This weblog has moved
To allow me to develop more content on this site and to promote a more logical site structure, the weblog is now located at http://peter.mapledesign.co.uk/weblog/. Most links from the old site should still work...
Why's the weblog moved?
I'm not happy with the common concept of blogging, which is why I moved my weblog from being the front page of the site. When I write a lot is rubbish and deserves to be read by no-one, but certain items should be articles, and the weblog was preventing that from happening.
However I've not found a tool which supports both, so if you know of one get in contact! Then I might be able to finish this site :)
Teaching programming to physics students
I spent most of the last year investigating how introductory programming could be best communicated to second year undergraduate physics students at the University of Southampton. This project was great fun to undertake and far more difficult than I'd expected! The approach needed to teach scientists programming is so different to teaching Computer Science students that very little prior research was available.
As a result of my report the School of Physics has modified their course and will be teaching Python to their students in October 2006.
My full report is available online in PDF format. Although I've finished my official work on teaching programming I'm still very enthusiastic about the subject and try and keep up with the latest research. I would love to hear from anyone else who's experimenting with ways to teach programming skills to scientists or engineers.
I'd give you an opportunity to comment on this website, but having got rid of the blog that's a little difficult!