First Year Seminar with Alice

I just finished teaching a January term first year seminar course (highlighted in this YouTube video). Nineteen students (all non computer science students) explored computer science and programming. We used the Alice programming environment which allowed us to construct some interesting 3D animations. In general, the students seemed to like the challenge of providing instructions for their 3D worlds. Although I enjoyed teaching with Alice, I am still convinced that Python is the appropriate programming language for beginning students. This is especially the case when used with our cTurtle (turtle graphics) and cImage (image processing) modules.

Python

Some of you may be looking for Python resources related to our textbooks. The PythonWorks website has been our primary repository for material. However, for our most recent book, Python Programming in Context, we are also going to use a blog to track errors and comments. You can find the link in My Blog List.

Welcome

I am in the process of moving my home page to a Google hosted blog. My current link from the Luther College CS department will redirect to this page. My hope is to keep this site up to date for all my courses, book projects, and other miscellaneous stuff. I will still use Katie at Luther to manage my courses.