Methods for engaging students when teaching unpopular or unfashionable topics
There two important facts here:


  
  Complexity is in every programming language
  Popularity is due to a marketing monster talking on every opportunity (for example on the Youtube adds about what is trending
  and what not)
  


For the first point.

We need to translate programming teaching about new fields; for example in many cases teachers spend a lot of time talking about theory, origins and giving more importance to math exercises

For the second one We need to know more about other technologies, for example if an student asks to me, hey teacher why I do need to learn Java, existing Python or Ruby?

Things yo shouldn't do it


dear student Java is ugly but neccesary to get a job


Things you probably should do it


  
  Java is a complex language
  Java around the world is the key to get a job in a easy way
  (Showing proves) Java has the most high salaries
  I f you get fluent in Java is very secure you can move yourself to many other languages
  


Many times the key factor is "What I can do if I learn this technology"?

And the answer for this question is not easy for many IT Teachers, for example I know a lot of them whose only make simple math exercises about calculate pows, substracts and stuff like those.

As technology moves, Teacher needs to do in the same way; for example:

PROPOSALS


  
  We're going to learn Java, for building an app
  We.'re going to learn Java for building a chatbot using the Facebook API
  Maybe we're going to learn Java for building a Instagram clone
  We're going to use Java but combined with Angular for example for building an API
  


I mean programming languages are cool but is better what can we do if we understand them

At the end We as IT Teachers need to move, re learn and interpretate how this world is changing in every oportunnity

example

Fr this course I need to build an app with my students:

the good


apps are very popular
they are expecting discover something amazing
I choose to use Angular 6 


the bad


They have not computer in many cases
They don't know how to use simple tasks: email, word .....


I choose Angular for building an PWA, is a good alternative, I will show them differences and similarities

Advantages


They will discover with me how to program
in spite of not use Java, We're going to understand how to build a product
Students will be free to choose the content of this PWA
PWA is part of some requisites for web development jobs


So I will be give them another option, itself they can change after if they have the ooportunity to learn Java or any other thing