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Khan Academy: Computer Science

khanacademy.org

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Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#11

Post by dudey »

mtgx wrote: post #5
eranation wrote: post #2

I'm checking CS on Khan academy every few weeks with hope for something like this, the Python class was great, but this is really exciting, and having Vi Hart do the videos is cool (or someone with a very similar voice...) - correction: it's narrated by Jessica Liu, who is doing an amazing job too

I wonder why they didn't do the Computer Science class in Python, especially that now more schools are adopting Python. Isn't Python better for learning than Javascript? Did they choose Javascript for this one just because they already had a Python course and they wanted a Javascript one now?

I think that python is the better choice for an in-person class, but building an in-browser js interpreter is a lot simpler than an in-browser python interpreter.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#13

Post by eranation »

dudey wrote: post #3
eranation wrote: post #2

I'm checking CS on Khan academy every few weeks with hope for something like this, the Python class was great, but this is really exciting, and having Vi Hart do the videos is cool (or someone with a very similar voice...) - correction: it's narrated by Jessica Liu, who is doing an amazing job too

It's not Vi Hart doing the videos. See http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

I saw, couldn't find the name of the narrator

I'm talking about the actual videos, not the intro one (narrated by Sal Khan and John Resig)

e.g. this one

http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/intro-to-drawing/848372201

Sounds Vi Hart to me...

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#15

Post by jeresig »

eranation wrote: post #13
dudey wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Vi Hart doing the videos. See http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

I saw, couldn't find the name of the narrator I'm talking about the actual videos, not the intro one (narrated by Sal Khan and John Resig) e.g. this one http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/intro-to-drawing/848372201 Sounds Vi Hart to me...

They're narrated by Jessica Liu, more details here: http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#17

Post by jeresig »

cantankerous wrote: post #8

Methinks "Computer Programming" or "Information Technology" would be a better title for this section than Computer Science. They are more general and applicable to the content.

I disagree. We're working towards the goal of having a comprehensive Computer Science curriculum and this is just the first step. I talk more about our reasoning and methodology here: http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#18

Post by Groxx »

Interactive numbers in the UI: seriously awesome. LOVE that they did this. Hopefully we'll get live updates to code in more systems, it's wonderful.

Lack of a 'course' to go through: ? I have no idea where to start. Nor can many of these be applied outside of the little editor with the 'tutorial'. Elsewhere, KA has a nice 'do this, then that (or that)' set of branching paths that give you a reasonable path to take. I see none of that here. Am I missing something?

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#19

Post by lazerwalker »

mtgx wrote: post #5
eranation wrote: post #2

I'm checking CS on Khan academy every few weeks with hope for something like this, the Python class was great, but this is really exciting, and having Vi Hart do the videos is cool (or someone with a very similar voice...) - correction: it's narrated by Jessica Liu, who is doing an amazing job too

I wonder why they didn't do the Computer Science class in Python, especially that now more schools are adopting Python. Isn't Python better for learning than Javascript? Did they choose Javascript for this one just because they already had a Python course and they wanted a Javascript one now?

It seems pretty clear that it's for practical reasons: you want that sort of rich in-browser experience, it's going to be easiest to provide using JS.

What I think is a more interesting discussion is why they're not using CoffeeScript or some other flavor of JS that glosses over a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the language and arguably offers a more beginner-friendly syntax.

Re: Khan Academy: Computer Science

#20

Post by aangjie »

dudey wrote: post #11
mtgx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why they didn't do the Computer Science class in Python, especially that now more schools are adopting Python. Isn't Python better for learning than Javascript? Did they choose Javascript for this one just because they already had a Python course and they wanted a Javascript one now?

I think that python is the better choice for an in-person class, but building an in-browser js interpreter is a lot simpler than an in-browser python interpreter.

Hmm. that makes sense. because browser have been handling js for a longer time and so there would be more support for a in-browser js interpreter. I have seen some python in-browser interpreters, which are good though.
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