Introducing Children to Computers?

Years ago, kids could be gradually introduced to computers through learning languages like LOGO and educational computer games. Many of us started our computing careers at our parent's workplace, logged in to a word processor to type away, only to become fascinated with the whole computing thing. So Slashdot, let's hear how you were lured into the digital life. What was it that drew you to a life of programming? How old were you when you first used a computer? What pieces of modern software do you think would be a good way to introduce today's kids to the world of computing? Two of our readers had a few related questions: "A family friend has asked me to help teach her 13-year-old the art of computer programming. I initially thought this would be easy to approach but times have changed since I cut my teeth on text-only, ROM-based, BASIC interpreters. Twenty years ago, it seems there were much more clear and concise paths one could take to learn programming. Now I'm at a loss as to what language and resources I should use. Everything is so high-level that I'm having trouble finding convenient, simple tools that promote the fundamental tenets of programming, allowing newbies to jump in and see immediate results, without getting bogged down in corporate-centric APIs. It seems nowadays most programmers end up spending more time learning the development environment (and thus being confined to specific platforms) than core, transferrable programming knowledge. I'd like to ask my fellow Slashdot dwellers what tools, languages and approaches they have used to help introduce new people to programming?", and from sagefire.org: "My daughter is a huge fan of TuxPaint and ChildsPlay. We use Linux and MacOSX (and occasionally Windows) on different computers. We like to have stuff for her installed wherever we go. The two I mentioned go a long way, but we would love to pick the collective Slashdot brain on this one."

Comments

Cold, Hard Reality

[Mignon]

What pieces of modern software do you think would be a good way to introduce today's kids to the world of computing?

Today's world of computing? Give the kid an EULA from Microsoft, a C&D from Disney, and a subpoena from the FBI. I'm not completely joking, either.

Lego Mindstorms

[LWATCDR]

What more can I say. Let's face it kids today are not going to write a video game to be proud of today like they could back in the Apple/64/Atari day.
However something like mindstorms is fun and accessible. Also a good way to get your feet wet programming.

Python

[__aadidx2690]

My 13-year-old brother recently decided that he might like to learn how to program. He has been fascinated by computers for a long time -- mostly due to computer games.

I've been programming since I was 8 -- about 18 years now -- and I started with BASIC on a VIC 20. I don't think BASIC is the way to go these days, so when I started to teach my brother I thought first of Python. Python has a lot of advantages for beginners and is an excellent tool for teaching programming. It works great for procedural, object oriented or even functional styles.

So far he loves it! At first we were using Dive Into Python as a guide, but he wanted something that he could handle more on his own. Dive Into Python is much better for programmers looking to pick up Python. After a bit of searching I settled on Michael Dawson's Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner. I gave him that book for Christmas and he has loved it!

The cool thing about Dawson's book is that the example programs are all games. It starts really simple (guessing games and the like) but by the end of the book Dawson has you using graphics and animation (thanks to Python's great package support). If you're looking to help someone learn programming then I'd have to really recommend Python as a start and a book like Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner as a guide.

Short and simple...

[198348726583297634]

As a father myself of two adorable li'l monsters, I've decided that they won't play with computers at all until later in their childhood. Computers and TV both seem to encourage a lot of button-pushing, while I'd rather they learn to think and make things in their world. Putting together a unix-alike will be child's play once their little brains are appropriately wired to see the world as the great big machine it is.

PHP is the "new" basic at many places

[NitroWolf]

A strange as that may sound to some, PHP is the "new" basic being taught at many community (and 4 year?) colleges.

My local community college switch just this year from teaching QuickBASIC to PHP as the starter language. At first I was like... WHaaaaa?

Then I got to thinking about it, and realized that PHP can be as simple or as complex as the user wants it to be, and it really *is* a good starter language, and a spectacular path towards C++. The web browser is something most people are already familiar with, and what can be better than designing programs that communicate with your web browser if you want, or they can do other things, obviously... but the web browser is pretty close to a basic prompt, and you can do some neat things that would be entertaining for kids (maybe not 3 or 4 year old kids, but 7 or 8 and up).

If you're like me, your first reaction is going to be the "Whaaaaaa?" to it, but stop and think about it and give it some serious consideration before dismissing the idea... it really does have some merit.

I've been teaching programming using Flash

[jbum]

One of the nice thing about early 80s PCs was that the individual pixels were large. So you could accomplish a lot with a simple program like this one (which I often entered into floor models at the local radio shack):

10 COLOR RND(15)
20 SET(RND(20),RND(20))
30 GOTO 10

Sadly, it is harder to find programming environments for kids that provide this kind of simplicity these days.

Last year I started teaching high school aged kids to make simple videogames using Flash. My class is called "Make your own videogame in Flash Actionscript". Essentially, my class is an introduction to programming, and something of a "stealth math class." I would much prefer to be using BASIC on old VIC-20s, but Flash isn't too bad for this activity.

I'm aware of the huge anti-Flash sentiment on Slashdot - one I generally share when I see it needlessly used on websites. However, I think Flash is pretty good for teaching kids to program.

Since it's vector based, the equivalent code to produce the effect of the above (raster based) BASIC program is too large (see http://krazydad.com/bestiary/index2.html for my implementation), so I have had to rethink how I approach things. I have to start with programs that are simple in Flash, not programs that were simple for me in 1981.

Still, I have to spend a couple classes getting past some unnecessary high-level concepts integral to Flash (like "timelines" and "the stage") but eventually we do get down to programming.

When a kid writes that first program in which they can control something on the screen, they invariably yell "Yes!!" or "Alright!!" This is why I like teaching programming.

The reasons I chose Flash, over something like LOGO (or Squeak) are:

• It provides a hands-on enviroment for the kids to paste in their own artwork and manipulate it without yet knowing how to code.
  
• It's possible to make some very simple games that look good without a huge amount of coding.
• The kids can share their games with others by publishing them on a website.
  
• It's a real-world technology that may get them a job or money.
  

Re:Linux, the open OS.

[calibanDNS]

This is just too true. My wife's two youngest brothers are 13 and 14. They love there XBox (and Halo 2), and got incredibly upset when I told them that it wasn't really that revolutionary. They really believed that Halo was the first FPS with online game play, so I showed them some great FPSes on the PC (Doom 1&2, Quake 1-3, HL, and Unreal). They couldn't believe that people had been playing online for years. Then I showed them mods and how to download and choose your own model and skin. I swear, they almost lost it. They immediately wanted me to show them how to make models and skins, which I'm not talented at. I tried to explain 3D modeling to them, but it didn't go over very well.

In general, they just want their computers to boot up and let them download all of the free music that they can find. They're not interested in learning how to make the computer to do what they want, just how to make it get the songs that they want.

I wish kids were as amazed by computers as I was at that age. My first programming experience was on my TI-82 calculator, where I wrote a couple of games and other programs. I had a C64, but at the time didn't have enough exposure to the computing world to understand what it was capable of. I really wish that I still had that old thing, as it was awesome and would be great to show to my brothers-in-law.

Do Nothing.

[raehl]

Asking "How do we get kids interested in computers?" on a website like Slashdot is like asking "How do we get kids interested in working on cars?" in an automotive magazine.

You don't. Your kids will pick what they want to be interested in as a natural result of what they do in life. My parents tried to get me interested in all sorts of things they thought would be good for me - soccer, football, tennis, math team, piano lessons, foreign language, blah blah. The only two things I ever became really "good/involved" at are computers (my full-time career) and paintball (hobby), both of which my parents discouraged (paintball in general, computers in the "don't spend so much time on computers!" sense). I still resent this quite a bit as I would be better at the activities I ultimately chose to be involved in if I hadn't had to waste time appeasing my parents' desire for me to be interested in the activities they thought I should be interested in.

How did *I* get involved in computers? My dad got a computer with a modem, and I was quickly discouraged from spending time on it because I was spending nearly all of my free time on the computer (time not at school or with friends, when we were not messing around with computers), and this was viewed as "bad". I eventually forced them into getting a second phone line, but the next 8 years that I lived at home would be a constant battle between me and them over how much time I spent on the computer.

Ultimately, I escaped to college and a computer engineering major and then got to spend all the time on the computer I wanted. But those 8 years of fighting my parents over it put me quite a bit behind the kids who'd had unfettered, and even encouraged, access to their machines.

So if you have a computer in your house, and your kid is not ALREADY spending all of their time in front of the computer, they're not interested in computers. Nobody had to figure out for you how to get you interested in computers, you figured it out yourself. It will be the same for whatever your kid decides to be interested in. No matter how much you as a computer geek want your kids to be interested in computers, chances are your kids are going to become very interested in something that is NOT computers, whether it be sports, guitar, chess, student government, whatever. Do your kid a favor and support whatever it is your kid spends all their time doing. If you have to "show" them how to be interested in it, they're not interested in it, and you're wasting both of your time.