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<p class="MsoNormal">I have been trialling <a href="http://www.programarcadegames.com/">
http://www.programarcadegames.com/</a> (an American college course) with a year 10 class. They like it and they get it. We’ve looked at codeacademy and a few others over the past couple of years and while they are often very slick we’ve been unimpressed by
either their pedagogy or suitability for secondary students. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This site presents a self-paced chapter by chapter program. Each chapter is supported by videos on Youtube and consists of a teaching block where students would do some copy and paste into IDLE, a set of multiple choice questions to test
understanding, a theory worksheet to reinforce, and finally a lab to apply. The labs are well structured and the students are guided through the structure and logic of a program without being able to copy and paste. I find it incorporates well into a classroom
where I can sit with individual kids and steer them in a useful direction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lesson one treats IPO by building little specialist calculators, and by lesson 4 the kids are writing a text based adventure game (based on an old BASIC game “Camel”). If a student perseveres (and they probably will because it’s fun) they
will have produced their own animated game, having explored arrays, iteration and classes along the way.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is the table of contents<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><img border="0" width="486" height="590" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01CFFF23.C30E5B70"></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Laurie Savage<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><a href="http://accelerus.pvgc.vic.edu.au">http://accelerus.pvgc.vic.edu.au</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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