Looking for ideas from teachers of MicroWorlds EX

[Nadia Bluhm <nadia.bluhm@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

 I will be teaching a MicroWorlds class starting this coming January.  
I will be teaching to a class of about 8, 9-12 year olds who have had 
no experience with MW or programming.    Each class will be 1 hour long 
and I will be running the class for 14 weeks. I am a software engineer 
and familiar with MicroWorlds but have never taught kids before.  I am 
interested in teaching programming and not just the multimedia aspects 
of the software.  Wondering what the best approach might be?  Teach a 
few commands each class and let them explore or give them a mini 
challenge each class to work on?  Is it helpful to use  a white board 
to outline examples and then have the kids copy the examples into their 
machines to try out?   Does it work best to have kids work 
independently or collaborate?  Are there any curriculums/books out 
there that you know of which outline a good way to approach the 
teaching of the basic commands and suggest specific projects. (I know 
there are tutorials with the program but I am not sure just having them 
do these in class would make for an interesting class and asking them 
to do them at home may not work since this is not a graded class and 
the kids are very busy... )   Sorry so many questions... Any 
suggestions  would be much appreciated.

thanks,

Nadia