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Ask Slashdot: Best Strategies For Teaching Kids CS Skills With Basic?
beaverdownunder writes We're currently working on developing a teaching platform based around our BASIC interpreter DiscoRunner, and we would love to hear from Slashdot readers as to what methods they've used in the past to teach kids computer science concepts — which worked, what didn't, and why? This will obviously be invaluable to us when it comes to working out the lessons that will be taught in our fight-to-save-the-world-from-evil learning environment, and we would be eternally grateful for any scraps of wisdom you could toss our way.
That, and give them a problem to solve. Better yet, let them find a problem to solve.
If there is no drive (i.e. "I just want to learn how to 'program'") they will learn nothing.
My kid is 7 and is getting pretty darn good with Java... Not because he wanted to learn to program, but because he wanted to mod minecraft. Programming was a side-effect to solving a problem. Now he loves it for what it is... He made the initiative on his own and he's much more appreciative on what he accomplishes.
Firstly, don't confuse the students by telling them it's Computer Science, if it's only simple programming.
"If there is no drive (i.e. "I just want to learn how to 'program'") they will learn nothing."
One should not discount the motivations of others. "I want to learn how" can be just as effective as "I want to mod minecraft" (if not *more* so).
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
It's Melody Ayres-Griffiths. She's promoting her new (started setting ip up in December) pixelwitches, which will teach you "training in graphic design, music / audio and videography on Macintosh and Windows-based PCs for $97 per hour." And let's not forget drupal and wordpress work.
But from the look of their discorunner site (hint - she used to do music stuff) she needs someone to tell her that the '90s wants their butt-ugly wordpress theme back.
Archive org shows that the original owner of discorunner.com let it expire in the spring of 2014. It was taken over by the new owner on January 15th of this year. The previous site had to do with ... wait for it ... jogging.
Slashvertisement, pure and simple.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I see a lot of negative comments pertaining to teaching basic as a first step in understanding how to code. I respectfully disagree. I believe that basic removes all of the complexity that gets in the way of learning pure logic skills. I don't see any sense in teaching kids to program and having pointers or even compiling and linking when the best thing for them to learn is the purity of understanding how to create simple algorithms to solve problems. If they show an interest, they can figure out more complex things like compilers, and the complexities of lower level languages like C. I stated in another comment, I learned how to code on a TRS80 color computer, and I think it was invaluable to master that before moving on to more complex and real-world things...