Starter Programming Language Discussion

Teachers continue to discuss the languages to use for a first programming course in the forums at MainFunction. The key discussion is going on at this thread. It is a really great discussion as teachers discuss their first course, what languages they use and a bit about how they run the courses.

Today Dave Jacobus, a really great teacher who I have heard present training for teachers a number of times, added information about his three course (two year) sequence that starts with Visual Basic .NET. He talks about the importance of the "Wow factor" and how he uses skeleton projects to kick start things. Dave even provides a link to his skeleton projects so that other teachers can use them. I think that sharing sample code, project ideas and teaching methods is something that more teachers can benefit from. I appreciate Dave's willingness to share.

And of course the same is true of the other teachers who have been sharing ideas at MainFunction. It really is a great community site for computer science teachers.