[Fwd: [wplug] 45 Minutes with High Schoolers]

[J Aaron Farr]

On 1/30/06, Matthew J. Hughes <mhues at verizon.net> wrote:
> Do you know what they are currently doing? Using/programming? What kind
> of environment are they currently using? What languages do the course
> include?
> No I have never done it before but I was curious whether they are
> writing hello world or databases? I guess the classes in college where
> they said know your audience was influential for me.

Actually I know most of this.  I was on an advisory board for their
curriculum this last year.  They're just finishing up Java and they're
about to start into some HTML.  They should have had some database
experience.  Like any class, some are doing well, some are not.

Since this is a vo-tech school, the cirriculum emphasis was on
technologies they could potentially get certifications in. 
Consequently, they had classes in Oracle, Java, C++, and Visual Basic.
 I recommended they cut the number of languages, focus more on
fundementals, and introduce web programming.  Personally, I'd like to
see them adopt something like python, ruby or scheme as the core
language, but I'm not sure if that will happen.

My purposes in visiting them are to answer some of their technical
questions, give them some thoughts about jobs in the future, and (I
hope) to inspire them to enjoy programming now by working on cool open
source projects.

--
  jaaron