The comments below are published without permission, so I removed the names.
Arnold.
Thanks for instructing!! - I've been thinking about some 'constructive' feedback since
our conversation yesterday.... sorry. I've got a lot of good to say.
It's good to see you in a teaching position - keep doing this! you're quite gifted.
1. Information, resources, outline on website - Excellent! - very helpful.
2. Quiz beforehand, and team grouping according to language and ability - Great!
3. Finish with Roy P. - good... puts the content of cit in direct relevance to our work.
4. Flexible enough to go where we wanted to go, but pushed on to what we needed to go.
5. High intensity was good, still allowing for people for catch up - not boring those who were still 'with it'.
6. Good resources, and committment to providing resources - I'm walking away with things that I can use tommorrow.
7. A good committment to encourage further learning, and not a specific committment to one technology or language - a refreshing (and good!) perspective.
8. Approachability was good as well. - easy to talk to and ask questions of.
Have a good year.
Hi Arnold,
I'm afraid I lost your original e-mail about a followup to last year's
FANTASTIC summer course for high school teachers.
I was so inspired after the course last year, I decided to GO FOR IT and
teach Java to my OAC class this year. It went really well! Basicly, in a
whole year, I was able to get through the content that we covered in that
week (with, of course more examples / projects and assignments). The
thing that gave me the most trouble was .... APPLETS! That darn paint
method, and trying to use components and draw on them, and a lot of wierd
features (bugs) that required the use of strange mystery functions like
"validate" to get things to show up... I had a great class of problem
solvers, and we did pretty well I think. I gave a modified version of the
Balloon problem for part of their final exam. We also got into threads,
and a couple of groups even tried some networking using Sockets ... they
had some communication happening, but synchronization was a trick that no
one really solved.
Anyways, I'd be VERY interested in some sort of followup course this
summer - especially if you were going to focus more on Applets (graphical
components)... I can think up interesting problems, algorithms etc., but I
spent way too much time fighting with the Applet class and methods!
Another thing I'd be interested in is some sort of tool / method that well
help students (and teachers!) design object oriented programs... I mean
to coordinate all of the classes and listeners and action events... some
way of getting /desigining the BIG VIEW ... some sort of visual tool ...
especially since the kids I'm teaching this too have a solid background in
procedural languages and are used to that sort of linear thinking.
Please let me know if there's anything happening this summer. If you want
to re-send me your original questions, I'd be happy to answer them one at
a time. Overall, I found last year's course EXTREMELY useful - it was jam
packed and just the right pace (ie. not too slow). I'd be very keen to
take another one !
