Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Labs, Labs everywhere!

We've been using Linux to teach Computer Math and Computer Science at Baldwin SHS since 1995, about a year after Linus Torvalds even dreamt about a FOSS alternative to UNIX.
Computer Math in the Fall and Advanced Computer Math in the Spring form our introduction to programming and algorithms leading to a full year of AP Computer Science the following year.  In Computer Math we use yabasic and REALbasic.  In Advanced Computer Math we use GNU g++ and in AP Computer Science we use java.


So, finally, after a week of hello.pb and HelloWorld.java and a couple of weeks for Labs 1 and 2, I think the students have the hang of writing, saving, printing, testing and debugging some simple code.  Also, they know their way around the Linux desktop from a programmer's perspective.  We use KWrite, Kate, VIM or joe as text editors and Konsole command lines for chmod 755 or javac and java.  We are proficient at using Konqueror as a file manager.  I think we all have our cd, cd .., ls, ls -l, rm, mkdir, rmdir, ftp, ssh, which, pwd, whoami, last, top, sftp and fish commands down too!




Learning with Technology,
calcpage@aol.com

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