Some questions
What makes a language suitable for an introductory course at high school level?
Pedagogical considerations? What is educationally sound? What about industry relevance – should it play a role at school level? What are we trying to achieve at school?
Different people would suggest different criteria. Many criteria have been suggested by many different people. Then there is the consensus issue – Will there ever be consensus?
What are the challenges that we face?
- Small number of learners (and still decreasing), schools and teachers
- Split resources, support
- Teacher training at education faculties – which language?
Both? What impact does this has on the depth of training?
One? What impact does this have?
- Migration of teachers and learners
- One national examination – is it possible to balance the strong and weak points of both in setting one paper?
What is happening in other parts of the world?
Challenges re changing
o Historical Issues o Aim of high school programming – CAPS, other curricula, criticism re current status o (Re)-training issues o Current investment o How important is the language? o What/who determines the language? o Least damage versus unpopular choices o Free software o Emotions / “win-lose” à“win-win” o What is best for the learners?
Decision
- Status quo be retained, BUT
- DBE (still) strongly recommends Delphi
- Provinces should study the documentation to support an informed and responsible decision
- If we continue using two languages
Java has to use IDE/GUI environment: Netbeans (bring about better alignment, not solve all issues)
Two papers, similar (same concepts), not necessarily exactly the same ·
- Scratch as introductory graphical programming language in Grade 10
The curriculum can be implemented using many languages. Though, different languages offer different levels of complexity when it comes to implementing the CAPS. You can ask your subject advisor for more information in this regard