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Top 10 – Teaching Kids To Code
By John | July 12, 2009
For those of you that follow this blog, you know I have a passion for K12 computer programming. I have two boys (10 and 6) and want to prepare them for skills they might need in the future. At a recent presentation for my 10 yr old’s class I told the kids -”There are two thing I have learned to do early in my life, (play guitar and learn to code), and I am very glad I learned theses two skills.” I even went as far as, starting a web site called “opensourceinthehood.com”, to see if my passion could stick (it didn’t). The problem with this passion is that it’s not my first passion – keeping food on the table for my family is first. However, I was recently preparing to talk to someone about this topic and compiled a list of tools that you might find interesting for your kids… Here goes…
Topics: alice, scratch | 3 Comments »
July 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I am a bit surprised to see two languages in this list of tools, particularly Lua, which I love, and indeed feel is great to start to learn programming, but lacks a bit of pizzaz (graphics) out of the box. Now, there are some Lua-based tools, like Löve, making easy to make games.
I recently discovered Scirra Construct which seems interesting too.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
PhiLho,
Actually I see python and lua as migration languages after the gui based. I think lua is good follow up lang for after the gui/virtual experience and plays well for potential WoW stuff.
Thanks for the comments. In my next life I am going to devote my like to K12 CS education…
John
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Another interesting one is http://www.greenfoot.org, an open source simulation environment geared toward teaching modeling and such. From the guys that did bluej.