[ianking]

05/02/2013 at 10:15 am

What programming language do you intend to use for National 4 / 5?

[Kathryn Brown]

05/02/2013 at 10:34 am

An excellent question Ian!

This year we have changed programming languages and are now using LiveCode.

We have purposely moved to a language that we believe can be used in a multi level class of National 3 / 4 / 5 pupils.

LiveCode is from RunRev and was developed from the old HyperTalk program. Pupil programs can be converted into apps and downloaded onto their mobile devices.

At present we are using the teaching materials produced by Steven Whyte at Gracemount High School in Edinburgh.

Anyone interested in trying out LiveCode should get in touch with Kevin Miller –
Kevin@RunRev.com

Kathryn

[Andy McSwan]

05/02/2013 at 11:27 am

I’m also using Livecode, They are currently trying to raise funds to make it open source so fingers crossed that works out.

I started using it this year and it’s very easy to learn.

[Kate Farrell]

06/02/2013 at 11:04 am

RunRev’s KickStarter campaign is here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1755283828/open-source-edition-of-livecode

Please do support them – it would be fantastic for all of us if LiveCode goes Open Source

[tracy_m]

11/02/2013 at 6:58 pm

My departments budget won’t stretch to buying livecode so am wondering if AppInventor can be used at N5 and Higher since it’s free?

[sturnbull]

11/02/2013 at 8:44 pm

Tracy
I’ve not started the App Inventor unit yet so i’m not sure how it compares but the recent SQA Implementation event i attended confirmed Scratch could be used as one of the languages for National 4/5 but not for Higher. I’m thinking of using this or BYOB alongside VB.NET.

[Peter W Donaldson]

11/02/2013 at 11:46 pm

Anyone who’s thinking of using AppInventor should visit David Wolbers website

http://www.appinventor.org
and take a look at the course in a box section and

http://www.appinventor.org/book
which has electronic copies of the appinventor book’s chapters freely available to download as well as the code for the completed apps.

[sturnbull]

15/02/2013 at 10:24 am

That’s a great resource Peter. I’m using App Inventor via Google Apps for Education accounts for the S3 course. Looking at the RSE resource at present and could use these too .Cheers

[ianking]

15/02/2013 at 1:31 pm

I’m still trying to decide on an N4/5 programming language (hence the original post) I have looked at Java (Greenfoot) and considered Python, but Is there any significance in the fact that Visual Basic has been used in the N4/5 unit assessment support documents which the SQA put on the secure site?

[Robert Young]

18/02/2013 at 12:21 pm

Ian, I would love to use Python but I’ll wait till you annoy the region enough to get a build done before I ask for it. At the moment we are going to stick to VB6 and Scratch.