Coding for Kids

[falafel]

My son asked me the other day if he could take a coding class this summer. He has shown a sustained interest in programing/coding, even if he hasn't had any real exposure to it. I thought it would be a cool thing for him to try.

Do any of our pros have any advice on how to get a kid started in coding/programming? I see there are some online programs where you make your own minecraft levels. He hasn't been into minecraft for a few years, so that might not be the best option. He's 13, btw.

TIA.

[creekster]

My son asked me the other day if he could take a coding class this summer. He has shown a sustained interest in programing/coding, even if he hasn't had any real exposure to it. I thought it would be a cool thing for him to try.

Do any of our pros have any advice on how to get a kid started in coding/programming? I see there are some online programs where you make your own minecraft levels. He hasn't been into minecraft for a few years, so that might not be the best option. He's 13, btw.

TIA.

locally they have community summer programs that are coding classes for teens and pre-teens. They also have an evening class for that. You might check your local community school programs for something like that.

[Lost Student]

I'm not one of the professional, but I enjoy it has a hobby. My brother is a programmer. The way he and I both got into coding was just doing stuff for fun. We had a book for kids that taught BASIC and we followed each lesson on our Apple II. It gave us (and especially him) an enjoyment of programming and understanding of simple concepts.

I would just follow that model to start your boy by getting him a book that has simple lessons he can follow along and do. That would at least introduce him to it. I am trying to instigate the same thing in my kids. I bought them a book about programming in Scratch and one of my kids has spent a lot of time on it.

At 13 your son may be too old for Scratch. I would probably find a good book for teens about Python.

[Uncle Ted]

My son asked me the other day if he could take a coding class this summer. He has shown a sustained interest in programing/coding, even if he hasn't had any real exposure to it. I thought it would be a cool thing for him to try.

Do any of our pros have any advice on how to get a kid started in coding/programming? I see there are some online programs where you make your own minecraft levels. He hasn't been into minecraft for a few years, so that might not be the best option. He's 13, btw.

TIA.

Get him an iPad and the Swift Playgrounds app. Swift is the language all the cool kids are learning these days. Of course, the stuff in the swift playgrounds applies to most programming languages.

I did this for my young son a few months ago and he is done with "Fundamentals of Swift" and on to "Beyond the Basics". He is 10.

[falafel]

Get him an iPad and the Swift Playgrounds app. Swift is the language all the cool kids are learning these days. Of course, the stuff in the swift playgrounds applies to most programming languages.

I did this for my young son a few months ago and he is done with "Fundamentals of Swift" and on to "Beyond the Basics". He is 10.

Someone else mentioned getting an iPad and swift. I'll take a look at it.

Hey, off-topic here, but do you happen to have any extra iPads laying around?

[beefytee]

Microsoft stores have some events. This week they are doing "Hour of Code" workshops.

I think they sometime have summer camps that go over several days. I believe most of the events are free.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/locations/nv/las-vegas/fashion-show/store-1025#eventid=1032838521

[Walter Sobchak]

My son asked me the other day if he could take a coding class this summer. He has shown a sustained interest in programing/coding, even if he hasn't had any real exposure to it. I thought it would be a cool thing for him to try.

Do any of our pros have any advice on how to get a kid started in coding/programming? I see there are some online programs where you make your own minecraft levels. He hasn't been into minecraft for a few years, so that might not be the best option. He's 13, btw.

TIA.

My 10-year old daughter did some of this over last summer:

Khan Academy: Computer Programming

It is geared for kids, and the topics include:

• Intro to Programming (using Javascript)
• Intro to HTML/CSS
• Intro to SQL

as well as some advanced Javascript stuff (such as jQuery).

The format worked well for her, but it seemed (to me) that you spend an awful lot of time watching videos and less time doing actual programming (maybe that's why she liked it.) It is VERY basic and they presume you know NOTHING (and also that you are a slow learner).


These two sites are much more "hands-on" (IMHO):

codeacademy.com
hackerrank.com

the free stuff at both these websites should be sufficient to get your son going. probably start with codeacademy first if your son has no previous exposure; the lesson plans at codeacademy are more friendly for beginners starting with just basic HTML/CSS.

hackerrank topics are also excellent, but pre-suppose a higher level of experience than codeacademy.

At codeacademy, I'd start your son with HTML/CSS, Javascript, the Website design courses, the Learn the Command Line lesson, and then Python. Ruby, meh, skip. Java, yes, will build on OO concepts that Python introduces. Git, optional probably at this age. Learn SQL, yes. PHP, yes.

At hackerrank, hit Algorithms and Data Structures (can probably skip Mathematics and Machine Learning for now), review Java and Python, then dive into C++.

[Uncle Ted]

Someone else mentioned getting an iPad and swift. I'll take a look at it.

Hey, off-topic here, but do you happen to have any extra iPads laying around?

Yeah, I have a bunch laying around but don't own any of them.

[Uncle Ted]

It is geared for kids, and the topics include:

• Intro to Programming (using Javascript)
• Intro to HTML/CSS
• Intro to SQL

as well as some advanced Javascript stuff (such as jQuery).

Javascript is such a bastardized language... I pray that WebAssembly will catch on so more reasonable languages can be used for the web.

[falafel]

My 10-year old daughter did some of this over last summer:

Khan Academy: Computer Programming

It is geared for kids, and the topics include:

• Intro to Programming (using Javascript)
• Intro to HTML/CSS
• Intro to SQL

as well as some advanced Javascript stuff (such as jQuery).

The format worked well for her, but it seemed (to me) that you spend an awful lot of time watching videos and less time doing actual programming (maybe that's why she liked it.) It is VERY basic and they presume you know NOTHING (and also that you are a slow learner).


These two sites are much more "hands-on" (IMHO):

codeacademy.com
hackerrank.com

the free stuff at both these websites should be sufficient to get your son going. probably start with codeacademy first if your son has no previous exposure; the lesson plans at codeacademy are more friendly for beginners starting with just basic HTML/CSS.

hackerrank topics are also excellent, but pre-suppose a higher level of experience than codeacademy.

At codeacademy, I'd start your son with HTML/CSS, Javascript, the Website design courses, the Learn the Command Line lesson, and then Python. Ruby, meh, skip. Java, yes, will build on OO concepts that Python introduces. Git, optional probably at this age. Learn SQL, yes. PHP, yes.

At hackerrank, hit Algorithms and Data Structures (can probably skip Mathematics and Machine Learning for now), review Java and Python, then dive into C++.

Good info, thanks. And thanks for all the other tips in this thread.

[Walter Sobchak]

Javascript is such a bastardized language... I pray that WebAssembly will catch on so more reasonable languages can be used for the web.

The wasm stack machine is designed to be encoded in a size- and load-time-efficient binary format.

Reminds me of the name of the C# disassembler... ildasm.

beavis-and-butthead.jpg

[pelagius]

I think the most important thing to teach him is you can never have too many cores:

[Uncle Ted]

I think the most important thing to teach him is you can never have too many cores:

[Walter Sobchak]

I think the most important thing to teach him is you can never have too many cores:

pelag always posting pics of flexing some muscle.

[pelagius]

pelag always posting pics of flexing some muscle.

That's my ivy bridge-e machine so it's not my daily driver but if I'm doing something embarrassingly parallel it is still pretty muscular