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Stop using Scratch and Alice and start teaching actual programming languages

Comments
  • 7
    Looks like Alice likes to be used 😋
  • 4
    whoops 😲
  • 4
    True story. BUUUT kids seem to be taught the mindset of a programmer with those two. Also, anyone remember Turtle? *salt*
  • 4
    Its Bob and Alice :i
  • 1
    @simulate lol thats a bit rude
  • 2
    you forgot construct2
  • 1
    This article explains why :
    https://medium.com/@vopi/...
  • 1
    Honestly I liked Alice, it's a bit big, yes. But I was able to make an entire RPG for one of my assignments.
  • 1
    @dontPanic
    what.. it is? Sorrey
  • 0
    Most universities and high schools teach this to think computationally, I completely understand that. But to think computationally doesn’t take a semester to understand. I think you could get a top-notch coding education online rather than universities. But that’s just my 2cents.
    You need a degree for everything now, knowledge > where you got your degree.
  • 0
    I think there should be a scratch-like IDE for javascript/python, showing the code as point-and-click blocks, but allowing you to "zoom in" and edit the snippets in more advanced ways as well.

    I think Khan academy does a pretty good job, I've supported a few kids finishing their introduction JS animation course. It uses processing.js, so you learn a bit of math and loop/branch/function basics, while making funny drawings, minigames and animations (https://khanacademy.org/computing/...).

    Processing.js + a scratch-like blocks interface could lower the threshold further, without lowering the ceiling.
  • 0
    @scratch
  • 0
    Well damn ok. Only an @Alice then
  • 1
    I remember being green and buying a book on Alice because it was listed as required text. $50 down the drain.
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