Thursday, July 24, 2008

Going to Pittsburgh....

I'll be going to Pittsburgh for a week of AP Computer Science training at Carnegie Melon University.

This could be a cool opportunity that would be very helpful in teaching my classes this next year. Or, if it blows....well, let's think positive!

I chose the CMU workshop because of the institution's strong reputation in computer science. They even run their own version of Linux there, and I'm hoping the workshop is Linux-friendly for people like me.

I'll have to bring along an Ubuntu laptop, and maybe a few Ubuntu live cds....

Also, recent talk on the APCS listserv shows a considerable amount of teachers using Visual Basic in introductory programming classes. They've gotta meet Python.

Not trying to force anything on anyone, or tell anyone what they should do. Just want to make them aware of the alternatives. Proprietary companies spend a lot of money on advertising. Open Source companies don't. That's one way they can remain free. It's pretty amazing how far some of the best OS applications have gotten largely by word of mouth (or word of blog).

Heck, I haven't even tried to convince my parents to switch to Ubuntu.

Humanity to others.

2 comments:

Jackie Ballarini said...

I read this post this morning, then ran across this course from MIT . I thought you might find it interesting.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Jackie. Yeah, MIT is way ahead of the game in using Python. I also love that cartoon--Python really does make programming seem a whole lot easier.

What I like about Python is that I feel I really speak the language. Java I can read and get by with, but writing in Java is just not natural. I always need to be looking up how things are done, or what the syntax is. With Python I often just start writing, and when I come to something I'm not sure about, my guess is usually correct.

Our school has never sent a student to MIT after graduation. My goal is to change that, soon.