After yesterday’s post, I heard from Jan Lehnardt. Jan, Tiffany Conroy, and Marijn Haverbeke are piloting a workshop named JSFAB (JS for Absolute Beginners) that, well, does what it says on the tin. The initial curriculum (source code) was written by Conroy and Haverbeke, who not coincidentally wrote the highly recommended Eloquent JavaScript.

JSFAB has a clever take on this problem: they’re using an in-browser sandbox and editor, and within that environment, they’ve made available some high level drawing functions. This means that students just learn programming principles and JS syntax by jumping in and drawing shapes and graphs right away. This approach neatly sidesteps many of the problems I mentioned in the last post, and seems perfect for “absolute beginners” who don’t know HTML or CSS. Later on, of course, you can go back and teach them how to rip apart and remake web pages; the key thing is that they’re on their way.

On a personal note, I believe that courses like JSFAB have great potential. We are starting to live in a world that is soaking in ambient computing power. Knowing how to program (even a little) means eliminating drudge work. It means taking more control over your world. So with that in mind, I’m really pleased to hear that the JSFAB crew have already had great success with their first workshop in Europe, and are iterating further. If you have feedback for them, I know for a fact they’d be happy to hear from you!