Don't forget Helium (recently announced) http://www.cs.uu.nl/~afie/helium/index.html Also Manuel Chakravarty teaches Haskell to hordes. Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: Hal Daume III [mailto:hdaume@ISI.EDU] | Sent: 04 February 2003 00:02 | To: Haskell Mailing List | Subject: [OT] Teaching Haskell in High School | | Hi all, | | Before getting in to this, let me preface my question(s) with a note that | I have checked through the Haskell in Education web page and have found | various links off there of interest (and I've googled, etc. In | short: I've done my homework). | | That said, I've been in rather close correspondence with my math/computer | science teacher from high school. When I first took CS there, they taught | Pascal (a year early they had been teaching Scheme). They switched over | to VB (alas) recently and have been teaching that for a few years now. | | The teacher really wants to get away from VB, but is having a somewhat | difficult time deciding what to go to. The two most promising options are | Haskell and Java. | | Aside from hype, etc., the primary advantage to Java is that the Advanced | Placement (AP) tests are in Java. For those of you unfamiliar with these, | high school students can take AP tests and then (typically) skip out of | first semester college courses. They're essentially proficiency exams. | | The way the computer science curriculum is set up at my old school is | essentially as either (a) an elective or (b) a replacement for senior year | math. The students in the course are usually about 2/3 juniors (16 year | olds) taking it as an elective and 1/3 seniors who want to get our of | senior year math :). Either way, they've both taken differential | calculus, algebra, etc. Note, however, that high school math in the | states is very rudimentary when it comes to things like "induction" and | "proofs" and things of this sort. | | Due to the fact that CS is essentially an alternative math course, I think | it would be interesting to teach Haskell. It would enable the instruction | of things the students wouldn't have come across in their ordinary math | studies, etc. | | However, I'm also well aware that Haskell is very difficult to learn (and, | I'd imagine, to teach). Given that this would in large part be a first | language for them and that they won't have a college-level math | background, do you think it would be too much to attempt to teach Haskell | at this level, and stick with Java? | | I'm really interested in any comments/experience/etc. that people have | that might assist the teacher (and, to some extent, me) make this | decision. | | Thanks in advance! | | - Hal | | | _______________________________________________ | Haskell mailing list | Haskell@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell