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Ask Slashdot: Professionally Packaged Tools For Teaching Kids To Program?
Binestar writes: I've been doing IT consulting for years, but I'm not a programmer beyond bash scripting, perl scripts to make administration easier, and batch files to make Windows easier. I recently found an online course for modding Minecraft that my 9-year-old daughter is really enjoying (she built a custom sword that shoots lightning). Does anyone have any recommendations on online courses that would be age appropriate and worth the investment? It's been easy to get her interested in the Minecraft modding course because, as any parent with young children knows, Minecraft is kinda popular...
The course she's taking now is teaching her Eclipse and Gimp, and I'm sure there are other tools installed that they haven't had her open yet. What other vendors have stuff worth introducing her to? I've also started looking at things like the Kano and Learn to Mod, but as a non-programmer, I'm not really sure which are most useful for introduction and which are accomplishing what they claim vs. being a waste of money/time.
Anyone have experience or suggestions to help sort this out?
The course she's taking now is teaching her Eclipse and Gimp, and I'm sure there are other tools installed that they haven't had her open yet. What other vendors have stuff worth introducing her to? I've also started looking at things like the Kano and Learn to Mod, but as a non-programmer, I'm not really sure which are most useful for introduction and which are accomplishing what they claim vs. being a waste of money/time.
Anyone have experience or suggestions to help sort this out?
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hopscotch on ipad is aimed at teaching kids to program visually
I would (and will) use these cool chips to build programs that really interact with the world.
It is so easy these days.
Of course then I'm not answering your question at all. There are nice interfaces
to program these, but I haven't used any that are made for kids.
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They learn to code and they see interactive results in the real world instead of just looking at a display.
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I recently bought my little sister, 9, a kano kit from kano.me. It's like a build your own computer kit, just a raspberry pi with a case and color coded cables. It comes with a colorful instruction booklet like a LEGO set. It has some code-blocks like programming environment that walks kids through how to write simple programs. The code she showed me had her making full blown for loops and such. Rather than run your code and print to stdout, it would generate a scene in Minecraft. She told me that she asked a boy in her class who liked Minecraft, "how long would it take you to build a castle in Minecraft" and he said "about a day." She replied "well, I could do it in about 5 minutes, because I know how to program." That right there made it well worth the cost.
I'm afraid I don't have any specific suggestions, but if you want them to get interested in programming, it needs to be an environment that let's them build things that they're already interested in. Generally speaking, that probably means it should be relatively simple to create videogames in the environment you choose. I learned how to program in AppleBASIC on an Apple II+ as a kid, and the very first thing I tried once I reached a basic level of competence was to create a videogame. I've seen this pattern over and over. Even college students seemed to be a lot more enthusiastic about final projects if they had the option of creating games - nearly all of them opted to do so.
Modding existing games is a great place to start, because they're already starting out with something they like, and they can see results very quickly. The downside, of course, is that setting up a modding environment is often rather tricky (depends on the game, of course). Other good candidates are things which affect devices in the real world, such as controlling robotics. Lego Mindstorm comes to mind. Seeing real-world reactions from something you programmed is incredibly addictive.
I've long wished there was a quality multi-media / game development engine (2D would be fine) all in one development environment that contained a lot of sample art assets and an integrated language that's simple, robust, and safe. Many modern development environments are often too difficult to set up, unfortunately, and those "all-in-one game development" packages I've seen have been severely lacking in quality. Granted, maybe there are some good ones out there I haven't seen.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
After being used to more powerful IDEs I was at first unimpressed with the Processing IDE. However, the more I mess around with it, it's not all that bad. It's what the Arduino's IDE is based on and where I was first introduced to it.
I could see it being a very good introduction to programming. Simple interface, easy to set up and tons of examples and tutorials. Write code, click "run".
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If she is interested in learning programming, there's several courses on Khan Academy that do basic Java/Javascript that are age appropriate. My 9 year old had never shown any prior interest in learning how to do anything beyond games and Youtube on the computer, but I set her up on KA one afternoon and she spent about 30 minutes figuring out how to draw boxes on the screen to finish the requirements, then spent another hour and a half drawing things on the screen with Javascript. Access is free, and has other things she might be interested in as well.
My first programming language (5 years old, 1985) was Apple BASIC. Online interpreter:
http://www.quitebasic.com/
When I was in 3rd grade, we programmed in LogoWriter. Looks like there is a web-based LOGO interpreter here:
http://turtleacademy.com/
Next, I learned PASCAL.
http://www.compileonline.com/c...
None of that stuff is OOP (although imperative is still a very important paradigm).
Once you want to move past kiddie stuff, I'd set her down with a C# IDE (the free-as-in-beer Visual Studio edition or the free-as-in-really-free MonoDevelop) and some YouTube tutorials.
Raspberry Pi Foundation has loads of stuff - see under Resources, Teach and Learn and Make http://www.raspberrypi.org/ - all intended for young people (and its on Creative Commons licences). The "Teach" stuff is written by Carrie-Ann Philbin, who is a professional teacher - she has quite a few videos of good stuff on Youtube.
The Mag-Pi, a magazine free to download (28 issues already) , has tutorials for games in both Scratch and Python, and Minecraft - anfd there's plenty of stuff in there that might fire YOU up! http://www.themagpi.com/
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I'm guessing that your kids doing this level of programming are not in elementary school, this guys daughter is 9! Good Grief!
Personally I would not even consider trying to get a 9 year old kid into programming outside of school (boy or girl). If she want's to mod Minecraft good for her, but don't pressure her or even encourage her beyond this. 9 years old is an age where kids should be learning social skills and exercising their imaginations. Motor skill development at this age is also important. Teach her chess and play with her, make sure she has social activities with friends her own age, let her get involved in school plays and be in the band, baseball and soccer are other great activities. Sculpting, painting, drawing, reading, Tai Kwon Do, anything but encouraging her sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time.
A game like chess can develop logic skills and planning abilities without the isolation of programming (I.E. Don't dump her off on chess.com and leave her there). Encourage what she should be learning at 9, not what is the most convenient for you to have her learn at 9. Here is a consideration: If your daughter was one of those rare geniuses ready to graduate college when other kids her age are in the 7th grade, you would not be asking the question. She would have picked up C on her own and been programming already, without your assistance.
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Don't let them play it is first thing that comes to mind.
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So how should people deal with video games that take 75 minutes just to get to the first save point, like Majora's Mask?
Is that seriously a problem for most 9 year olds?
I think the only thing my kids ever did at that age for 75 minutes without a break is sleep.
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