teaching – on the nets

A programmer’s first language is?

2008-07-28 by spike Leave a Comment

My good friend and collaborator, Shawn Cornally, recently asked for my opinion on what language to use to teach programming. He teaches science & math at Solon High School in eastern Iowa. I’ll preface these comments by saying that choice of language is probably not as important as other things, like competence and enthusiasm of … [Read more…]

Teaching email

2008-06-23 by spike Leave a Comment

I remember my first lesson on how to write a letter: how to address an envelope, the rigid explanation of formatting differences between business and personal, the impressive-sounding terms for the parts of a letter (the salutation, the complimentary closing, the postscript). It was in elementary school language arts class. We wrote letters and the … [Read more…]