Information and blog posts about various programming languages.
Last week I talked about my experiences with teaching lists to new programmers using the Scratch programming language. In this post I’ll walk through an example, showing how lists can greatly simplify a program that has a lot of similar variables. Let’s say your teacher has asked you to help write a program to determine … Read more
When I first learned programming, I struggled to understand the concept of lists and arrays. (The exact definition of these terms varies depending on the language but I’ll be using them fairly interchangeably here.) It was not immediately clear to me why I would need a variable containing more than one piece of information when … Read more
One of my favorite things about the micro:bit is that it comes with several sensors right on the board that can be used without any additional hardware. However, if you’re just starting out with a micro:bit, it can be a little challenging to know exactly how to use them all. In this post, I’ll be … Read more
In my previous post, I discussed how I cleaned out and restored my old TI-85 Graphing Calculator after finding corroded batteries inside. After finally getting it to turn on, I immediately started reliving my high school experience. It was honestly kind of surprising how quickly my memories came back to me. Despite not using the … Read more
In my previous post, I discussed an issue in Scratch relating to Nested If statements. I think that by limiting the If statement to only one conditional (an If condition or an Else condition), the concept of multi-conditional statements has been made more difficult that it should be. I believe that Nested If statements are … Read more
I love using Scratch to teach children and others about coding. By using blocks instead of syntax, it has simplified coding to make it accessible even for very young children. I love that it has eliminated the need to learn some of the more difficult aspects of coding such as where curly brackets and parenthesis … Read more