Hello,
Some time back during the summer, we had a discussion about computer
instruction, and I mentioned that I would be using turtle graphics as an
introduction to my AP Computer Science class which is learning to
program in Pascal.
Today is Friday Sept. 13. We have just completed our first week of
classes (last week was orientation). So, classes started on Mon. Sept.
9th.
We have a lab with 28 stand alone 486 students, and in my third period
class, I have 28 students enrolled. We had two computers that were down
for the first few days of class (this really annoyed me, because in my
opinion, the tech should have checked the lab during August and had
everything up and running for the first day of classes).
In any case, after making a big fuss about the lab situation (I couldn't
see beginning any lab activities unless everyone had a computer to use),
the machines were finally all usable yesterday. So, after a few days of
instruction in binary and hardware, we began our turtle graphics.
Actually, I used an overhead display panel on Wed. to demonstrate how
the turtle moves, some of the commands, and wrote a simple program to
draw a square. (I did warn the students before hand that it would not be
flashy, and they might even think it was corny or stupid, but I thought
it was a good way to learn some basic programming principles.)
So, on Thurs. and Fri. we actually got on the machines and I asked the
students to write a program that made an equilateral triangle and one
that made a pentagram (regular 5-pointed star with a pentagon in the
middle where the edges extend across the center). Since it was the first
time programming in Pascal for 98% of them, they had to learn about
spelling things correctly (a few of them spelled "integer" incorrectly
as "interger", and of course the computer couldn't understand that),
plus there is the placement of the semi-colons, which were either
omitted in necessary places, or liberally inserted where they should not
be. No student in the class successfully drew an equilateral triangle on
his/her first try, even after they got the program to run. The star
proved a much greater challenge for all the students (as I type this,
there are still some students who have not finished that program and
will need more time on Mon.). While I don't think any of them were
WOWed, they were certainly engaged.
Of course, this is very early to decide whether to repeat this again in
the future, but so far I am very pleased with how it is going.
Sheila
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