The youngest group I have taught are 9th graders (freshmen) with no real programming experience.
You didn't mention exactly what age as elementary can span from K to 8th grade.
I'll assume 5th to 8th grade.
Well LOGO is certainly the oldest, but here are few things that kids really love:
1. Karel++. You can do alot of simple to really complex things with this if you intend to teach programming at a young age. You can download this and materials for free. It's alot like Logo except in C++ style. I think even 5th graders could do some simple tasks on it. Basically kids order a robot around using member functions from a base class, but they can inherit the base class and add new functionality to the kids. I don't have the link, but just look for it on google.
2. Alice.Alice 3D world This is pretty cool if you have at least Pentium II's. It allows kids to write scripts for manipulating 3D objects and essentially making movies. The software is free and will even convert your movie into a cool pluggin for IE.
3. Webpage programming. Download netscape composer and teach a bit of web page design. Have them go to http://www.flamingtext.com and make cool logos for the pages. Teach the students to put in midi's or paste in DHTML from http://www.dynamicdrive.com
They became highly motivated cargo cultists. She didn't motivate those kids to do anything more than a modern version of "Copy the article out of the encyclopedia."
Perhaps initially, but the learning for those kids would have stopped without the novelty of the Pentium II's with Office 2000. These kids were more likely to enroll in science classes because they were MOTIVATED by what they did in class.
There are many many educational theories where motivation is a key concept in critical thinking.
College professors don't care about motivation because they have paying students who want a degree. High school students need motivation to show them the light. Multimedia computers definitly have a motiviational advantage that a pencil and paper don't have. Any money spent on keeping kids motivated to learn is worth it.
When I recruit for AP Computer science, I don't jabber about all of the cool link lists, and binary search trees, I talk about the cool video games that you can make using those concepts. Half of what high school teachers do is encourage, motivate and "make the sale." to students that learning is cool.
This sea of information often fools kids into thinking they are participating in intellectual pursuits, when in fact they are not. "Information is the lowest level of thinking, as opposed to higher levels like judgment, interpretation, evaluation, or mastering great ideas," Roszak explained. "Take an idea like 'All men are created equal.' That's not information - it's a moral assertion about human equality. Information is what you get when you dial 411 to get a phone number: low-level factual data. My students can no longer tell the difference between reporting on something, and evaluating and interpreting it. That's critical thinking, and they're losing it." Roszak's greatest fear is that because most technology makes the work used in education easier and can even create the atmosphere of being fun, the idea of intellectual pursuit may become a thing of the past.
Here are some of the fantastic programs that exist in many high schools today. We need more of this, not less:
1. Cisco Local Networking Academies.
2. A+/Net+ Certifications
3. Advanced Placement Computer Science Programs.
Most math and science high school teachers generally understand this problem. However, most students agree that taking the time to plot a parabola on paper wastes valuable teaching time. A teacher can demonstrate 10 different relationships in the time it takes for a student to plot a nice x-y graph of the same thing.
My wife had a class of thirty students who had leanring disabilities. It was a nightmare to attempt to motivate students to learn freshman science topics. However, when we moved them into a computer lab, and had them "surf" the net for the same info, build powerpoint presentations and web pages with the info, they became highly motivated and had a much more positive outlook on science.
Generally, college professors have a slanted view of how to educate kids, and have NO clue about what high school teachers have to deal with on a day to day basis.
I tire of college professors with cushy jobs complaining about high school teachers do a poor job. I bet this idiot college professor at texas makes around $70,000, has some overworked grad student that actually teaches the class and grades the papers. This same professor forces his students to purchase his $100 book each semester.
High school teachers work twice as hard for half the pay.
Many school districts are using SASI like systems to maintain a huge database on attendance, discipline problems, medical info, and grades.
Now parents can log in and find out exactly what homework assignments are missing for a child in high school.
We initially thought this was a great idea until we get a little busy and don't grade tests for a couple of days.
No kidding, I get calls the same afternoon that I give a test from parents bitching about the fact that the web page has not been updated with the latest scores...
Now teachers seem to give less tests with more multiple choice questions and easy to grade problems. Whether this is a good thing depends on your point of view....
I mean, seriously. How incompetent are the IT losers working at the school district that they've been hacked several times?
I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this, but how many competent IT people are going to be working for a public school salary?
I worked at a high school teaching AP Computer Science for six years.
The IT guys that maintain the servers get paid around $15 an hour TOPS. Turnover is tremendous. Most applicants are fresh paper MCSE's that just want enough experience to get a real job that pays twice as much.
This is for a large five high school, thirty elementary school district in north-west Phoenix, Arizona.
I actually overhead one idiot IT guy brag to a bunch of AP students that his NT server was so bullet proof that it was unhackable. I NEVER say that to my students, in fact I tell them that there are problems in the network, and to know that if they want to hack, let me sit next to them and work with the IT department to help things.
High school districts are swamped. Since they don't get the money they need, administrators have to make rash decisions like this based on suggestions from underpaid unhappy IT departments.
If you want to make a difference, then vote for state legislators that will give more money for school districts. Otherwise, put your kids in private schools.
We would have a lot more leverage in this situation if we had the Anti-Balistic missile system that Clinton axed last year.
I know the missiles missed by miles in the tests, but should that stop us from researching what could save millions of lives. We could say "Ahem, you will give us our men back NOW!" without fear of China ulimately nuking us.
Thank god we didn't use that logic against Germany during WW2.
I bet the first Bazooka test missed the target. Thank god we didn't have a president that said "oops, that system sucks, cancel it."
I don't know why we have treaties against AB missile systems. I could care less if everyone did a massive build up of AB missile systems... Then no one would fear a nuclear winter on this planet...
Here's my proposed solution: identify the bullied kids, and enroll them in a judo class. They'll build their self esteem, and when somebody picks on them, they'll be able to deal with it without going home for Daddy's gun. Judo's a sport--it's (mostly) nonlethal, but a geeky kid with a yellow belt is more than a match for the average bully. Hey, it worked for me....
I disagree, that's not going to stop three 200lb thugs from cornering in the school bathroom. Use all the Judo you want. I put my money on the thugs.
No, this won't work. I do like the non-violent nature of Judo, but answering violence with violence is NOT the answer.
Reduce class size, pay teachers more. That's the answer!
Harassment and violence in the classroom must be taken seriously.
Teachers and administrators must be trained to deal with this (and training == $$). We must attend tons of workshops, and meet with parents in the community to discuss and work out a set of guidlines to follow.
Students MUST feel that school is a SAFE enviroment. Telling students that's it's OK to be a vigilante[sp] is not the answer.
The major advantage of a large school is that it offers many different courses and curriculums.
However, as a former public school teacher, I believe that it's MUCH more important to have small classrooms, with no more than 20 students (less the better) to get to know each student.
Guess what, folks? You pay a teacher $18,500 a year, do you think they're going to care? No, they're not. They're going to leave that classroom, get in their 10-year-old Ford Escort and drive across town to their second job so they can pay the rent/mortgage/whatever that month.
*TROLL ALERT*
Well, you are only half-right. Most teachers really do or did give a hoot, until they got burned out teaching 50 kids in a classroom with parents that are too busy holding down two jobs to make the payments on their Lincoln Navigators.
If the husband would stay home, do consulting or someother job so they could spend some more time with their kids, we teachers would have a better job, teaching johnny or susie, instead of worrying about them bringing a Glock into the classroom.
Personally, I don't think America really gives a damn about their youth, and now America is paying the price.
FINALLY we are getting some discussion about school problems that teachers knew about ten years ago, but noone would listen.
Don't gripe about the Air Force B-1 bombers being made, you voted these people into office that neglected paying teachers more than $25,000 (average in arizona) salary.
I just started reading \. right when the "hellmouth" series ended here.
I've seen only a few other posts from high school teachers, so I'll respond to a few points here.
I love teaching high school computer science. It simply rocks. The AP Program stays current and relevant. (dumping C++ in favor of Java) It's unfortunate that there are too many high school students who don't get to experience any kind of real computer training until they graduate. I wish that it was a requirement to take more computer classes in high school in the US.
There is too much bullying going on in the classroom.
Why? I get stuffed with forty students in a classroom when I directly asked my administrators NOT to put anymore students in. My lab only holds 25 students comfortably. It is too damn difficult to keep track of those students.
This leads to the 'warehousing' feeling that most students get. I agree. As a public high school teacher, I always feel like I don't get enough time to talk to each student everyday, to check up on them.
So in many cases it's difficult to find out who started what, who threw the first punch, etc.... Adminstrators and teachers go on very little information.
The school violence will continue to occur.
IMHO, and my six years teaching in the public school system in Arizona, school violence occurs because:
1. Overcrowded classrooms. There have been many studies that indicate that the optimal classroom size is no more than roughly 22 students (I can dig out research if you'd like)
2. Low teacher salaries -- which result in adminstrators hiring whoever has a pulse. These people don't have real training to counsel students, nevermind actually know the curriculum or how to teach it.
3. Underpaid, overworked school counselors, who wind up just having enough time to do schedule changes. I asked our counselors what they really thought their job involved when they were hired: Advising students on careers, getting to know what students need in schools, taking care of emotional problems, listening etc....
I HATE bullying, and one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher was to make the classroom a safe learning enviroment, but damn is it difficult.
What can you do about it:
1. stop bitching about it.
2. don't blame violent video games, movies, britney spears, etc...
3. Promise that you'll be involved with your kids life until they are 18. (if you want the extra BMW, don't have kids etc)
4. VOTE for your local legislator that supports REAL reform. I want to hear administrators say (Damn we have 10000 people applying for 100 jobs, we have to take the cream of the crop.)
5. Do whatever you can in your local government to make sure that QUALITY teachers get into the classroom, and that class size stays down.
I liken the whole experience to open source v. Windows. People simply didn't know about their options and how to best utilize them.
Well, there's not much you can do. It's going to take time until all public school admins and science department heads get this info..
I wish the universities that train future teachers involved information like yours into their curriculum..
Schools should try to spend their limited resources on good teachers instead of overpriced gimmicks. A good teacher can teach far better than a bad teacher with expensive toys.
Ouch! That's rather harsh. Most public high school science teachers have alot of difficulty buying any kind of lab equipment these days.
My wife is constantly fighting the administration to get relevant lab materials into the classroom. The GTE grant she won for all of the TI-85 CBL's is fantastic, it also provided two weeks training for free for the teachers who wanted them.
You can literaly work the CBL's for the TI's into just about every unit in AP Physics! Kids are definitely more excited about learning physics in the classroom.
The college board for AP Physics also high recommends the inclusion of as many labs as possible. Many professors lament that their physics students know formulae, but don't really understand the concept that labs teach....!
What you do point out is that expensive "gimmicks" without teacher training to go along with it is what is futile. That's why you might remember Apple IIe's gathering dust in the back of the classrooms because the teachers were not provided the time to get instruction on how to integrate the computers into the curriculum.
Please support your local science teacher, you guys should go visit the classroom, guest speak how science and technology was important in helping you get the job that you are in now.... please don't bash the poor $27,000 average salary high school instructors...:)
I'll go non anonymous here....
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The youngest group I have taught are 9th graders (freshmen) with no real programming experience.
You didn't mention exactly what age as elementary can span from K to 8th grade.
I'll assume 5th to 8th grade.
Well LOGO is certainly the oldest, but here are few things that kids really love:
1. Karel++. You can do alot of simple to really complex things with this if you intend to teach programming at a young age. You can download this and materials for free. It's alot like Logo except in C++ style. I think even 5th graders could do some simple tasks on it. Basically kids order a robot around using member functions from a base class, but they can inherit the base class and add new functionality to the kids. I don't have the link, but just look for it on google.
2. Alice. Alice 3D world This is pretty cool if you have at least Pentium II's. It allows kids to write scripts for manipulating 3D objects and essentially making movies. The software is free and will even convert your movie into a cool pluggin for IE.
Look here to see some examples of Alice for my classroom:
Computer Science with Karel++
3. Webpage programming. Download netscape composer and teach a bit of web page design. Have them go to http://www.flamingtext.com and make cool logos for the pages. Teach the students to put in midi's or paste in DHTML from http://www.dynamicdrive.com
Hope this helps! Sounds like you'll have fun!
They became highly motivated cargo cultists. She didn't motivate those kids to do anything more than a modern version of "Copy the article out of the encyclopedia."
Perhaps initially, but the learning for those kids would have stopped without the novelty of the Pentium II's with Office 2000. These kids were more likely to enroll in science classes because they were MOTIVATED by what they did in class.
There are many many educational theories where motivation is a key concept in critical thinking.
College professors don't care about motivation because they have paying students who want a degree. High school students need motivation to show them the light. Multimedia computers definitly have a motiviational advantage that a pencil and paper don't have. Any money spent on keeping kids motivated to learn is worth it.
When I recruit for AP Computer science, I don't jabber about all of the cool link lists, and binary search trees, I talk about the cool video games that you can make using those concepts. Half of what high school teachers do is encourage, motivate and "make the sale." to students that learning is cool.
This sea of information often fools kids into thinking they are participating in intellectual pursuits, when in fact they are not. "Information is the lowest level of thinking, as opposed to higher levels like judgment, interpretation, evaluation, or mastering great ideas," Roszak explained. "Take an idea like 'All men are created equal.' That's not information - it's a moral assertion about human equality. Information is what you get when you dial 411 to get a phone number: low-level factual data. My students can no longer tell the difference between reporting on something, and evaluating and interpreting it. That's critical thinking, and they're losing it." Roszak's greatest fear is that because most technology makes the work used in education easier and can even create the atmosphere of being fun, the idea of intellectual pursuit may become a thing of the past.
Here are some of the fantastic programs that exist in many high schools today. We need more of this, not less:
1. Cisco Local Networking Academies.
2. A+/Net+ Certifications
3. Advanced Placement Computer Science Programs.
Most math and science high school teachers generally understand this problem. However, most students agree that taking the time to plot a parabola on paper wastes valuable teaching time. A teacher can demonstrate 10 different relationships in the time it takes for a student to plot a nice x-y graph of the same thing.
My wife had a class of thirty students who had leanring disabilities. It was a nightmare to attempt to motivate students to learn freshman science topics. However, when we moved them into a computer lab, and had them "surf" the net for the same info, build powerpoint presentations and web pages with the info, they became highly motivated and had a much more positive outlook on science.
Generally, college professors have a slanted view of how to educate kids, and have NO clue about what high school teachers have to deal with on a day to day basis.
I tire of college professors with cushy jobs complaining about high school teachers do a poor job. I bet this idiot college professor at texas makes around $70,000, has some overworked grad student that actually teaches the class and grades the papers. This same professor forces his students to purchase his $100 book each semester.
High school teachers work twice as hard for half the pay.
Many school districts are using SASI like systems to maintain a huge database on attendance, discipline problems, medical info, and grades.
Now parents can log in and find out exactly what homework assignments are missing for a child in high school.
We initially thought this was a great idea until we get a little busy and don't grade tests for a couple of days.
No kidding, I get calls the same afternoon that I give a test from parents bitching about the fact that the web page has not been updated with the latest scores...
Now teachers seem to give less tests with more multiple choice questions and easy to grade problems. Whether this is a good thing depends on your point of view....
I mean, seriously. How incompetent are the IT losers working at the school district that they've been hacked several times?
I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this, but how many competent IT people are going to be working for a public school salary?
I worked at a high school teaching AP Computer Science for six years.
The IT guys that maintain the servers get paid around $15 an hour TOPS. Turnover is tremendous. Most applicants are fresh paper MCSE's that just want enough experience to get a real job that pays twice as much.
This is for a large five high school, thirty elementary school district in north-west Phoenix, Arizona.
I actually overhead one idiot IT guy brag to a bunch of AP students that his NT server was so bullet proof that it was unhackable. I NEVER say that to my students, in fact I tell them that there are problems in the network, and to know that if they want to hack, let me sit next to them and work with the IT department to help things.
High school districts are swamped. Since they don't get the money they need, administrators have to make rash decisions like this based on suggestions from underpaid unhappy IT departments.
If you want to make a difference, then vote for state legislators that will give more money for school districts. Otherwise, put your kids in private schools.
How are they going to tell the difference between Michael Jackson's Beat It, and Wierd Al's Eat It?
So now all spoof songs will be filtered out?
This sounds like a bad idea to me.
We would have a lot more leverage in this situation if we had the Anti-Balistic missile system that Clinton axed last year.
I know the missiles missed by miles in the tests, but should that stop us from researching what could save millions of lives. We could say "Ahem, you will give us our men back NOW!" without fear of China ulimately nuking us.
Thank god we didn't use that logic against Germany during WW2.
I bet the first Bazooka test missed the target. Thank god we didn't have a president that said "oops, that system sucks, cancel it."
I don't know why we have treaties against AB missile systems. I could care less if everyone did a massive build up of AB missile systems... Then no one would fear a nuclear winter on this planet...
I disagree, that's not going to stop three 200lb thugs from cornering in the school bathroom. Use all the Judo you want. I put my money on the thugs.
No, this won't work. I do like the non-violent nature of Judo, but answering violence with violence is NOT the answer.
Reduce class size, pay teachers more. That's the answer!
Harassment and violence in the classroom must be taken seriously.
Teachers and administrators must be trained to deal with this (and training == $$). We must attend tons of workshops, and meet with parents in the community to discuss and work out a set of guidlines to follow.
Students MUST feel that school is a SAFE enviroment. Telling students that's it's OK to be a vigilante[sp] is not the answer.
The major advantage of a large school is that it offers many different courses and curriculums.
However, as a former public school teacher, I believe that it's MUCH more important to have small classrooms, with no more than 20 students (less the better) to get to know each student.
Guess what, folks? You pay a teacher $18,500 a year, do you think they're going to care? No, they're not. They're going to leave that classroom, get in their 10-year-old Ford Escort and drive across town to their second job so they can pay the rent/mortgage/whatever that month.
*TROLL ALERT* Well, you are only half-right. Most teachers really do or did give a hoot, until they got burned out teaching 50 kids in a classroom with parents that are too busy holding down two jobs to make the payments on their Lincoln Navigators.
If the husband would stay home, do consulting or someother job so they could spend some more time with their kids, we teachers would have a better job, teaching johnny or susie, instead of worrying about them bringing a Glock into the classroom.
Personally, I don't think America really gives a damn about their youth, and now America is paying the price.
FINALLY we are getting some discussion about school problems that teachers knew about ten years ago, but noone would listen.
Don't gripe about the Air Force B-1 bombers being made, you voted these people into office that neglected paying teachers more than $25,000 (average in arizona) salary.
I just started reading \. right when the "hellmouth" series ended here.
I've seen only a few other posts from high school teachers, so I'll respond to a few points here.
I love teaching high school computer science. It simply rocks. The AP Program stays current and relevant. (dumping C++ in favor of Java) It's unfortunate that there are too many high school students who don't get to experience any kind of real computer training until they graduate. I wish that it was a requirement to take more computer classes in high school in the US.
There is too much bullying going on in the classroom.
Why? I get stuffed with forty students in a classroom when I directly asked my administrators NOT to put anymore students in. My lab only holds 25 students comfortably. It is too damn difficult to keep track of those students.
This leads to the 'warehousing' feeling that most students get. I agree. As a public high school teacher, I always feel like I don't get enough time to talk to each student everyday, to check up on them.
So in many cases it's difficult to find out who started what, who threw the first punch, etc.... Adminstrators and teachers go on very little information.
The school violence will continue to occur.
IMHO, and my six years teaching in the public school system in Arizona, school violence occurs because:
1. Overcrowded classrooms. There have been many studies that indicate that the optimal classroom size is no more than roughly 22 students (I can dig out research if you'd like)
2. Low teacher salaries -- which result in adminstrators hiring whoever has a pulse. These people don't have real training to counsel students, nevermind actually know the curriculum or how to teach it.
3. Underpaid, overworked school counselors, who wind up just having enough time to do schedule changes. I asked our counselors what they really thought their job involved when they were hired: Advising students on careers, getting to know what students need in schools, taking care of emotional problems, listening etc....
I HATE bullying, and one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher was to make the classroom a safe learning enviroment, but damn is it difficult.
What can you do about it:
1. stop bitching about it. 2. don't blame violent video games, movies, britney spears, etc... 3. Promise that you'll be involved with your kids life until they are 18. (if you want the extra BMW, don't have kids etc) 4. VOTE for your local legislator that supports REAL reform. I want to hear administrators say (Damn we have 10000 people applying for 100 jobs, we have to take the cream of the crop.) 5. Do whatever you can in your local government to make sure that QUALITY teachers get into the classroom, and that class size stays down.
Well enough rant for now....
I liken the whole experience to open source v. Windows. People simply didn't know about their options and how to best utilize them.
Well, there's not much you can do. It's going to take time until all public school admins and science department heads get this info..
I wish the universities that train future teachers involved information like yours into their curriculum..
Schools should try to spend their limited resources on good teachers instead of overpriced gimmicks. A good teacher can teach far better than a bad teacher with expensive toys.
Ouch! That's rather harsh. Most public high school science teachers have alot of difficulty buying any kind of lab equipment these days.
My wife is constantly fighting the administration to get relevant lab materials into the classroom. The GTE grant she won for all of the TI-85 CBL's is fantastic, it also provided two weeks training for free for the teachers who wanted them.
You can literaly work the CBL's for the TI's into just about every unit in AP Physics! Kids are definitely more excited about learning physics in the classroom.
The college board for AP Physics also high recommends the inclusion of as many labs as possible. Many professors lament that their physics students know formulae, but don't really understand the concept that labs teach....!
What you do point out is that expensive "gimmicks" without teacher training to go along with it is what is futile. That's why you might remember Apple IIe's gathering dust in the back of the classrooms because the teachers were not provided the time to get instruction on how to integrate the computers into the curriculum.
Please support your local science teacher, you guys should go visit the classroom, guest speak how science and technology was important in helping you get the job that you are in now.... please don't bash the poor $27,000 average salary high school instructors...:)
I'll go non anonymous here....