BlueJ is incompatible with Chromebooks, unfortunately.
> Some high school students are a few years away from working, coding, in industry --- why not learn real IDEs if it's available?
Very true, unfortunately BlueJ is mandated by Advanced Placement and the tests are on paper (!) but I always prefer a full IDE.
>But if students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me learning the real deal is better for the student. It's not just the IDE and coding in it. It's the entire ecosystem students get to be exposed to. Get stuck on something, jump in the command line. Learn git in bash. Play with maven. It's a rich, real, authentic environment to learn in. Stuck in the browser means only getting what the web site provides.
Unfortunately, the trend is becoming online. I hope the teachers explain that these tools are good for learning but never outside of a learning environment. It's like scratch: you'd never teach it to actual CS students but for feeling out an interest in CS it's pretty good.
>If a student comes and says they have trouble installing Java in Windows, it's easier to just say... go to ReplIt.
If an AP CSA student can't install Java... that doesn't bode well for their general computing knowledge. Then again AP CSA isn't super high level. We just learned about `extends` sub/superclasses in java, and we're pretty far into the course.
>As coding education becomes more widespread, like math before it, more and more classes will be taught by teachers who are not experts in coding, possibly not even by a hobbyist coder, maybe not even by someone who likes code. It'll be taught by an English / math/ bio / P.E. teacher who needs a class to round out their 1.0 FTE.
Agree. My AP CSA teacher is very qualified but I've seen that trend in plenty of other lower-level computing classes in MS and HS like "computer applications" class and "cybersec fundamentals".
>tldr. If students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me learning the real deal is better for the student. But due to everything getting locked down, economic reasons, and teachers/people/technicians being just too busy, the trend in primary/secondary CS education will be towards more web based platforms... because it's better for the teachers/administrators/I.T./wallet.
Sigh, I just hope this doesn't affect the education negatively like it sounds like it will...