I showed the Scratch loop commands as well as how to use variables.  Students worked through a series of drawings individually.

Today we started working with Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu), a free programming environment from MIT used by colleges to introduce programming.  I showed some of the basic commands and said we would be focusing on using our sprites to draw figures for the time being.  Drawing shapes gives us an opportunity to think algorithmically in an environment that is familiar.
I asked everyone to write a script that draws a square — a surprisingly difficult task!  To do so, students had to break down all the steps they do when they draw a …

Today, I came in with some jelly, bread and a knife and asked students to give me instructions to make a jelly sandwich.  At first, instructions looked something like “take two slides of bread, apply jam and put bread together.”  The sandwich robot tore through the bag of bread, sent some slices flying all over, applied jam to the side of the bread and put the slices together upside down.  Students quickly realized that the instructions we give to each other are very different from the ones we have to …

Today was primarily an introduction day — everyone got their schedule sorted out and got an opportunity to introduce themselves to the class. Both sections have really good groups and I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you better.
I went over a bunch of slides describing the course and its goals. Slides are on the course calendar as is the syllabus and the letter I am sending home with you.
We ended the day with a sorting exercise.  We discussed sorting as an important task for software and …