Okay, I minored in college in computer programming. This was back in the late 80's. Our primary language back then was Pascal. Then, for engineering I had to take a class in Fortran (but, by that time I had taken another programming course called programming languages - and in one semester, we had to be able to program in C++, xlisp, ADA, COBOL, etc. Other than xlisp, programming was incredibly easy for me. I have programmed a little bit in assembly on Apples, many years ago, and found it easy but boringly tedious. Most recently, I believe I asked here what would be the best language to teach to high school students for an intro into programming. I finally settled with the suggestion of Python; spent a week learning quite a bit and practicing, then taught a class of high school juniors and seniors well enough that 100% of them could write simple programs to do things like Simpson's rule of approximation. I have very little experience in graphical environments though. Ability-wise, my profs back in college regarded me as an excellent programmer compared to those majoring in that subject area - I could program circles around most of them.
This year, I'll be integrating a classroom set of ipad2's into my classroom. There aren't many apps available that relate very well to the courses I'm teaching. I am wondering how hard it would be to develop my own apps for helping to teach geometry, calculus, physics, . . .? And, if I developed my own apps and they were good, would I be able to gain any income from selling them at itunes or wherever apps are sold? I know that for a lot of the apps that we use, our school will be shelling out 2 or 3 bucks times the number of ipads we have. Seems like there's an educational market that may just start to open up. In the past, I've glanced at other educational material that people have made available online - most of it was crap compared to what I've produced in my classroom; so I have a feeling that unless there are huge hurdles ($1000 or more for developer's software or something), this could be a nice thing to do on the side.
Comments? (Sorry if this seemed long winded, but I thought experience and ability are pretty important considerations for any advice.)
This year, I'll be integrating a classroom set of ipad2's into my classroom. There aren't many apps available that relate very well to the courses I'm teaching. I am wondering how hard it would be to develop my own apps for helping to teach geometry, calculus, physics, . . .? And, if I developed my own apps and they were good, would I be able to gain any income from selling them at itunes or wherever apps are sold? I know that for a lot of the apps that we use, our school will be shelling out 2 or 3 bucks times the number of ipads we have. Seems like there's an educational market that may just start to open up. In the past, I've glanced at other educational material that people have made available online - most of it was crap compared to what I've produced in my classroom; so I have a feeling that unless there are huge hurdles ($1000 or more for developer's software or something), this could be a nice thing to do on the side.
Comments? (Sorry if this seemed long winded, but I thought experience and ability are pretty important considerations for any advice.)
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