Ideas for Grade 11 Compsci Final Project

[sliverofshadows475]

Hey guys, it's been a few days, and the day for submitting my final project idea draws near. But, I can't think of anything worthwhile to do :S

Here's the excerpt from my teacher detailing the project.

"You are to plan and write a modest educational software program/tool aimed to help students learn about or better understand a specific educational topic/subject. Choose a grade range from grade 1 to grade 12 and subject matter that would be taught or covered during one of those years. (Sorry, you may not do a calculator.)

Through this program you must demonstrate the programming skills you have learned up to now, specifically: input/output; selection; repetition; methods; arrays; sorting; searching;; documentation; appropriate style. For those of you who have been experimenting with graphics you may include some in your program Your program should be user-friendly and creative. You will be evaluated on your planning and programming skills, your programming style, and the complexity and originality of your program (given the constraints). "

I can't think of anything that will cover all the topics indicated by my teacher. Also, this is just my first year programming, so my Java isn't all that good.

So, there are no bad ideas. Throw me any ideas you have

Thanks a lot,
+SS

[Tony]

Having a function to display a "high score" list covers virtually all of the "necessary" topics.

Pick _anything_ interesting that you have learned in the last 11 years, and think of how you can teach that idea.

[DtY]

If you decide to do a flash card sort program, you should look into spaced repetition software ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spaced_repetition_software#Computer_software_using_spaced_repetition )

You should think about what subjects you enjoy, or did enjoy through elementary school, and then see how you could make an educational program out of that.

That's all the meaningful advice I can give you, but personally, I would probably make a typing training program given that criteria. You may want to ask your teacher about that though, since typing is rarely taught anymore for some reason.

The way you would probably do this would be like most typing programs, start on the home row and type useless phrases like "a sad lass falls", and then end the sentence with a semicolon because for some reason that's an important key on Qwerty, and then slowly add new keys.

Personally though, I think this is a horrible way to teach typing (especially on Qwerty) because you never write "a sad lass falls down;". I don't know how well this would work in a typing trainer, but the way I taught myself to type was to turn the onscreen keyboard on, and just go on with my every day life without looking at the keyboard (I was learning Dvorak though, so looking at my Qwerty keyboard would have been useless anyway). When I got to around 20wpm, I shut the onscreen keyboard off, and kept going.

You could do something like, show an image of the keyboard (helps to have the keys under fingers in the "proper" position highlighted), and have the user type passages out of books, since then they will be typing something that was actually said by someone.

But I digress.. Good luck with your project, whatever you choose to do.