What do you do to get your kids to programming?
At the beginning of the century there was a thriving web community doing basic HTML + CSS. If you were a "real programmer" you could convert your page to PHP and get into algorithms and databases. I know some peers who started like that, same as me. You could easily create a "professional level" web page at the time. Teenagers were building web pages for pocket money.
Nowadays, we have Medium, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, ... Mostly noone needs a custom blog. What do kids these days to start with programming?
Since I got a kid I was wondering what I can do for him to show him the marvels of that world. Everything seems to be less accessible than anything from the time of my childhood. Including stuff made for that purpose, like RPis. What did you do to tech programming to your kids?
I exposed them to it enough that they are able to make an informed choice about programming and computer science in early adulthood. That’s the better alternative to forcing it upon them.
I mean it’s your interest and that’s cool and all, but your child is not you and won’t be because they can’t be. Even if you became a programmer because your parents were programmers and you just followed in the family business...but if that were the case you probably wouldn’t be asking because you would have first hand experience.
It’s great to share your interest because sharing your interest means spending time with your child and that’s what your child wants and needs. And will even once they are into adulthood if you do things right.
But honestly, fishing is a better way to spend time together because both of you will remember it longer and more fondly than sitting at a screen.
And later you will be glad for the ways your child is not like you and the ways they are like you only better.
It goes fast but it’s a long time still. Not a sprint to be the top seventh grader.
Good luck.
It sounds like you're asking more about getting into practical paid side-jobs than getting basic skills and interest level. Things have kind of gone the other direction with parents willing to pay to someone else to teach their kids some of these skills (coding gyms, etc.), although I don't have any experience with that.
Maybe getting involved with something they are passionate about, like mods for video games or certain open source projects might be a good way to go (w/ Patreon). Or, they could do some volunteer work for local businesses and work their way up to billing. I know a lot of them are keen on reducing the overhead of online ordering/delivery systems.
For teaching basic logic to kids/teens, I found this game really enjoyable, especially since it's tangible and offline: https://www.turingtumble.com/
Creating game mods and levels is fun. Even something as basic as Roblox can teach a kid the basics of developing while they have lots of fun. Fortnite enables lots of level building too. Beyond that, you have Unreal Engine if you really want to go all in.
Automation for video games, did it for me. Hooked me on code and made me realize how unfulfilling grinding up MMOs was.
These are also a good way to illustrate math concepts visually.
You could try the old Asian parents way (seems to work). Just make it very clear there are no jobs outside of medical or technology, and that you’ll throw them out of the house if they dare major in something ridiculous.
MakeCode Arcade is terrific. Its powerful, easy to get started, free, open source, cross platform, and fun! http://arcade.makecode.com
We started with scratch, code.org, recently got an arduino kit with lots of electronics for ~30$ Glitch.com is good for learning “real” web.
I’d disagree it’s less accessible. I think it’s way more accessible than when I was a kid and had to copy the games out of the back of Amiga BASIC magazine. We have tons of free text and video content on how to learn just about any language, free IDEs, and easily downloaded platforms/compilers etc. if anything the problem is that it’s hard to choose.
My wife started a First Lego League team for 8+ year old kids to get them into building with Legos, and programming.
Some other things she uses to encourage programming in the group - bitsbox, code.org and Tynker (younger kids).
I have seen all kids participate and learn with a variety of these options over the past 12 months (remote works really well). I'll get more details from her later today if there's interest.
Daugthers 13 and 7. In our house, we try to relate what pops up in our daily lives and just chat about the related technology or math behind it. Example, ordering pizza online. How does the site know it's us? How the page walks us through describing what we want. Payment, making it, delivery. Old arcade games work too. The animation behind pac-man moving or mario running. When they seem interested, go to scratch and do something together and let them do the driving. Make something simple with quick results then talk about ways to improve it. Sometimes they want to add more, others they don't. Mad libs are fun for us. My oldest coded a simple one in python. Lots of laughter that day. Kids can be initially good at so much when they are interested and focus, but I have remind myself just because they put it down for a little while doesn't mean they won't pick it back up someday. A parental gentle push vs a child's free choice is a balance I have to work at.
I got into it at varying levels at different times.
As a pretty young kid, I got into GameMaker, and got my first taste of programming logic.
In middle school, one of my grandparents bought me a Raspberry Pi, which got me into Linux and Python, neither of which I had a strong need for at that point in time, but which have both made quite a large impact on my life trajectory by now.
In highschool, I programmed my calculator (TI-83 ftw!) because I got tired of doing geometry homework.
My honest recommendation is to find out his interest (games for me), available mentorship (RasPi), or need (math for me), and then show how programming can help.
I should point out that I'm pretty young, probably closer to your son's age then your own. Maybe close to equidistant.
I showed my son (11) how he could right click on a web page to see under the hood a few months ago.
Tonight when he called me he asked if he could have an old Java coding book he found in the basement. Apparently he's been "Hacking" the school computers by editing the HTML on different web pages to add shrek IMG tags.
I talked him through installing notepad++ and the JRE, but also had him install python so he could try the REPL.
He was able to do a quick
>a=4
>b=8
>a+b
12
I'm super proud of him. My daughter (9) was also following along, got notepad++ installed and was apparently working on a HUGE code:)
I'm super proud of her too.
Honestly, start by just asking him if he's interested. I got into programming on my own in the 1980s by playing with TRS-80s at school. Later I bought a TI-994a with paper route money. My parents certainly didn't disuade me, but didn't particularly push it either.
Kids have their own interests. You can support what they want to do or explore, but can't really make them interested in programming if they arent. There's no rule that says your kids will be interested in the same things you are.
I did not know what programming was until I was 18yo, and I am now definetly above average.
Liked legos, and how things worked. My dream job was construction, bricklayer.
Obviously a little biased since I work on it, but we're seeing a ton of folks who remember the old "view source" simplicity of the web bringing their kids to Glitch and getting them started with the same level of accessibility. It's real code, and real web, but as fun as when we were all doing stuff with Notepad + FTP. Not a big leap up from what they're already doing in Minecraft and Roblox.
You haven't mentioned how old your kid is. My kids are 6 and 4 years old and enjoy Osmo Awbie and Ozobot.
My kid 8, started with code.org which gives an idea of what coding is all about , then set him up with Python + Turtle package , which is a good start for kids as it has more graphics and get them started easily . There are few tutorials on youtube which make it better.
I used to work at the company which made this popular free app. You code simple drawings. It had a great response with children and non programmer adults https://art.kano.me/
Hi there!
Sorry for the self plug. I grew up on Neopets and MySpace and I have been teaching CS for years under the guise of introducing retro web back to today's kids.
I usually teach students from 10-15 but I mainly hope that they feel empowered to tackle anything even if it's not programming(since programming, in its essence, is all about debugging/building processes).
I'm lucky that I'm able to teach on a YC startup called Outschool.
Check me out here: https://outschool.com/classes/hacking-web-games-an-introduct...
Also, if you see this and sign up, just private message me on Outschool and I'll give you 25% off.
Anyways, I hope you at least get some ideas that might help by looking at my courses(though there are a few great ideas in this thread too). :)
How old is your kid? If he's in middle school and has a bit of prior programming experience CS50 by Harvard (on edX) is a pretty engaging and thorough introduction to programming (it's how I got started...)
the key takeaway here is that programming is a means to an end to accomplish a goal.
Figure out what kind of goals your kids have and how programming can get them there. Then show them.
Our daughter started programing when she was 8 on MIT Scratch.
Video game mods. So much to do with Lua and the community will cherish anything they make.
Make them watch matrix movies lol