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List:       kde-edu
Subject:    Re: [kde-edu]: proposal
From:       Anthony Moulen <ajmoulen () alum ! mit ! edu>
Date:       2002-06-18 16:57:25
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On Tuesday 18 June 2002 12:14 pm, Sebastian Stein wrote:
> Anthony Moulen <ajmoulen@alum.mit.edu> [020618 18:03]:
> > ...
>
> Ok, I think you didn't saw the sarcasm in my answer, because there are some
> missunderstandings...
Perhaps.

> No, you have not to tell them: "Hey, today we will talk about variables and
> assignments." But you will find examples to introduce a variable. Maybe
> explain it as a cupboard, where you can put some things in and get them
> back if you need them again.
> I think there must be a structure and at a point you have to introduce some
> terms. But the problem is how to do this in a way that it is interesting
> for young people - so in that case I agree with you!
Do you ever feel like you are saying the same thing as someone else but it is 
getting confused in the translation? Words are great mysteries. 

Anyway in my ideal, the approach would be to take a program and start building 
it at the very beginning with the student.  At each step along the line, you 
let them build their own component but then bring them back to yours, and 
explain each part and what it does.  In this way you could walk through the 
structure that was shown without jumping off to the side too much.  The 
important thing is this.  The examples you show, and the conclusions you 
draw, are best kept in reference to what they are learning.  Imagine teaching 
someone to build a car, and starting by showing them the wheels of a bike to 
get the concept of tires out, then show them a lawnmower engine to get that 
done.  Wouldn't it be easier, to bring in a car and explain it? Sometimes we 
try too hard to abstract the world, when the simpliest thing is to just show 
it as it is. 


> Yes, and here you got me wrong. It wasn't my idea to create an edu app to
> teach the concepts of KDE programming. I said I would first start to teach
> the basic concepts of programming and than go on with technologies like
> OOP.

Concepts can be taught through application or through abstraction.  Children 
learn better (in fact adults for the most part do as well) through 
application.  Abstraction requires taking a step into unknown waters in order 
to eventually come back and explain the boat you were stepping on in the 
misty water. You are asking someone to feel secure in what you say because 
later you will show them why it was important to know. 

> And yes, no one told me if it would be easier to learn programming if you
> have an app teaching it to you. I even not know after this quite long
> thread how such an app should look like and which services it could
> provide.

I think that to know whether it would work, you must first know what you want 
it to do, and how you should do it.  An application based on a curriculum 
should never start with the application then designing the curriculum around 
it.  You must first design a sequence of lessons with the idea that you would 
like to apply them in a non-classroom way.  You should know that it is likely 
that you can do no more than what a book on programming could do, except that 
you could give the interaction and design that would be more interesting than 
a book (and also easier to deal with, books on keyboards just don't work well 
;-)). 

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