Re: intro

[email protected] wrote:
> The sorts of things I'd really love to discuss on this list include:
> 
> How do you advertise/publicise your courses?

for the first semester, i put flyers up in the Comp.Sci.
department.  since then i haven't needed to advertise;
in fact it's difficult to keep the enrollment around
10, which is the number i prefer.

> What requirements/prerequisites do you set for your courses?

just knowing another computer language.  the class
is not about learning to program in general, but
learning to program in Perl.

> What sort of course materials do you use?

i have a class website (http://etsupl.zfx.com, if anyone's
interested in viewing) that i keep all my class material
on... lectures, documentation, assignments, grades,
the whole thing.  the only paper i use in class is the
syllabus.  i also use the Jon Orwant book "Perl 5 Interactive"
as a supplementary text.

> What platforms do you teach Perl on?

the lab i teach in has WinNT machines, so that's the
platform i use for the first half of the class.
the second half is CGI (that's what the students want
to learn), and i use a Linux box with Apache for that,
which means teaching a little bit of UNIX (these
students are generally 100% Microsoft and rarely if
ever use a command line).

> Do you teach any third-party software with Perl?

no, but i've thought about teaching MySQL.  i've not
done so yet since the class seems dense enough for
the students without adding another piece of software.

> What do you find hardest to teach about Perl?

references, easily.  i've had a very hard time teaching
people who had never seen Perl 6 weeks ago what
@{$this->{members}} is, for example, because of
the bizarre-looking syntax.  i also have the usual
trouble getting students to use foreach() to iterate
through an array instead of for($i=0;$i<=$#ary;$i++)
at the beginning of the semester, but they generally
catch on later.

> Do you use analogies and metaphors, anthropomorphisation, puppet shows?

i make analogies to C/C++ when appropriate.

> Do you get your trainees to evaluate your training?  What do you ask?

i do ask them at the end of the semester to state their
likes/dislikes about the class.  the main dislike is
that i assign too many short assignments, and should
think about assigning less assignments, but have them
be longer.

i'll add some questions of my own:

which modules do you teach?  (i teach CGI.pm, and let the
students teach themselves LWP, Getopt::Std, and File::Find
if they want to use them for their assignments.)

do you require your students to use strict and warnings?
(i started doing both this semester.)

do you assign in-class tests or quizzes?  (i don't,
prefering for all graded work to be writing of 
programs.  i'm starting to think that a few quizzes
may be appropriate, though.)

can anyone give examples of the more advanced assignments
you give? (i assign a shopping catalog/cart CGI application,
and a webpage link-checker, for example.)

that's enough for now; i'm interested to hear what others
have to say.
--
Steve Lane <[email protected]>