[mynameisvlad]

> 7. As to exercises? Try to use excercises that the student might have some immediate interest in, or can use in their daily life? For example, instead of some cute game example, show the student how a simple reminder application is programmed? How Google works?(just the basics). Or, how their spellcheck program works?

Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I took an intro to CS course at UBC which is similar to this (I talked about it in a comment thread above) and this was a big thing I loved about having new exercises created specifically for that course. I got to create space invaders (I found that super fun), newer years create a snake game. In addition, I created a simple graph crawler which used Google a lot as a way to tie in what we were creating with what Google does. Now, they create part of a client-server application which resembles Twitter or an IM program. We also created a minmax algorithm for pawns which was really cool since it showed how an NPC could ostensibly be made in a game, although that has been dropped since. It's all really cool examples that simplify something that exists in real life, and really helps engage students a lot more.