Page 2 - Programming in High school?

Programming classes should be OFFERED in high school but not required. Im not interested in French but they still offer it, some people arent interested in programming, but they should still offer it. Especially with the way it is becoming a rising career opportunity

I am currently a Junior. My school offers Java/C++ which i am in right now. I am enjoying it and learning a lot. I think it is a good idea to teach it then. Programming is like learning a foreign language anyways, just more complicated.

I believe that programming should definitely be taught in high school. I just graduated college in computer engineering, and let me tell you, it would've been a lot easier had I some exposure to programming language concepts. To learn everything from scratch in a college course...it was quite difficult, to put it mildly.

I say, make a programming course available (but not mandatory) in high school...most people won't need to learn a line of code in their lifetime, but those who wish to go into CS/CE/IST, it would mean a ton to them.

Personally, I was taught C++ to start, and it took me about a year before I was a decent programmer. However, like people said already, once you learn one language, then the others become easier to use. I've programmed in C, C++, Java, VB, and wrote Matlab scripts...and I've only been formally taught in C++.

Agreed....

And, in my opinion, programming languages should count as foreign languages, because they're just a applicable to real life and can be just a hard (for the "normal" person ) to learn....

I'm a Junior (Year 9 in Australia) at the moment, but even though my highschool does offer 'programming' its still extremely simple, and not at all in depth, ever since our old Software Design and Developement teacher left its turned completely crap, since the new teacher's pretty much an idiot, and I've asked some of my friends in year 12 what its like with him, and I found out that a 'major' project he had them working on was making a simplistic card game, I won't go into details but suffice to say it would take me 15 minutes to make, Anyway The biggest thing that turns me off doing it is the lack of depth in the subject.



Its true that you'd get that answer a lot, but then if you asked the same question about most subjects you'd get pretty much the same answer. There are enough people who actually start doing SDD now because its so simple, but I think thats only because they want to get out of doing any real work. I've noticed that the amount of work involved in a subject is almost directly proportional to its popularity, i.e. the less work it is the more popular it is.

Im a sophomore in High School we already have lots of programming in our school starting from Basic -> AP Java its pretty good.

Im taking AP Comp Sci this year which teachs java abd java only. I want to learn c++ but I will have to go somewhere else to learn it. When I asked my teacher about teaching c++ next year, so I would not have to go somewhere else to learn it, she told me that both AP and the IB believe that java is the only language worth learning for the future. At the moment Ib will let one take thier comp sci class in c++ or java, however next year they will only allow java. So if they are correct about the future java is the language to teach and most likely the easiest to get into a high school.

Peter, one of the first questions you asked was about how it would affect you later in life.

While it will totally date me, I took an optional programming class in high school in the U.S. I was a junior at the time and we used BASIC on either an Apple II or on the line printer hooked up to the local community college PDP11 via a 300 baud acoustic couple modem - yeah, one step away from punch cards. This was 1981.

At the time BASIC was pretty much the best choice as the only thing else would have been 6502 assembly on the Apple. But in retrospect the language really didn't matter. What did matter was that I got the taste for me being able to control the computer.

My senior year in HS I got a Commodore 64. I spent hours on that starting with BASIC and eventually taught myself 6510 assembly. I learned about I/O and a bunch of stuff. The rest as they say is history. I've been a software engineer for 17 years now and still love digging into code.

Are the classes taught in HS valuable? Without a doubt - yes! I don't know how many if any of my fellow students followed my career path. I know some of them went to other engineering disiplines. But I'd guess that they all got something valuable out of that class. If you're in an engineering field (indeed, almost any field) you'd have a very difficult time avoiding the use of a computer.

The introduction was the key. Before a computer was something to look at, maybe play a game. Now I had some understanding into how it worked (yes, only a little but enough to pique my interest).

I find it funny now that my four year old daughter is starting to show an interest in more than just making Barney do some obnoxious song and dance when she plays on the computer. They have what are essentially small programming "languages" (anybody remember Turtle?) that let the kids manipulate icons to "write a program". She can't even read yet and she's conceptually writing a small program.

Sorry this answer is so long but I'm trying to share my enthusiam for teaching programming young. I'm a J2EE programmer now but I'm not going to recommend a language. I would say that you should teach something that, for the kids who want to continue programming in the future, would be valuable both at a college level and a professional level. So go to monster.com and search. For example, in the Denver area there are 160 jobs that mention Java. There are 3 that mention Python.

Good Luck!

I'm a 9th grader and our school doensn't offer too much. The reason I didnt take the IT course is that they still teach 9th graders how to make a Christmas card on MS Word... and it's just pathetic what they teach. I already program C++ and BASIC and they refuse to teach me higher grade just because I am young... I personally have a webpage.. I did not use a template, but you cannot believe how much it sucks... I used to be good at HTML when I was 7 or 8, but then I forgot everything in this 6 year break... Now I'm trying to start again, and it seems sad that my 6 year old page looks better than mine now in some point. But I think its great that I could learn on my own and everything. I think they should offer more freely offered programming courses. not just grade level, but skill level. I just started Java, and it's just hard to get any real life help. They should, but the problem is many people are not too intrested in it. Many of my friends are scared to learn beacuse they might become 'geeks', many of my friends want to make 'Doom 4' by themselves in 2 days, and most of them lose interest or get challenged too much in first hour. It's hard to expect schools to offer all these. Although programming is priority for me than a webpage, for the majority, they should offer more webpage and graphic design courses.

WJK

hmm, it seems everyone forgot good ole pascal !!!.

Pascal was developed as a teaching aid to teach programming to students. It is very structured, a bit outdated but is still the best programming language to teach students who are interested in programming .

It is not object oriented, which is a plus , because students basically wont learn good OO until they can atleast write decent programs.

Pascal also can be configured to run within a protected sandbox, which provides good error reporting without the need for a debugger. This is really a bonus, because students wont use a debugger or even breakpoints, which will make matters worse when their programs start to crash due to bad coding.

Teach pascal.

pmam21:

I disagree with your final conclusion, that schools should teach how to make webpages, and graphic design, true the majority of the classes will get something out of it, but most of the class won't be doing any programming when they leave school, and programming is what they should be teaching when they teach software development, not some crappy web design, that said, it is true that this may exclude the people who want to do graphic design, but isn't this what art classes are for, or if you mean graphic design done purely on the computer then maybe schools should offer another subject for that, but I really dislike what my school has done, its done exactly what you said it should do and teach webdesign, which is completely useless, it really pisses me off at what they've done to the subject, that was absolutely great before a teacher had to leave to teach somewhere else. Anyway, I've simply taken to buying large chunky books and learning things at home, but should i really have to waste my own time when i could be learning this at school, the thing that really irks me is the obvious degeneration of the teaching at my school, like i said in a previous post, the major project people do at the end of school is a simplistic card game that i could have literaly done in year 6, no exageration or brovado on my part or anything like that, it was just that simple.

Andrew80:

I don't know anything about Pascal, but I am basing the rest of this post on what I have heard fm my parents that C/C++ is the most commonly used programming language, with some VB and web scripting languages thrown in where they work, so here is what I have to say: Isn't the idea to teach students things that would help them when they leave school, so if people aren't going to use pascal once they leave school, then why should the school teach it, but maybe you are right that schools should teach it, and those that are interested in programming once they leave school should learn C/C++, VB or another programming language of choice, so that they won't be behind once they go to university or enter the workforce.

pascal teaches the most important aspect of programming, Program Design. Without design, you cant get develope anything other than the simplest of programs.

Pascal was designed to use C-like syntax, but with more design oriented structure. While C / C++ is the most used in commercial applications, C / C++ does require some discipline before learning. Students which learn C / C++ as their first language often times find it difficult to reason why certain code is deemed good code, because the language is too robust to be a good teaching aid.

i would recommend teaching pascal first. Then only teach C / C++ or whatever other language. That way students will have a firm rooted foundation with program design.

kuza55, hmm I had the same type of teacher at my school. We were taught QBasic at the time, and everything this guy tried to teach us never made sense. In the end if it werent for QB tutorial sites I probably would have failed. Before I left school we finally got a teacher who sort of knew what they were on about teaching Python, although there wasnt really enough time to go on further.

Im not sure what its like at other schools but my school allowed people to do advance things in other subjects. Like Media if you wanted to do more you stayed after school and you learnt a bit in a big production of some kind the school was doing. Maths if you wanted to do more advanced stuff you stayed after school to learn it.

You may find that having advanced type Programming Classes after school will be benefit for those taking the standard class which doesnt go indepth enough, but also allow people from all grades/years to take part in the class. This class should be more towards the advanced programmer or one finding it relatively easy doing Basic or whatever language that is being taught ing SDD.

Doing it this way or maybe during a break for students even, you will at least get people who are interested. As for a language if doing it this way you may find having a collection as for the ones finding it easy in Basic but dont know enough you can offer Python or more advanced students C/C++/Java.

I am aware of many things you have talked about and I got to say I agree on some of the points.

Almost none of my friends in my grade is interested in programming. They have the least idea of what c++ means or what HDD stands for.. (shame!). One of the reasons why I didnt take computer class was because it is most likely waste of time. If I ask my friends who take IT, they still have no idea what those are even after 2 years of it. How lame is teaching how to make christmas cards on MS Word? I would say not at all if it was some grade 2 computer class, but this is grade 9!.

Only reason why I said things about HS having to teach web design is because more people are interested in it. It is generally more useful for the public since they will learn how to edit their digital camera photos with all the wrong settings on it and actually learn the differences between .jpg and .bmp. or learn how to make folders instead of putting 4056 files in My Documents (like my friends..)

WJK

If thats the case thats more of a general computing class, which teach the basics something I was taught in yr7, not a Programming Class, however if that is a programming class all I can say is Computer Studies are going backwards, rather than forwards.

I also think what is to be taught is too who, how old etc. E.g. If its to say e.g. Yr9 kids than Web Development would be a good thing, just because its Web Development you dont really need to go into Graphic Design, I know in my short course we didnt it was more teaching HTML and a small bit of JS to make a basic site, and if you used graphics you didnt get a higher mark.

If your talking to say yr10 and seniors than Web Development would still be interesting however doing Server Side things like PHP/Perl Python ASP and Databases (although ITP should be on this), and then later going into Software with Python or another easy yet practical language.