[plt-scheme] Teach Scheme, Reach Java in Indian high school curriculum/syllabus

From: jestew (jason.e.stewart at gmail.com)
Date: Wed Mar 25 06:42:38 EDT 2009

Hey,

My History
--
I had the chance to interact with Guillaume Marceau when he came thru
Bangalore. He commiserated with me over my struggles teaching Java as
a first language in high school in Auroville, South India. The course
I teach is an introductory programming course designed as a
preliminary to a full year robotics course. The robotics course uses
Lego Mindstorm NXT robots, and last year I got frustrated with using
NXT-G as a language and opted to use Java instead (my other choices
were assembly - using NBC - or C/C++ - using RobotC or NXC). So I
wanted all the students to have a single trimester to get them to
understand the basics of using Java.

But wow, the syntax really gets in the way!!

So, PLT + DrScheme looks like an attractive possibility.

My Idea
--
I talked with one of my past students and he is interested in trying
out a summer project with me to test out the Scheme -> Java
curriculum, so I'd like to test it out with him and a few others this
summer as a dry run.

My question
--
I've searched the PLT site and google'd around, but I haven't yet
found a suggested syllabus for how to structure a series of classes,
order of topics, how many hours / week, how many weeks, etc. That
would help me get started. Does anyone have such a guide available?

Thanks! jas.


Posted on the users mailing list.