Perl excels at web development. Perhaps have them plan, design, and write their own facebok application?

• Facebook::Graph - santized front end to the Facebook API
• slideshow on the same: A Facebook App in 10 Minutes or Less
• Facebook::Manual further information on facebook application development in Perl
• Developing a Facebook Application for Absolute Beginners has information on the mechanics - signing up for an API key, getting connected to the Facebook application developers community, getting started with the APIss.

Another possibility if the school has liability issues with anything related to social networking might be a google maps application. There are Perl API's for that as well and no limit to the coolness of things you can do with maps:

• Hacking Maps With Google Map API - dated 2005 but provides a brief introduction that can be a roadmap for looking up other information
• Using Perl for Geocoding - much lengthier denser article.
• Create time availability maps with Perl and Google Earth - provides step by step description of how to gather geographic information, give it map coordinates, and generate the KML file needed to display your own google map page.
• Geo::Coder - various CPAN modules for converting locations into latitude and longitude.
• Geo::KML - tools for generating KML files - Google map's XML markup
• Geo::Google - API for reading Google maps programmatically (does not support creating your own map web page)

Disclaimer: I haven't developed either sort of application (yet). These seemed like helpful links to me when I read through them, but I can't vouch for the up-to-date-ness or quality of these links and libraries beyond a look-see.

Update: added link to geo coding modules.

Sometimes Perl isn't the right tool.

If your purpose is to enthuse the students with programming, starting them on Perl is a little like trying to excite them to music by having them play scales on a piano. It might be invaluable in the end, if they stick at it, but you'd be better off in the short term by sticking an electric guitar in their hands.

To that end, something like Alice is more likely to grab their attention.

(If you decide to download it, go here, the local download links run at about 15k/s only!)

I've tried Alice twice before, but each time it's been met with rage and hostility. Scratch is very well-organized and intuitive, but Alice makes it hard to do even simple things. The first time a student asked about adding two numbers together, we had to resort to a Google search to find out how!

It's very frustrating to know what you want to do, but not know how to express it.

I was considering Java, C++, Python, and Perl. I dismissed Java and C++ for being too complex. And I know Perl better than Python, so that clinched it.

Perl is huge, but you don't have to know all of it to do useful things. For the kind of projects we'll be doing, we probably won't even need regular expressions. So no need to cover those, for example.

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A fair fight is a sign of poor planning.

Wow, that actually looks really interesting!! Wish they made it easier to import 3D objects. ASE is okay but something more portable like the old Wavefront object format would be nicer (or Collada or FBX).

Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

I came across it whilst looking for a solution to my animated graphs problem.

It's way too heavy for that purpose, but I was dead impressed with the tutorials. I haven't done anything more with it though.

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

• http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/09/16/1945227/Teaching-Game-Development-To-Fine-Arts-Students
• http://robocode.sourceforge.net/
• games played with Perl
• How do I get my teenager interested in software development?

A few more relevant PM nodes I remember:

• Quick Programs to make Big Impression
• Plenty of Practical Perl Problems?
• Teaching Perl
• I have been away from perl for a long time. Need suggestions for getting back in the game!
• Perl Puzzles
• Teaching perl over lunch
• Perl Advocacy w.r.t Teaching
• Teaching Perl to Children

Another great one to play with, is SuperFormula, see SuperFormula with gnuplot and Tk.

Finally, if you want a nicer higher overhead canvas, with more features like semi-transparency, zoom, and rotations, see Tk::Zinc. I have a little ready made tutorial for beginners at illustrated Zinc tutorial . There is even a Zinc version of Pong there. :-)

As BrowserUK mentioned above, maybe Perl isn't the best tool for this particular job.

I stated CS using C++. The next semester, in addition to the next intro class (taught in C++), I took a VB elective. The VB class was a TON of fun, and much easier to pay attention to and get engaged with.

When I went to University, I decided to take the into classes again, as they were taught in Java and I thought it would be good to get exposed to that language. They had developed a simple graphics toolkit that had basic capabilities, designed to remove as much complexity as possible while still being useful in an Into to CS type class. This toolkit, as well as a bunch of assignments that require the use of graphics while still teaching CS fundamentals, are all on the University at Buffalo's CS website, under the class homepages of various professors.

Although not Perl, this might meet your needs well - the graphical portion of the work is interesting and engaging (and the assignments are just plain fun), and it teaches good CS fundamentals. I think the licensing would allow you to use it for educational purposes - I haven't looked at it in quite a while but seem to remember that being the licensing terms. You should be able to find a copy and assignments if you look for the class homepages for CSE 115 and/or CSE 116 at the University at Buffalo's CSE site. Here's one professor's archive of class home pages to start with: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/faculty/alphonce/MyWeb/Teaching/Courses/

Well, you actually can do some really cool graphics via Perl: http://sdl.perl.org/ and SDL. I have made furtive attempts to use it but it's difficult to get installed correctly and I didn't have a goal, just wanted to mess around. I do know the Perl bindings are supposed to be wicked fast and the kit can do amazing things.

Thank you for posting this question. ++

This hits home for me since my wife and I are working on a way to integrate programming into classrooms for a variety of subjects (specifically art and current events). The age and environments are different (grammar to middle school with the first program running at an after school program and the second possibly at a regional grammar school in Nicaragua.) But we still have to do similar things like lesson plans with either one big class project or smaller group/individual projects. Most importantly we have the common challenge of connecting with the kids, designing a program that's relevant to them.

The challenge of keeping their interest is tough but I do think there is value in saying "Hey, you guys like World of Warcraft, Facebook or have a favorite iPhone app? Well each are created using these languages and this is what they look like..." They wont learn them then and there but for the ones who will eventually choose this as a calling, lifting OZ's curtain can have a big impact.

What I've found is that Etoys seems to be more appropriate for kids up to 12. Scratch (which looks like you've settled on), Processing or even Squeak I think are pretty right on for high school students IMO. I LOVE ELISHEVA's suggestions and don't see why you couldn't break the class into smaller group projects that give them an opportunity to experiment with each of these tools and methods.

Best of luck and please keep us posted on your experience teaching the class.

P.S. I second your desire to see something like Scratch or Processing written in Perl.

I've found that with most students in this age group, their expectations don't quite line up with reality.

Hm. Shouldn't then your goal be to line up them with the reality? With the simple truth, that to create something original one has to be excited about the text of the program :)

Absolutely. I address that in the first lesson. I go into detail about what the class isn't. No, we're not going to play games all day and get a grade for it. No, we're not going to make the next World of Warcraft. And so on.

You'd be surprised how many sign up thinking it's some sort of Game Appreciation class.

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A fair fight is a sign of poor planning.

I understand this part. Really, I'm just "meditating" on the subject, so sorry if it goes out of the line :)

Somehow, even when I studied in the school myself, I was viewing the process as an interaction between the teacher and the student/pupil. For this interaction really to work, the student should want to get the knowledge and the teacher should want to share it. If at some point the teacher finds him/herself searching for a way to attract attention of his students, then something is wrong. Either the students or the teacher don't fit. And I don't imply that the teacher may simply be boring. I just say, that the goal of the teacher should be to find the best way to give knowledge. At the same time this should be done only for students who want to obtain the knowledge.

I guess, real life can never match the ideal. In real life one should pay and should be paid. So things like winning the attention of students, or students going to lessons not knowing why they take them, these things are quite common. But then, the developers that don't understand what they are doing are also common. Doesn't it look connected? Shouldn't we then try to react to this, or just let it be?

Again, this is nothing else but meditation, not even directly related to perl :)

One thing that I remember getting me pretty excited back in school when we learned PASCAL (a few years ago...) was to write a simple AI for a very simple board game, Connect Four in our case. It's ideal because you only need text input/output and have the real game set-up next to the computer. Connect Four is great because you need some strategy but the moves are very simple. The AI part isn't difficult - you just need to come up with some sort of scoring scheme for the situation on the board at the end of the move and, if there is time to make it more complex, maybe all possible outcomes of the opponents next move.

Another thing I would suggest is screen scraping web sites - maybe some script that gatehrs information about the next show of a TV series?

If you want a little less function, but more portability, there's Processing.js, a Javascript/HTML5 implementation of Processing.

Perl SDL can let you do some nice stuff (Frozen Bubble as the canonical "see, you can program games in Perl"), but not as simply as you can with Processing.

An additional encouragement: Here's what a bunch of design students with no experience in programming at all were able to do in six hours, given a game to start with. They produced some amazing stuff from a Breakout game (with the "lost ball" function turned off).

As long as the point is "show them that you can do cool stuff with programs", any of these would do. The game mod experiment might be particularly fun for everyone.

I think text(ing) is a major part of teens' lives. How about having them write apps that use an SMS interface?