hey im in college and just cause you drop out has no relevance of your inteligence there are countless reasons you can drop out. mine was related to mental illnesses at the time nothing regarding being too dumb.
hey im in college and just cause you drop out has no relevance of your inteligence there are countless reasons you can drop out. mine was related to mental illnesses at the time nothing regarding being too dumb.
hooch
I don't guess you took the english class in high school. There's nothing like trying to read a two hundred word paragraph with no punctuation.Originally Posted by ssjnamek
i did but eh english is quite annoying when most of the kids cant even read at all. so when we are doing whatever and you have to rely on people who cant read more than 2 letter words you kind of sort of get bored and drift off.
that and ive typed on aol for too long its killed me between those two things and my hating of english classes in general that explains all of my bad grammar. though if i cant read it then you know its awful.
hooch
My advice is don't teach it.
Even after you learn the fundamentals it is a different level to teach it without a couple years experience using it. Don't short change your students!
I'm sorry ssjnamek, I was a little harsh considering some of the posts we get here.
it is cool since yea ive seen those posts and 50x worse lol. but i try and make it readable. be even cooler if the post i made in other thread i could figure out lol
hooch
Eeek! I'd be useless if I was asked to teach Advanced Band. In fact, I usually compare learning to program to playing an instrument. "How long does it take to learn to program? ...How long does it take to learn to play the guitar?"
Curriculum:
There is an AP Computer Science Exam, so I assume there is a pre-defined curriculum.
Although a lot of people hate Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days by Jesse Liberty, I'd suggest that you get your hands on a copy. (Maybe a cheap-used copy.) It could help you with your lesson plans, as it is structured like a course with questions & exercises at the end of each day (chapter), and answers & solutions in the back.
I'm not sure if it would take a full semester to cover the topics in '21 Days'... You might cover 2 chapters per week... But, it would be unrealistic to cover 5 chapters per week. (At the university level, I'd guess that book would cover about half a semester... One chapter per lecture = 3 chapters per week.)
Some C++ references:
For Jargon, I use FOLDOC (Free Online Dictionary Of Computing).
Dinkumware.com has a complete C++ Language Standard Reference.
CPPreference.com seems to be complete too.
And, MSDN has a Standard C++ reference in addition to all the extra Windows-specific shtuff.
For the "ultimate" reference, you can download PDF copies of the C and C++ language standards from ANSI for about $20 each. (You need 'em both, because the C++ standard refers-back to the C standard.)
Compilers
I agree that the Dev-C++ Bloodshed package is a good option. You can also download Microsoft Visual C++ Express Beta free. Although it's "beta", it uses the same underlying compiler as the commercial versions of Visual C++.
I do recommend that your students use a free compiler. The school's budget, and any money spent by students should go toward books!
I always recommend that students use the same compiler as their instructor, but FYI, you (and /or your students) can get the Academic Version of Visual Studio for $100. This is essentially the $800 version of Visual Studio!!!!
Certification:
I would assume that educational certification for Programming / Computer Science is completely different from Microsoft certification.
Last edited by DougDbug; 09-20-2005 at 09:49 PM.