The deep end of the pool
"Mark Guzdial and Barb Erickson have shown that introducing students to programming by teaching them Python and writing programs that manipulate images and sound (an approach they call Media Computation) clearly improves overall success rates for students in CS 1 and CS 2. (The use of Pyton lowers the learning curve, and the user of muti-media based assignments improves interest and motivation.)"
http://spin.atomicobject.com/2011/05/17/the-deep-end-of-the-pool/
