Re: Teaching with NetBeans

> At 11:41 AM 6/12/03 -0400, you wrote:
>>...

> my suggestion would be to do the same and make the projects count less for
> the grade and make the tests count more and have a good portion of the
> tests require code or psuedo code. you can't really solve the cheating
> problem anyway. there is too much stuff on the web. but even rewritting
> someone elses code helps insert it into one's brain.
>

A simple diff will catch identical codesets. Without too much effort, you
could write a "normalizer" to get rid of punctuation/grammatical
differences and anaylze that. Simply looking at every program reveals a
lot.

I'm always puzzled by tests in programming classes. IMHO, they measure
very little about what programming knowledge a student has acquired. You
aren't tested in the real world, but you're measured by your ability to
solve problems. My approach to this is to never give tests, but do lots of
projects, including a final project in lieu of a final exam.

   Sean

PS: Don't give up BlueJ, especially for your entry level students. I
regret doing that last time - NetBeans was just too much for some of them.
NB and BlueJ solve two different problems, very well. Just like other
tools, pick the right one for the job.