Turtlebox (Commercial, $30 packaged [with CD and teaching guide], $25 online delivery [coming soon])

Turtlebox is a graphics environment for teaching absolute day-one beginners to program in C++. It comes with an attitude toward teaching and learning programming: make it visual and beautiful from the very outset!

Attractive to traditional "techie" and non-"techie" students alike, the Turtlebox method teaches simple graphics commands as the very first programming operations - and almost immediately says, "go play with it." Within a few working hours, students know enough to produce delightful and colorful artwork. A unique, simplified color model helps them along the way.

The product includes Macintosh and Windows compatible software, as well as a teaching manual which may also be viewed here.

Background

Turtlebox uses the Turtle Graphics model, made famous by the LOGO programming language and the research of Dr. Seymour Papert in the early 1980's.

However, Turtlebox operates in C++, the leading professional programming language of our day. When the student has learned what Turtlebox has to offer, he or she can step out of the "box" and into a larger language that is directly useful in the marketplace.

 

Curriculum Content

The core of the Turtlebox curriculum takes 20-30 hours of hands-on student working time. At the end of that time, students will have encountered all the basic concepts of programming, including: functions variables parameters int, float, char, and bool data types if statements while, do-while, and for loops switch statements.

 

Package Contents

• Windows and Macintosh compatible CD, containing header files, libraries, sample code, and online copies of the documentation.
• "How to Teach with Turtlebox" teaching guide, including lesson plans, student exercises, and examples.
• Installation guide.

System Compatibility

You must buy a C++ compiler separately, in order to use this product.

Supported Compilers:

Macintosh:

Metrowerks CodeWarrior, version 3 or later
(academic or "discover programming" versions are adequate)

MacOS 7.5 or later, 68040 or PowerPC processor, 24 MB RAM, 130 MB free on hard drive.
(Check your compiler's system requirements; they may be greater than these)

Windows:

Metrowerks CodeWarrior, version 3 or later (academic or "discover programming" versions are adequate)

or

Microsoft Visual C++, version 6.0 or later (Standard Edition, or better)

Windows 95 or later, or Windows NT 4.0 or later. 80486-class processor, 16 MB RAM, 130 MB free on hard drive. Check your compiler's system requirements; they may be greater than these.