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While we are here, I'd like to ask another question that If kids need to be taught to code before they turn 12. First of all, HN being a place where board games

by amrrs 9y ago

While we are here, I'd like to ask another question that If kids need to be taught to code before they turn 12. First of all, HN being a place where board games are lauded before Digital Smartphone games, How is teaching kids to code (using digital devices) seen. Also, a day back, Woz made this comment: "Woz advice on coding for children. Meanwhile, Wozniak cautioned parents to not force coding skills to their wards until the age of 12. He explained that the first 12 years are pivotal and crucial in shaping cognitive and thinking mind. “Coding is very important. It doesn't need to be taught before 12 years." I'm seriously looking for some thoughts to validate my idea that coding could be started from Kinder garden (as young as when they learn to count numbers)

yorwba 9y ago
I don't think it's a question of "need to be taught". Rather, you can have a lot of fun with code, but how are kids going to find out if nobody shows it to them? If they don't show interest in any of the things you can do with code, then don't push it. I was a bit older than 12 when I learned programming with AutoIt, Ren'Py and Blender, but I would absolutely have enjoyed it if I had found out earlier. I didn't learn those because some adult told me to, I found out about them through my friends. AutoIt is a programming language geared towards automating interaction with GUIs. A friend of mine was using a program written in it to bot in some MMORPG, and being able to control the mouse pointer also lent itself to prank programs we'd send each other. I learned quite a bit just by modifying that original program, and later implemented Gaussian elimination in AutoIt to take care of my math homework. I learned Ren'Py when another friend showed me a simple visual novel he'd written in it, and I got inspired to write my own. For some aspect of it (I think it was to keep track of health points?) I needed to use Ren'Py's Python scripting, and so I ended up learning a bit of Python. Later, I was doing a stop-and-go movie with Lego figures together with that same friend. We really wanted to have awesome 3D effects and had heard that it was called animation or something. So I googled it, downloaded Blender, and went through the tutorial on modeling. I mean, how hard could it be, right? I think Blender is somewhat renowned for the complexity of its interface, but at that time every interface was complex for me. After weeks of painstakingly remodeling Lego pieces down to the little notches, we finally had our space battle with lasers, and it was awesome. Later, I repurposed those models for a game using Blender's built-in game engine, and it was easy in comparison (although I still don't fully understand how rotation in 3D space works). In all of these cases, programming was something I lucked into as part of some other activity. I wanted to do something else, and writing code happened to be easily available as a solution. So I think what a parent can do is give their children the opportunity to play around with lots of different things, and when something they want to do requires a little code, show them how to do it.
contravariant 9y ago
I don't think you can start teaching coding before grammar. And without any arithmetic it's going to be a bit tricky to do any 'proper' coding. Although in the most abstract sense programming is just thinking about what effect a certain sequence of commands has. Like with all kinds of abstract reasoning it can be a good idea to encourage kids to play around with it. However it's possible that some kids aren't ready, or don't have the motivation, to learn those concepts; and forcing them will only make them hate it more. In that sense programming and mathematics should be considered the same.

by amrrs 9y ago

yorwba 9y ago

I don't think it's a question of "need to be taught". Rather, you can have a lot of fun with code, but how are kids going to find out if nobody shows it to them? If they don't show interest in any of the things you can do with code, then don't push it. I was a bit older than 12 when I learned programming with AutoIt, Ren'Py and Blender, but I would absolutely have enjoyed it if I had found out earlier. I didn't learn those because some adult told me to, I found out about them through my friends. AutoIt is a programming language geared towards automating interaction with GUIs. A friend of mine was using a program written in it to bot in some MMORPG, and being able to control the mouse pointer also lent itself to prank programs we'd send each other. I learned quite a bit just by modifying that original program, and later implemented Gaussian elimination in AutoIt to take care of my math homework. I learned Ren'Py when another friend showed me a simple visual novel he'd written in it, and I got inspired to write my own. For some aspect of it (I think it was to keep track of health points?) I needed to use Ren'Py's Python scripting, and so I ended up learning a bit of Python. Later, I was doing a stop-and-go movie with Lego figures together with that same friend. We really wanted to have awesome 3D effects and had heard that it was called animation or something. So I googled it, downloaded Blender, and went through the tutorial on modeling. I mean, how hard could it be, right? I think Blender is somewhat renowned for the complexity of its interface, but at that time every interface was complex for me. After weeks of painstakingly remodeling Lego pieces down to the little notches, we finally had our space battle with lasers, and it was awesome. Later, I repurposed those models for a game using Blender's built-in game engine, and it was easy in comparison (although I still don't fully understand how rotation in 3D space works). In all of these cases, programming was something I lucked into as part of some other activity. I wanted to do something else, and writing code happened to be easily available as a solution. So I think what a parent can do is give their children the opportunity to play around with lots of different things, and when something they want to do requires a little code, show them how to do it.

contravariant 9y ago

I don't think you can start teaching coding before grammar. And without any arithmetic it's going to be a bit tricky to do any 'proper' coding. Although in the most abstract sense programming is just thinking about what effect a certain sequence of commands has. Like with all kinds of abstract reasoning it can be a good idea to encourage kids to play around with it. However it's possible that some kids aren't ready, or don't have the motivation, to learn those concepts; and forcing them will only make them hate it more. In that sense programming and mathematics should be considered the same.