Last Post of the year

This is the mushy gushy post where all happiness and regrets are laid out on the table...as well as the requirements for this blog post.
This was a pretty good year, I have to say. In spite of how it may seem, I really learned a lot (I suppose I just took longer because I am a visual learner and some of these concepts seemed...a bit hard to visualize). I have to admit that this class wasn't exactly what I was expecting at first, but then again, my perception of this class kept changing. I came in thinking we'd end up sort of learning a little bit of all kinds of programming (like, free samples at Baskin Robins), then we went on to Scratch and I thought "Awesome! We get to make games!" but then we moved on to Jeroo, and I have to say, even now, I still don't like Jeroo. I don't really feel like it was that good an introduction to python and half the time I just wanted to throttle the poor things. Plus by the time the midterm  came around, I didn't feel confident enough to handle them as an entire semester grade.
And then python came around and when I saw that we were just doing lots of labs in python I figured that that was allll we were going to do the rest of the semester and that python was going to be our final exam and I kinda just brain died by then. BUT THEN WE GOT THE CUTE LITTLE FINCHES and my willpower to carry on came back. Nathan and I named our finch Ash, which I have to agree was a pretty good name agreement (usually we don't agree on this sort of thing easily). I reaaaaally enjoyed seeing my programming being applied into real world, visual stuff (I guess that's all I ever wanted?) and when we only did a couple of things with the finches, I felt really sad.
I miss the little guys...I just really like robots...a ton...
And then after many more weeks of python, we got to do the app thing! Which honestly I thought would happen a lot earlier than it did (but then again I fell realllly behind so the blame's on me for not starting as early as I could have). I do wish, though, that we had seen the app inventor stuff around the time we did Scratch, since the interface is so similar, but it's like a couple of steps up. I think it would've been a better lead in than Jeroo, to be honest.
I really liked Scratch. In spite of everything anyone who didn't like it has to say, I thought it was awesome. I enjoy seeing my work in a visual way, and with the right coding and imaginative thinking, Scratch could do a LOT more than we gave it credit for (I mean, that video game you showed us was AWESOME. I would have rather made something like that for our midterm). Python was pretty good too, but I still haven't seen it show me something I can truly see, or a use (although not necessarily a useful use) for it. The only time I saw anything was with the graphics coding...but that was just really still and there wasn't that much opportunity for creativity there. I suppose that's also something I didn't like about the python labs, there wasn't much (besides the way we coded it) that we could imagine ourselves.  Although don't take that stuff into account too seriously, I'm sure the other kids were ok with it, I just like to actually see what I make because I feel more accomplished in that sense.
If there's a chance for your students next year, they should definitely work with Finch more! It definitely got me interested in programming robots more (as I already was) and I think we need more people interested in that field, considering the way technology works nowadays. Plus the Finch bots were just really adorable.
I also wish we had been able to do more outside-the-computer work activities, like in the beginning of the year. I didn't really get to know most of my classmates (except for the stuff they yelled out) and it would've been cool if we had all worked together to program an entire computer or something of that sort.

In any case, I really enjoyed taking this class! Sometimes I've had classes that I really regret having taken, but this was definitely not one of those. I've always been interested in coding, but never got much further than HTML and a bit of CSS (which...isn't really...that hard...I guess...is it even considered proper coding?), but now I have a deeper knowledge of all that coding is and can be and I will probably be interested in making a game or something in the future and I will not just be going up the creek without a paddle!

Thanks for putting up with me this year!