Comments on: Khan Academy’s Introduction to Programming Modules Are Really Something Special

By: Bob Hansen

Bob Hansen — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:02:20 +0000

“For example, does the following demonstrate a good conceptual understanding of Boolean variables?

If (on) then on = false; else on = true;”

That would be a very good conceptual question for a CS student. That is the basic pattern for a state toggle. A question like “What does this statement do and tell me where you might use it?” would be superb, on all fronts. To the general population though, I might as well have asked what a C7Dim chord is, and where you might use it.

Bob Hansen

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:45:33 +0000

Hi Shawn, your own programming video lectures are also clear and engaging, and probably a lot of fun for your students. But if they were to be strictly reviewed by someone experienced in the subject for conceptual and factual correctness, problems would arise there as well.

For example, does the following demonstrate a good conceptual understanding of Boolean variables?

If (on) then on = false; else on = true;

By: Shawn Cornally

Shawn Cornally — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:41:30 +0000

Does anyone find it ironic that the first thing KA does well is teach people how to train their computers to jump through hoops?

I hope Sal has a holodeck in the wings so that we can start doing history, science, real math, and whatever else as nicely.

The stopping the lecture to play thing is awesome though.

By: Kelly Holman

Kelly Holman — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:38:56 +0000

Thanks so much, Kim! I’ll look at that. Also thanks to Garth, who emailed me through my site. My reply bounced.

By: Kim Wilkens

Kim Wilkens — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:02:29 +0000

Kelly,
NetLogo (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/) is great for creating simulations. They even have a wolf-sheep predation model in their example set. Not sure what student age you are talking about, but I’ve done NetLogo with 4th graders and up. I created an online tutorial @ http://techkim.wikispaces.com/netlogotutorial to get them started.
Good luck!

Kim

By: mark ptak

mark ptak — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:30:08 +0000

Kudos for Dan not just correcting but lining out the fact that it was a mere earthling Jessica and not an obvious alien plant (Vi Hart) who did the narration. And for those who haven’t followed the obvious breadcrumb trails to Processing that John Resig has left…look again.

By: Kelly Holman

Kelly Holman — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 02:46:52 +0000

Question for you programming teachers: I have a student who’s interested in wolves. I’m thinking he would enjoy doing a simulation of a wolves-deer population problem. I haven’t done any fun problems like that in 12 years, and I’m way out of the loop. Any recommendations on what programming language would be good for this? Or links to discussion of similar projects?

Thanks!

By: ryan gosling

ryan gosling — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 23:19:09 +0000

KA’s CS offering is awesome for beginners, however its not really CS-level yet. Data structures , classes, polymorphism, recursion .. are yet to come.

Have you seen the CS Practice Zones at Programr instead?

They let you practice hardcore CS programming right in the browser in many languages:

eg: http://www.programr.com/practice/programr211_promo_228/node/567

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:48:48 +0000

A lot of great commentary here, incl. criticism for KA that I didn’t touch and praise that I didn’t even think about (ie. the significance of a female narrator). I pushed a bunch of you guys up to the main post. Thanks for helping out.

By: Garth

Garth — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:44:21 +0000

I like KA. When my high school students come into my math class with chem or physics homework and ask questions I can refresh myself on how to do whatever it is they are doing. The students can use it the same way in my math classes, as a reference or reinforcement. I put these programming lessons in the “cute but not really useful” category. They are not good for reference (which one do I look at?), the narrator talks at warp 9, and many of the explanations are in the categories of “huh?”, “what did she say?” and “that makes no sense”. I know how to program so everything makes sense to me. For a newbie this would be a disaster. With a teacher discussing and supervising as the lessons are being done I think these would be cool. But then you have lost the whole point of KA lessons. In Programming I basically teach the same material as the KA programming lessons using Small Basic, Scratch and Corona. A lot more fun, a lot more versatile and a lot more exploratory. Teaching programming is more than teaching code. It has to include IDE management, file management, experiencing multiple environments and a number of other things that do not come to mind at the moment. These KA programming lessons are not a step in the right direction.