[Watford] Something else discussed last night

[Peter Grant]

Programing mentality can be taught without programming languages being
needed.
Having seen Scratch taught in a school, I think it's well worth doing to
the right age as it help convey the prinples of programming without
requiring that the pupils don't accidentally use a colon instead of a semi
colon.
Likewise, I think this game is quite good at gaining an understanding of
programming without using a formal programming language.
http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/

In many ways, exposing children to the concepts behind programming earlier
would allow those who enjoyed and/or were talented at it to take it
further, earlier. Possiblities such as GCSE Programming would be realistic
and could have a much better basis than GCSE ICT with it's 'Design a
database' in MS Access coursework.
Peter


"When you have a Swiss Army knife of a mind, everything looks like it
should be dismantled." Danny O'Brien/Merlin Mann


On 7 February 2014 17:45, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 07, 2014 at 05:28:37PM +0000, Jim Ford wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the link - I found it very entertaining!
>
> I was horrified that the education of our kids is partly entrusted to an
> air
> head like that :-(
>
> > She clearly has little or no idea what 'coding' is.
>
> Nope, and the only applications that she could conceive of were web sites
> and
> mobile phone apps. I suspect that she only has a hazy idea what a computer
> really is.
>
> > Perhaps these people should be put in front of an APL terminal and
> > told that _this_ is what coding is, so it frightens them off once
> > and for all so they get these silly ideas out of their heads!
>
> No, something far better :-)
>
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
>
> --
> Alain Williams
> Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT
> Lecturer.
> +44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
> Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information:
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