Ask Slashdot: Best Strategies For Teaching Kids CS Skills With Basic?

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 7, 2015 @09:10AM from the goto-from-here-on-out dept.

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.

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Re: Lock them in room with books about BASIC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-03-07 09:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.