Notes
6th and 7th graders, various skill levels, working with BASIC and Python. With Bram Moreinis.
4-2
Looked over a students BASIC program and made a couple of Python versions for the class to look at. Post Class:Talked about Python v. BASIC and to use or not to use GOSUBS and switch/case statements for teaching programming.
4-9
Went over a BASIC program a student wrote, and one Bram (the teacher) wrote. Went over a python program a student wrote - no main() and only 1 function - showed him how to encapsulate some of the code. Set-up an IDE for good screen-sharing for the next class.
4-12
Figuring out how to do intro to lists. Is doing matrices ( [[1,1,0], [0,1,1]] ) too much? Maybe save for after an intro to lists? My co-teacher Bram is exploring doing a pilot program of this next fall for some money - very exciting.
One of the issues with this class is that students don't have access to a computer with Python installed - this gave me the idea of integrating a development environment (text editor and terminal and/or python prompt, or maybe Geany) into a version of Wikiacademia to use in classes like this. Maybe could be a plan project?
4-13
Video-conferencing about the macro lesson plan for the rest of the semester and potentially making this a much bigger project after we finish this class. A mutual friend works for an ad agency that works with codecademy.org - Bram might be talking to them - very exciting!
The idea for the class is to split up into two groups to do two collaborative open source adventure games, with different students working on different aspects of the game.
5-3
We tried to do a workshop type class where I would look at students Python code. This didn't work as students didn't have there code available.
Final Thoughts
In short, its very hard to be an effective teacher through just a video feed. The kids in the class clearly learned some things, but I'm not sure how much from this end. Some kids worked in BASIC, as this was a language my co-teacher knew. I'm not sure how much of what they learned from BASIC will possibly end of being junk or will be fine. I was definitely able to help a little bit on basic programming concepts with python, or show how to do this or that with syntax or programming patterns, but again, I don't know what stuck.
This was a very instructive learning experience for me. I learned that teaching remotely doesn't work so well, that any co-instructors that I work with should know Python (and should forget that they ever learned BASIC, for the purposes of teaching), and that the organization of how classes function is very important. The last class will be on Tuesday, the 14th. It will be an exhibition of student work, so I will get a better sense of where they have gotten to.
In conclusion, I like teaching computer science and math (I already knew that), but doing it effectively remotely is difficult. In the future, I'd prefer to spend my time on doing in person rather than online, although I'm not entirely against trying more remote options.
