Microsoft Kids corner and Small Basic
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I wanted to see if I could teach my six year old daughter some programming (may be too early but worth a try). While looking at various options: I came across Microsoft Kids corner[^] and this awesomeness[^] (Small Basic). I did not know about both of them before today.
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I wanted to see if I could teach my six year old daughter some programming (may be too early but worth a try). While looking at various options: I came across Microsoft Kids corner[^] and this awesomeness[^] (Small Basic). I did not know about both of them before today.
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In between posting here, coding and having supper I have just watched a BBC TV program of a concert by Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton. One of the songs they did was Voodo Chile. Not as good as Jimi, but bloody good all the same.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” Why do programmers often confuse Halloween and Christmas? - Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec. Business Myths of the Geek #4 'What you think matters.'
My public library has that concert....well, maybe not YOUR exact concert....but those two great guys anyhow, in concert, live and rockin', on DVD. Might be worth a look for anyone who didn't see it on the BBC tonight! :-D
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I don't know if a product exists for the propose - but it would be great if you introduce her to flowcharts. i.e. creating flowcharts for simple activities like going to school, going to park or something similar - just make sure let her do any thing she likes and not you likes.
I would think that the nice visual aspects of the UML might appeal to children....I like the little actors very much myself! :-D
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I don't know if a product exists for the propose - but it would be great if you introduce her to flowcharts. i.e. creating flowcharts for simple activities like going to school, going to park or something similar - just make sure let her do any thing she likes and not you likes.
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No, Scratch is not boring. You've got to think what is a six year old going to be interested in programming for, and focus on small tasks with instant payoff. Does she like music? Then program some noise (drums, beeps, etc controlled by the keyboard or mouse), or show her how to record and playback herself singing. Does she like drawing? There's a (primitive) drawing program she can draw a picture - then do a program to spin it around or change its colour. There are plenty of program examples - does she like "Knock knock" jokes? They're pretty funny at that age and she can make her own from the examples.
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Probably shouldn't start out with OOP.
Really? Alan Kay and the Squeak community may beg to differ - one of the primary motivating factors of Smalltalk has always been making this stuff accessible. The eToys project, particularly, exemplifies this approach. I'd agree with the comments as far as development tools that adopt a more mixed approach to object-oriented development. C#, Java and VB are all nowhere nearly as accessible to small minds. Part of the problem here is the language - all these languages are not truly object-oriented. Another major factor is the IDE's, which would overwhelm small minds. Amazingly, my 6 year old also coped with a small guess-the-number game in Haskell of all things. Not the approach I'd pursue if teaching him seriously - he just enquired what I was doing, and we ended up writing it together.
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Really? Alan Kay and the Squeak community may beg to differ - one of the primary motivating factors of Smalltalk has always been making this stuff accessible. The eToys project, particularly, exemplifies this approach. I'd agree with the comments as far as development tools that adopt a more mixed approach to object-oriented development. C#, Java and VB are all nowhere nearly as accessible to small minds. Part of the problem here is the language - all these languages are not truly object-oriented. Another major factor is the IDE's, which would overwhelm small minds. Amazingly, my 6 year old also coped with a small guess-the-number game in Haskell of all things. Not the approach I'd pursue if teaching him seriously - he just enquired what I was doing, and we ended up writing it together.
Yes, OOP is a very advanced concept. In my opinion, a beginner should learn the basics of control flow, then datatypes, then data structures, and then OOP. That's how I was taught, and it was very effective. (BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, C#) Whenever the topic of beginner language pops up I recommend Perl. :-D
modified on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 9:16 AM
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Yes, OOP is a very advanced concept. In my opinion, a beginner should learn the basics of control flow, then datatypes, then data structures, and then OOP. That's how I was taught, and it was very effective. (BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, C#) Whenever the topic of beginner language pops up I recommend Perl. :-D
modified on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 9:16 AM
I'd have thought that if you're new to programming you might find it natural to start with OOP. I agree about the control flow, etc., but you can learn those at the same time.
Kevin
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I'd have thought that if you're new to programming you might find it natural to start with OOP. I agree about the control flow, etc., but you can learn those at the same time.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
at the same time
I can't learn two things at once. You need to learn the fundamentals first -- hence the name. :-D
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Kevin McFarlane wrote:
at the same time
I can't learn two things at once. You need to learn the fundamentals first -- hence the name. :-D
You learn hierarchically but that doesn't mean you need to learn a procedural language and then an OO language. Of course, there's no harm in doing it that way but I don't see that it has to be like that.
Kevin
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I wanted to see if I could teach my six year old daughter some programming (may be too early but worth a try). While looking at various options: I came across Microsoft Kids corner[^] and this awesomeness[^] (Small Basic). I did not know about both of them before today.
Another first language? 'cringes' I want to read it but I know what everyone is going to say already. -.- And I still vote Ruby/Python/C. :P I like C, I like the name Ruby (language is also pretty cool), I like playing with Python. Although I learnt to program on a TI-83+ and found C/Assembly easy, so a variant of basic is always a good idea. If you really want people programming, give them a graphics calculator and show them the "Program" tab. Beats listening to maths teachers talking about how to find the area of a square yet again. :P