[Yr7-10it] Request for opinions, help, comments or any other feedback

[Costello, Rob R]

Personally I love Flash / Actionscript but I don't think its an easy
language to learn to start with 

the usefulness of rollovers etc can be a bit deceptive - ie misleading
as to how complex the language really is. 

Like Javascript in that regard.

Which version would you choose (AS2 or 3)?  

I don't actually think there is much difficulty between either the
recent versions of Actionscript and Java  - both use OOP principles -
classes, inheritance, composition etc 

(eg I thought I knew Javascript (which is very similar to actionscript)
ok from tinkering with web pages - since I could normally hack a script
to get some effect to work it must be ok, hey? .... - but it wasn't till
I worked through 600 pages of Colin Mook's book "Essential Actionscript"
(version 1 at that point) that I realised I didn't have a good grasp of
the first principles

Learning version 2 - which is much more Java like - would have been
pretty hard without that background. (and version 3 maintains and
extends that Java like approach)   

I would seriously hesitate to take a lot of kids too far into it  

Year 9s are enjoying Alice, which is like a scaffolded introduction to
the syntax of OOP 

Scratch and Gamemaker are also good - and not as simple as may appear at
first glance - can actually be used in very advanced ways - as complex
as you want to make it really 

Visual Basic ok bit but from experience some syntax may get in the way
for lots of kids - 

I'm planning to do it later this year, after some Scratch / Alice, for
the year 10s. 

Re OOP :  not sure that learning OOP before a basic procedural grounding
in loops and control statements makes sense (though some people would
argue the other way.... ) 

Scratch / Alice / Gamemaker sort of get you thinking OOP without the
need to formally learn classes etc though 

Hth 

Rob 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:yr7-10it-
> bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
> Sent: Wednesday, 21 May 2008 10:52 AM
> To: yr7-10it at edulists.com.au
> Cc: yr11it at edulists.com.au
> Subject: [Yr7-10it] Request for opinions, help,comments or any other
> feedback
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> 
>     I am at the horns of a dilemma ( sort of ) and need your help.
> 
> I am taking a Yr10 Programming class in 4 weeks for Semester 2 and
can't
> decide which language to use. I can count on 18 weeks at 3 periods of
72
> min per week.
> 
> My criteria are :
>   1. It has to be fun, exciting and addictive so the kids are hooked
and
> want to follow through with more in senior level(s).
>   2. It has to be reasonably rigorous and not a wizard driven, micky
mouse
> gimmicky all sugar and no educational nutrition type of experience.
>   3. It has to be educational with the teaching of correct programming
> techniques, and extendible skills into future programming and other
> languages
>   4. It has to have some file storage capability and understanding of
> input and output beyond only user generated input at runtime.
> 
> My choices are ( these are more than 2 horns I admit ) :
> 
>  1. VB.NET
>  2. Flash and Actionscript
>  3. Python (we do this in Yr 11 )
>  4. PHP and MySQL ( we do this in Yr 12 )
>  5. Java ( too hard )
>  6. C/C++ ( too hard )
>  7. other
> 
> 
>     I am leaning towards Flash and Actionscript not least for its whiz
> bang features and some OOP programming and object handling as well as
web
> based deployment and beautification of web applications.
> 
> 
>    Any feedback welcome
> 
> 
> Take Care
> 
> 
> 
> Kevork Krozian
> IT Manager , Forest Hill College
> k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
> http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
> Mobile: 0419 356 034
> 
> 
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