stick with python.
- Felienne Hermans on teaching programming
- says there are two camps: "kid should figure out on their own" vs "teach them how to do it with examples"
- "figure out on their own" comes from Logo by Seymour Papert - and he was inspired by Jean Pagets constructivism; it says that kid learn by participation & problem solving.
- says that kids learn better if they are exposed to example solutions first; having to figure it all out is to big a cognitive strain. Study shows: control group that got example solutions in math did better than the control group that had to figure it all out on their own; also they did better on additional material.
- another trick that helps: reading out the programming statement aloud!
- also says that quizzes are good for acquiring new learning material.
- The HN discussion of the lecture. Here is a very motivational comment by mbrodersen " I have had success teaching programming to beginners by simply letting them program simple text based adventure games. I show them the minimum to get started (print, read, if) and they run with it, creating their own little adventure games. Then they start asking question about “how do I keep track of health?” and I introduce variables etc. But only when they have identified a gap in their knowledge, and have an interest in filling that gap. I had a class room full of kids excitedly programming away even after the class was done. And the quicker students started teaching other kids. It was a wonderful experience."
- There is probably some golden middle ground that works: I think the course should suggest both approaches, and follow through with what is working; I can do that because I don't have a big classroom ;-)