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All of my programming classes have been helped tremendously by having access to a computer… In all seriousness I think we are still in the discovery process of

All of my programming classes have been helped tremendously by having access to a computer… In all seriousness I think we are still in the discovery process of what tech will help with and what it won’t.

jtbayly 5y ago
One of the best programming courses I took we only used pen and paper to write pseudo-code. Not having actual computers allowed us to focus on what we were learning, rather than wasting time with the arbitrary details of a particular language’s syntax.
- krageon 5y ago
  > rather than wasting time with the arbitrary details of a particular language’s syntax. Learning strict syntax and semantics is the most difficult for students just starting out with programming. It's not wasting time at all. Programming on paper can work great, as long as the syntax is well-defined and graded for.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    This was not a basic intro to programming course. It was an intermediate theory course.
    - krageon 5y ago
      In an intermediate theory course asking to "not be bogged down by syntax" would be a big red flag for a student (to me). Perhaps we just have a different attitude to this, that is okay.
      - jtbayly 5y ago
        We spent many hours each week on 4 homework problems (per week) that were progressively harder, and built on each other. Not sure how to explain, but there was no need to have any extra time spent on getting the syntax right. If you could figure out the logic, that was what you were supposed to be learning.
xienze 5y ago
> All of my programming classes have been helped tremendously by having access to a computer… That's sort of like saying that writing is helped tremendously by access to pen and paper. Usually the question of "does tech in the classroom help" is related to overall educational outcomes. And where it's not so clear is the fact that, well, overall educational outcomes in the US have been on a downward trend for decades despite access to tech in the classroom only increasing over time.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  Overall educational outcomes in the US have been on an upward trend for all groups, with the percentage of test takers achieving a perfect score on the SAT or the ACT steadily increasing year over year. People who went to school decades ago were dumber than people who went to school recently, and it isn't even close.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-over-time https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-over-time Note that the SATs have been renormed a couple of times.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      You're looking at averages, which are strongly affected by the fact that more people are going to college. The percentage of perfect scores shows that even despite more people going to college, people at the top (though it's true at every level) are smarter.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Or it may show that the test is easier. I.e. the "renorming" done more than once.
WalterBright 5y ago
Yeah, well, I learned programming without class. (Pun intended.) > I think we are still in the discovery process of what tech will help with and what it won’t. In 40 years of computers in the class, we've discovered that tech in the classroom doesn't help with anything.
- Schroedingersat 5y ago
  It could, but only when used in moderation and only when it isn't designed primarily as a tool to line pearson's, microsoft's, and apple's pockets
- baash05 5y ago
  My kids had to bring laptops to class. So far (3 months in) they've used word and typing.com. Honestly, they've learned way more programming at home. I mean more than the zero they've done at school.
toast0 5y ago
People who learned by preparing punch cards and getting the results back another day probably get their programs correct on the first try more often though. At least for me, there's a lot of cycling on stupid errors, and it bites me when I work in a language that's slow to compile or in an environment that's slow to run (or both, like Arduino with its C++ and flash before run, or some corporate development stacks)
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I'm currently on HN while waiting for my latest pull request to go through the test suite. Many times I try to work on another PR instead, but am very bad at context switching between two branches, and inevitably screw both up. I even fixed the command prompt to display which git branch I'm on, but that's not enough.
Schroedingersat 5y ago
Idunno. The people that learned APL were arguably better off than the people forced to pull a bunch of knobs on some high level framework with no understanding of what happened underneath. I'd say this one is probably a wash, whereas in the other subjects it's actively harmful.
alisonkisk 5y ago
xyzzy21 5y ago
You are not representative of the majority of children being schooled. You are actually a 1% rarity which should not be used as a template for the majority.

jtbayly 5y ago

One of the best programming courses I took we only used pen and paper to write pseudo-code. Not having actual computers allowed us to focus on what we were learning, rather than wasting time with the arbitrary details of a particular language’s syntax.

krageon 5y ago
> rather than wasting time with the arbitrary details of a particular language’s syntax. Learning strict syntax and semantics is the most difficult for students just starting out with programming. It's not wasting time at all. Programming on paper can work great, as long as the syntax is well-defined and graded for.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  This was not a basic intro to programming course. It was an intermediate theory course.
  - krageon 5y ago
    In an intermediate theory course asking to "not be bogged down by syntax" would be a big red flag for a student (to me). Perhaps we just have a different attitude to this, that is okay.
    - jtbayly 5y ago
      We spent many hours each week on 4 homework problems (per week) that were progressively harder, and built on each other. Not sure how to explain, but there was no need to have any extra time spent on getting the syntax right. If you could figure out the logic, that was what you were supposed to be learning.

xienze 5y ago

> All of my programming classes have been helped tremendously by having access to a computer… That's sort of like saying that writing is helped tremendously by access to pen and paper. Usually the question of "does tech in the classroom help" is related to overall educational outcomes. And where it's not so clear is the fact that, well, overall educational outcomes in the US have been on a downward trend for decades despite access to tech in the classroom only increasing over time.

lern_too_spel 5y ago
Overall educational outcomes in the US have been on an upward trend for all groups, with the percentage of test takers achieving a perfect score on the SAT or the ACT steadily increasing year over year. People who went to school decades ago were dumber than people who went to school recently, and it isn't even close.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-over-time https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-over-time Note that the SATs have been renormed a couple of times.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    You're looking at averages, which are strongly affected by the fact that more people are going to college. The percentage of perfect scores shows that even despite more people going to college, people at the top (though it's true at every level) are smarter.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Or it may show that the test is easier. I.e. the "renorming" done more than once.

WalterBright 5y ago

Yeah, well, I learned programming without class. (Pun intended.) > I think we are still in the discovery process of what tech will help with and what it won’t. In 40 years of computers in the class, we've discovered that tech in the classroom doesn't help with anything.

Schroedingersat 5y ago
It could, but only when used in moderation and only when it isn't designed primarily as a tool to line pearson's, microsoft's, and apple's pockets
baash05 5y ago
My kids had to bring laptops to class. So far (3 months in) they've used word and typing.com. Honestly, they've learned way more programming at home. I mean more than the zero they've done at school.

toast0 5y ago

People who learned by preparing punch cards and getting the results back another day probably get their programs correct on the first try more often though. At least for me, there's a lot of cycling on stupid errors, and it bites me when I work in a language that's slow to compile or in an environment that's slow to run (or both, like Arduino with its C++ and flash before run, or some corporate development stacks)

WalterBright 5y ago
I'm currently on HN while waiting for my latest pull request to go through the test suite. Many times I try to work on another PR instead, but am very bad at context switching between two branches, and inevitably screw both up. I even fixed the command prompt to display which git branch I'm on, but that's not enough.

Schroedingersat 5y ago

Idunno. The people that learned APL were arguably better off than the people forced to pull a bunch of knobs on some high level framework with no understanding of what happened underneath. I'd say this one is probably a wash, whereas in the other subjects it's actively harmful.

alisonkisk 5y ago

xyzzy21 5y ago

You are not representative of the majority of children being schooled. You are actually a 1% rarity which should not be used as a template for the majority.