Coding for Kids!
I was about 8 years old, in front of a Commodore 64 and a book from the NY public library on coding in BASIC. It was addictive — drawing shapes, sorting numbers, making images appear and disappear. While that was many decades (but not too many) ago, coding is still a powerful tool in the hands of kids. It intuitively appeals to kids because beneath all the drama, kids like logic. Things need to make sense and have a step-by-step approach. Also admit it, the ‘smartest guy’ in office is the one who can program a macro on Microsoft Excel!
Very recently Mark Zuckerberg launched TechPrep, a program that “aims to help parents, guardians and learners explore programming, the jobs available to programmers and the skills required to become one.” TechPrep claim that by 2020, there will be 1,000,000 programming jobs. But it’s not about coding for a living only.
Coding is a wonderful way to stimulate the young mind and channelize screen time. Get them to be Creators and love the world of Logic. What do kids learn as they create interactive animations, games and art? As per MIT, the creators of Scratch:
- they learn computational ideas such as iteration and conditionals and mathematical concepts such as coordinates, variables, and random numbers.
- they also learn about the process of design. Typically, a student will start with an idea, create a working prototype, experiment with it, debug it when things go wrong, get feedback from others, then revise and redesign it.
- they gain 21st century learning skills and develop a deeper level of fluency with digital technology.
There are already a host of resources available to kickstart young ones. My daughter and I checked out the top few tools.
Read more at http://www.dolphindives.in/coding-how-to-kickstart-the-kids/
