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Ask HN: How best to introduce young children to computing?
I have a four-year-old child who I'd like to gradually introduce to computing. I don't have ambitious dreams of creating a coding prodigy; I do remember a (late) childhood of games and tinkering and would like them to be able to explore the possibilities.
How have my fellow HN readers attempted this? Games first? Edutainment <shudder>? Start with an emulated Apple II and advance the state of the art at twice real-time from 1977? I'm at a loss. Your expertise or war stories would be appreciated.
- arthurcolle 7y agoI really liked playing with Legos when I was super young (idk maybe 5 to 12?) I feel like that primed me a bit in terms of assembling various components to achieve an end-goal. Actual computing stuff? Consider that young saplings don't have the intellectual maturity to actually grok computers until much later. Sorry my comment doesn't help more.
- jstewartmobile 7y agoI think that's putting the cart before the horse. With adults, strong math and language skills have been much stronger indicators of coding performance than specific training. So pin-down the basics, and you get a potentially great coder for free! If I recall childhood correctly, they dumped BASIC/LOGO on the class, had us grind through a few cookbook recipes, and none of it was particularly inspiring. To a kid's mind, it's like, "So, I type all of this into the computer, and all I get is a stupid circle?!" Papert is a dead-end. Fast-forward to high school--after algebra, geometry, and calculus--and the value of the computer becomes apparent.