Timeline for How do I convince my students that visual programming is real programming?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
43 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 30, 2018 at 23:16 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | @GorchestopherH ... a new question? | |
| Jan 30, 2018 at 21:30 | comment | added | Gorchestopher H | This should be an edit or a new question. | |
| Jan 30, 2018 at 20:47 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | @GorchestopherH I didn't ultimately take this path, though I am more convinced than ever that visual programming is real, and is only going to become more prominent for the foreseeable future. There may come a day that I revisit this idea, but for now, any new answers should probably be more about general applicability than about my specific circumstances. | |
| Jan 30, 2018 at 20:13 | comment | added | Gorchestopher H | @BenI. Can you possibly edit/expand your question a little bit to give some more information? For example: What are the other requirements of the course (curriculum)? Is this a course at all in fundamentals? What concepts are you trying to illustrate? Snap! is a very good syntax enforcer, but it seems that your students are likely very familiar with adhering to syntax. | |
| Jan 30, 2018 at 19:02 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | @GorchestopherH LOL, essentially. :) My students take part in a pretty unique program. | |
| Jan 30, 2018 at 18:15 | comment | added | Gorchestopher H | What HighSchool is this? Robot academy on Mars? | |
| Sep 8, 2017 at 16:46 | comment | added | Michel Billaud | IMHO the main advantage of visual languages is that beginners fear they have to remember the syntax of soooo maaany constructs and basic actions : they choose among the things they see. Convenient at first sight, a waste of time later as they know the syntax. The idea falls flat if they already wrote programs, and anyway programming with blocks is not identified, in the popular culture, to "serious programming" (like web development, doh). | |
| Jun 24, 2017 at 16:39 | comment | added | Adam Williams | Since the students already have a programming language, I don't really see the point of using visual languages to excite them about programming Agree with this, I think I'd have found it a bit patronising if these sorts of languages were used for anything other than an introductory course. | |
| Jun 23, 2017 at 5:09 | comment | added | Dave Russell | Other real world examples of DnD are SQL Server Integration Services (SISS) and BizTalk. MS Visual Studio includes DnD to create the user interface. | |
| Jun 22, 2017 at 19:33 | answer | added | CramerTV | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 22, 2017 at 0:36 | comment | added | Stephan Branczyk | Why even argue the point? Call your exercises 'puzzles' or 'logic puzzles'. Allow your students to go off-script and use that tool to do things that you didn't ask them to (or that they didn't imagine they could even do themselves with it). If by the end of the course, your students tell you that Snap is not a puzzle-building environment as much as it is a programming language you can actually build stuff with, then I suppose you will have completed at least one of your teaching objectives. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 23:48 | comment | added | JDługosz | Why do you want to teach it? If we knew, we could help you explain that to the kids. But it seems like you’re looking for justification yourself. After taking a quick look, my quextion is, “why can't I just type that?” you need a good answer as that’s what the kids will wonder too. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 22:28 | answer | added | Jake Uskoski | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 20:44 | answer | added | AnoE | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 18:03 | comment | added | alexgbelov | Since the students already have a programming language, I don't really see the point of using visual languages to excite them about programming. If you want them to have fun programming, why not do a short lesson on esoteric languages? This one is based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's one liners, for instance: github.com/lhartikk/ArnoldC | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 17:39 | answer | added | 200_success | timeline score: 13 | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 17:24 | comment | added | Robert Harvey | For a practical, real-world example of visual programming, have a look at the Unreal Game Engine's Blueprint Designer. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 16:17 | comment | added | xDaizu | Wanna make programming more Fun™? Here are the programming games you never asked for! (Your definition of fun may vary. I am not liable for any damage to the concepts of "fun" or "game" you may suffer due the content of this article. I just think some of these are pretty fun and accessible) | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 14:15 | answer | added | DisplayName | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 13:31 | comment | added | Davor | @BenI. - I fail to see how such languages being used professionally in extreme niches makes them suitable teaching tool at that age. I fail to see ANY relation between those two statements, to be honest. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 13:29 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | @Davor considering the number of comments and answers here that point to visual languages used in specialized professional areas, I'm pretty sure, yeah :) I'm not convinced that I'm going to make this move, however. If I did, I would enjoy some initial benefit of the doubt from my students, since I taught them many of those languages that they know :) | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 13:26 | comment | added | Davor | Are you sure that you are correct here? Are you sure such learning tools are appropriate for high school kids with substantial programming knowledge? At that age, I know that I would have considered it demeaning and patronising, basically telling me I'm too stupid to use "real" languages, so I should play with blocks. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 10:24 | comment | added | user2338816 | It might be easy, but methods might need to be different under various circumstances. So... How many students are involved? And how much student-class time can you invest in this? | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 9:08 | comment | added | Chris H | @CortAmmon I was sure someone would mention LabView. That's worth taking seriously in the right context. But unless the students go on to study physics/engineering/chemistry at uni (and not every course by a long shot) they're not likely to come across it. Even educational licenses are expensive. The graphical approach is highly polarising and doesn't lend itself to printable documented code -- we're moving more and more towards PyVisa to access an overlapping set of drivers. | |
| Jun 21, 2017 at 1:37 | comment | added | Gypsy Spellweaver | Aren't flow charts "visual programming"? If you use flow charting as a tool, it shouldn't be too hard to segue into another visual paradigm of your choice. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 23:37 | answer | added | auden | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 23:33 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | I am, indeed, lucky! There is a 4-year CS major at this highly selective HS in northern NJ. (Nothing official, but there are rumors that there may be a (3rd!) new CS opening at said school in a few weeks, too!) | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 23:25 | comment | added | Sam Weaver | What kind of high school students are you lucky enough to work with?! I don't know many high school students with that substantial a background in programming. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 21:16 | answer | added | Eric | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 20:06 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | From the sound of it, your students use programming languages to do things. Snap! is going to have to earn its keep in the minds of students like that. I'm a developer, not a teacher, but my first thought when I looked at the examples on the Snap! page was "this is actually just a text based programming language given goofy colors." Contrast that with something like LabView which is a serious language used in serious contexts (and with a serious price tag, of course). You're going to have to convince them that it's not different for the sake of being different. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 19:43 | comment | added | Kevin Rubin | I've worked professionally with a heavy point & click programming tool and many younger coworkers complained "this isn't programming." My explanation was that programming was just about giving the computer instructions for what to do "later". And that tool was one way of instructing the computer. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 18:27 | comment | added | Jeutnarg | Put your money where your mouth is. Build something useful/cool in the language and demo it for them while introducing it. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 17:33 | answer | added | Zach Galant | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 17:17 | comment | added | user2357112 | If these kids already have that extensive a programming background, what you're proposing isn't likely to be fun. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 17:15 | answer | added | Ellen Spertus | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 15:20 | answer | added | Peter | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 13:46 | answer | added | KWGB | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 12:42 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | Well, to make clear: I have not done any of this, so your experience is very relevant information. This is all still very preliminary exploration. My thought is that, for some of my lower students, the graphical environment will make the concepts seem more immediately concrete. And, as goofy as the pre-fabbed graphics are, they are also fun. | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 12:12 | comment | added | Mike Zamansky | I'm curious why you think it'll make things more fun or what you plan to do to make things more fun. One of the downsides of DnD languages is that to do something substantial you need some serious screen real estate and in my experience, experienced students have found repeated dragging and dropping tedious over using text editor functionality. This is not to say that DnD won't be great in your case but I'm looking for more info on how you want to use them | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 12:01 | answer | added | Neal Zupancic | timeline score: 24 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 11:40 | answer | added | Mike Zamansky | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 10:38 | answer | added | ItamarG3 | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jun 20, 2017 at 10:20 | history | asked | Ben I.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |