RE: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program
Hi all We had a discussion regarding this at PPIG 2007 in Joensuu. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on Lego Mindstorms and introducing kids to programming using robots. I was at a meeting once where someone professed that if you aren't interested in Mindstorms or robots you won't be interested in programming, now there was an open mind! Why don't we introduce kids to stuff outside of lego and robots e.g. using mobile phone metaphors (things a large number of them are all into, in Ireland anyway) - moving cursor around the screen or predictive texting or a sports metaphor of moving a football player from the corner flag to the centre circle. We seem to persist with robots and lego ad nauseam without wondering if there is anything else out there that can get the basics of programming across to children. Describing something that worked for me is fine, but assuming it's going to work for others or it's the only way it can work for others is not. I have no doubt that lego and robots will work very well for a good number of children but shouldn't we begin to experiment with other things. I have looked at a lot of research material in novice programming and the same stuff appears again and again. Isn't it time we tried something new? Why don't we examine this on an inductive basis where we ask students what they are interested in and let these interests form the basis for programming metaphors. Regards Enda Dr. Enda Dunican Lecturer in Computing, Dept. of Computing and Networking, Institute of Technology Carlow, Kilkenny Road, Carlow, Ireland. (Tel: 1-353-(0)59-9170508 + Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
RE: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program
We're seeing a lot of use of both Alice and the new MIT Scratch with children. We're successfully using Python for media computation with children as young as 11 years old. Mark
RE: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program
Can anyone point me to any research results that show that teaching kids to program has any transfer to other areas? Last I followed this kind of thing, the results were negative - teaching programming doesn't have any more of a beneficial effect on, say, mathematics than time spent directly on math. Can anyone point me to any research that shows that kids who learn programming are better at it than those who learn it later, after you control for personality/apptitude effects? Last, but not least, what is the effect of learning Latin on learning to program? Ruven Brooks Guzdial, Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/31/2007 09:52 AM To Enda Dunican [EMAIL PROTECTED], discuss@ppig.org cc Subject RE: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program We're seeing a lot of use of both Alice and the new MIT Scratch with children. We're successfully using Python for media computation with children as young as 11 years old. Mark
Re: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program
Marian Petre and I have written a paper, to be presented at VL/ HCC 2007, which sets out to describe what kids *actually* want to program, as opposed to what adults think would be good for them. Anyone who wants a preview, I'm sure Marian won't mind if I offer preview copies to anyone who emails me. Alan Hi all We had a discussion regarding this at PPIG 2007 in Joensuu. In my opinion there is too much emphasis on Lego Mindstorms and introducing kids to programming using robots. I was at a meeting once where someone professed that if you aren't interested in Mindstorms or robots you won't be interested in programming, now there was an open mind! Why don't we introduce kids to stuff outside of lego and robots e.g. using mobile phone metaphors (things a large number of them are all into, in Ireland anyway) - moving cursor around the screen or predictive texting or a sports metaphor of moving a football player from the corner flag to the centre circle. We seem to persist with robots and lego ad nauseam without wondering if there is anything else out there that can get the basics of programming across to children. Describing something that worked for me is fine, but assuming it's going to work for others or it's the only way it can work for others is not. I have no doubt that lego and robots will work very well for a good number of children but shouldn't we begin to experiment with other things. I have looked at a lot of research material in novice programming and the same stuff appears again and again. Isn't it time we tried something new? Why don't we examine this on an inductive basis where we ask students what they are interested in and let these interests form the basis for programming metaphors. Regards Enda Dr. Enda Dunican Lecturer in Computing, Dept. of Computing and Networking, Institute of Technology Carlow, Kilkenny Road, Carlow, Ireland. (Tel: 1-353-(0)59-9170508 + Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ -- Alan Blackwell Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/afb21/ Phone: +44 (0) 1223 334418 -- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
Re: FW: PPIG discuss: teaching kids to program
Walter Milner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A while back Papert in Mindstorms proposed that young children be taught to program in Logo, and that this would enhance their cognitive development and expose them to 'powerful ideas'. I don't know if the programming language has as much of an impact as the kids' age and their desire to learn programming. From my (limited) knowledge of child psychology I wouldn't want to try and teach anyone under the age of about 12-13 programming, because you'd end up having to use a very constrained concepts and programming techniques, and more or less run into a brick wall in some areas until their mental development advances. Secondly, you can't just turn anyone into a programmer. In the 1980s there were kids learning to program using 6502 and Z80 assembly language, hardly a friendly environment, but what made it work is that they really *wanted* to do this. You can lead a kid to a computer, but most of them will only want to play Counterstrike. Peter. -- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
