What Language for a kid

[Kenny Lussier]

Hi All,

My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
just want to learn how to code.

What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
ideas would be welcome.

Thanks,
Kenny
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Tom Buskey]

Scratch is on lots of Raspberry distros.  I think it's moved to internet
based with the most recent version.

Lego Mindstorms (also from MIT).

I think Minecraft PI is involved in some learn to program things.

Python is also good.  There are things out there for teaching kids with
Python.

I took my 11 yr old to a makerspace for an intro to python & he was playing
with the turtle graphics.  He had/has no interest in computers beyond
playing games.  I haven't been able to get him interested in RetroPi
either.  :-(   I'll have to keep trying.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Mark Komarinski 
wrote:

> I was going to recommend scratch as well.  I think it’s installed on some
> Pi distros so it should be easy to set up and use.
>
> -Mark
>
> On Dec 23, 2015, at 12:47 PM, Star  wrote:
>
> To go against the grain a little here, I'd probably recommend starting
> with something a little more touchy-feely, to see if the interest
> persists.  Start with scratch, it's available for everything, except maybe
> my toaster, but it's a little old.  If the building/seeing keeps the
> interest then move into the more abstract world of scripting/coding.
>
> Heck, my first experience was Logo on the Apple 2, but I could actually
> ~see~ what was going on as I learned the concepts.
>
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:42 PM Bill Freeman  wrote:
>
>> Probably not surprising anyone, I'm going to recommend Python.
>>
>> It lets you dip in to the structure of algorithms without having to first
>> learn to manage your own variable allocations, type restrictions, etc.
>> Those things can be added later when adding C or Java.
>>
>> Python is also available by default on Raspbery Pi (and clones), allowing
>> more tangible projects.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
>>> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
>>> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
>>> just want to learn how to code.
>>>
>>> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What
>>> is most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
>>> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
>>> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
>>> ideas would be welcome.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Kenny
>>>
>>>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Dan Garthwaite]

Python is the defacto intro language at colleges now.

I'm not sure what step one is to learn python but step two is
http://pythontutor.com

Click 'python' on the first page and then on each of the sample apps press
'Forward' until completion. That is pretty much all of computer science
10[0-9].

As for step 1?  Maybe http://checkio.com but I think that would be
overwhelming.



On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier  wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
> just want to learn how to code.
>
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
> ideas would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Kenny Lussier]

OK, three people in a matter of 10 minutes have suggested Kano to me. For
the benefit of others, The Kano is a raspberry Pi that kids build
themselves, and learn to code using examples from Minecraft and others.
It's a really cool system: http://us.kano.me/

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier  wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
> just want to learn how to code.
>
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
> ideas would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Mark Komarinski]

I was going to recommend scratch as well.  I think it’s installed on some Pi 
distros so it should be easy to set up and use.

-Mark

> On Dec 23, 2015, at 12:47 PM, Star  wrote:
> 
> To go against the grain a little here, I'd probably recommend starting with 
> something a little more touchy-feely, to see if the interest persists.  Start 
> with scratch, it's available for everything, except maybe my toaster, but 
> it's a little old.  If the building/seeing keeps the interest then move into 
> the more abstract world of scripting/coding.
> 
> Heck, my first experience was Logo on the Apple 2, but I could actually ~see~ 
> what was going on as I learned the concepts.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:42 PM Bill Freeman  > wrote:
> Probably not surprising anyone, I'm going to recommend Python.
> 
> It lets you dip in to the structure of algorithms without having to first 
> learn to manage your own variable allocations, type restrictions, etc.  Those 
> things can be added later when adding C or Java.
> 
> Python is also available by default on Raspbery Pi (and clones), allowing 
> more tangible projects.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier  > wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a 
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of 
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she just 
> want to learn how to code. 
> 
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is 
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to 
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and 
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other ideas 
> would be welcome.
> 
> Thanks,
> Kenny
> 
> 
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Bill Freeman]

Probably not surprising anyone, I'm going to recommend Python.

It lets you dip in to the structure of algorithms without having to first
learn to manage your own variable allocations, type restrictions, etc.
Those things can be added later when adding C or Java.

Python is also available by default on Raspbery Pi (and clones), allowing
more tangible projects.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier  wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
> just want to learn how to code.
>
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
> ideas would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
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> gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
>
>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Kenny Lussier]

She did do a little with the Hour of Code thing last year, and I had
thought that her interest had dropped off after that. Come to find out, she
is very much still interested, just discouraged by the lack of exposure in
school.

I have to say, I have never heard of Scratch. There are a lot of people
suggesting it, so I should probably look into it ;-) It looks like a good
fundamentals

I'm not a coder, so a lot of this is new to me. I'm a scripter. I do bash,
some perl, some python... a little bit of LOLCode (no, really, you *CAN*
haz VAR!!).  I miss Logo. And Basic.

Thanks for all of the advice. I think I'll probably point her at Scratch.
and see where she goes with it. If she really does enjoy it, then maybe a
Kano is in her future, or possibly a Pi



Thanks,
Kenny


On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:49 PM, Matt Minuti  wrote:

> Also, did she do any hour of code stuff? That just happened recently, so
> perhaps that served as inspiration and could help guide the quest. Or maybe
> she just heard the rhetoric around it and thought it would be neat?
> On Dec 23, 2015 11:25 AM, "Kenny Lussier"  wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
>> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
>> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
>> just want to learn how to code.
>>
>> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What
>> is most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
>> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
>> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
>> ideas would be welcome.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Kenny
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Tom Buskey]

You can get the Kano OS separate from the RasPi bundle.  If you already
have a keyboard, mouse, HDMI TV (or HDMI to VGA + monitor) and an SD card,
you have the pieces already.

There are UK based PI magazines (MagPI is online I think) with Scratch and
other programming tutorials aimed at kids & kid like geeks.

FWIW, Scratch came out of the Logo work & both are MIT projects.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Kenny Lussier  wrote:

> She did do a little with the Hour of Code thing last year, and I had
> thought that her interest had dropped off after that. Come to find out, she
> is very much still interested, just discouraged by the lack of exposure in
> school.
>
> I have to say, I have never heard of Scratch. There are a lot of people
> suggesting it, so I should probably look into it ;-) It looks like a good
> fundamentals
>
> I'm not a coder, so a lot of this is new to me. I'm a scripter. I do bash,
> some perl, some python... a little bit of LOLCode (no, really, you *CAN*
> haz VAR!!).  I miss Logo. And Basic.
>
> Thanks for all of the advice. I think I'll probably point her at Scratch.
> and see where she goes with it. If she really does enjoy it, then maybe a
> Kano is in her future, or possibly a Pi
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:49 PM, Matt Minuti 
> wrote:
>
>> Also, did she do any hour of code stuff? That just happened recently, so
>> perhaps that served as inspiration and could help guide the quest. Or maybe
>> she just heard the rhetoric around it and thought it would be neat?
>> On Dec 23, 2015 11:25 AM, "Kenny Lussier"  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
>>> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
>>> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
>>> just want to learn how to code.
>>>
>>> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What
>>> is most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
>>> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
>>> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
>>> ideas would be welcome.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Kenny
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
>>> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
>>> gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org
>>> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
>>>
>>>
>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Star]

To go against the grain a little here, I'd probably recommend starting with
something a little more touchy-feely, to see if the interest persists.
Start with scratch, it's available for everything, except maybe my toaster,
but it's a little old.  If the building/seeing keeps the interest then move
into the more abstract world of scripting/coding.

Heck, my first experience was Logo on the Apple 2, but I could actually
~see~ what was going on as I learned the concepts.

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:42 PM Bill Freeman  wrote:

> Probably not surprising anyone, I'm going to recommend Python.
>
> It lets you dip in to the structure of algorithms without having to first
> learn to manage your own variable allocations, type restrictions, etc.
> Those things can be added later when adding C or Java.
>
> Python is also available by default on Raspbery Pi (and clones), allowing
> more tangible projects.
>
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
>> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
>> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
>> just want to learn how to code.
>>
>> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What
>> is most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
>> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
>> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
>> ideas would be welcome.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Kenny
>>
>>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Matt Minuti]

Also, did she do any hour of code stuff? That just happened recently, so
perhaps that served as inspiration and could help guide the quest. Or maybe
she just heard the rhetoric around it and thought it would be neat?
On Dec 23, 2015 11:25 AM, "Kenny Lussier"  wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
> just want to learn how to code.
>
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
> ideas would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[David Rysdam]

Paul Beaudet  writes:
> One thing I really want to recommend against is scratch or mindstorm. I
> think they are both really fun and all, but no one that solely uses
> graphical code block type systems self identify as a programmer or has
> confidence to tackle issues that involve code. Honestly it defeats the
> whole point of the exposure by making code look like a toy.

No, sorry, I have to completely disagree with this. "Doesn't look like
code" has nothing to do with anything.

What Scratch is great at is abstracting "how do I describe and debug an
algorithm" out from "how do I speak in this weird language and use these
weird tools". Teaching someone to program has nothing to do with how to
format Python/C/Java/Lisp code. Using pre-formatted blocks is a great
way to introduce those real fundamentals.

It is absolutely true (so far) that if you want to write "real" programs
you have to move beyond Scratch. But that doesn't make it a bad place to
start. But it is also true that if you want to write "real" programs,
just typing well-formatted C isn't enough--you have to understand when
and how to use conditionals, loops, functions and data structures.

For some people, using the tools is the fun part and if they happen to
learn some concepts that's a bonus. Those people might want to start
with Python or even C. Other people are interested in the concepts but
struggling with the tools is the barrier. For those people, Scratch is a
great introduction.
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Paul Beaudet]

Hey Kenny,

One thing I really want to recommend against is scratch or mindstorm. I
think they are both really fun and all, but no one that solely uses
graphical code block type systems self identify as a programmer or has
confidence to tackle issues that involve code. Honestly it defeats the
whole point of the exposure by making code look like a toy.

Personally I used the Mindstorm stuff when I was young (10-13) and never
thought I was cut out for coding because I was under the impression that I
was just using a toy, not really understanding how closely something like
scratch relates. It was only when I started writing some simple python
games a few years ago when I realized code is something I have the aptitude
for. Which is sad, honestly I wish I was "actually" exposed to code sooner.

Also definitely stir some interest and have a suitably challenging goal,
instead of doing school like lessons. That code academy stuff is super
boring and doesn't let you draw outside the lines. No interest means no
progress ( At least for me ). With Arduino's and Raspberry PIs there is
plenty of trouble to get into that might stir up some interest. Maybe
suggest an elaborate electronically controlled prank if that is your
daughters speed, or maybe something else! You know your daughter better
than us.

Cheers,
Paul

On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 1:55 PM, Tom Buskey  wrote:

> You can get the Kano OS separate from the RasPi bundle.  If you already
> have a keyboard, mouse, HDMI TV (or HDMI to VGA + monitor) and an SD card,
> you have the pieces already.
>
> There are UK based PI magazines (MagPI is online I think) with Scratch and
> other programming tutorials aimed at kids & kid like geeks.
>
> FWIW, Scratch came out of the Logo work & both are MIT projects.
>
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Kenny Lussier  wrote:
>
>> She did do a little with the Hour of Code thing last year, and I had
>> thought that her interest had dropped off after that. Come to find out, she
>> is very much still interested, just discouraged by the lack of exposure in
>> school.
>>
>> I have to say, I have never heard of Scratch. There are a lot of people
>> suggesting it, so I should probably look into it ;-) It looks like a good
>> fundamentals
>>
>> I'm not a coder, so a lot of this is new to me. I'm a scripter. I do
>> bash, some perl, some python... a little bit of LOLCode (no, really, you
>> *CAN* haz VAR!!).  I miss Logo. And Basic.
>>
>> Thanks for all of the advice. I think I'll probably point her at Scratch.
>> and see where she goes with it. If she really does enjoy it, then maybe a
>> Kano is in her future, or possibly a Pi
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Kenny
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:49 PM, Matt Minuti 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Also, did she do any hour of code stuff? That just happened recently, so
>>> perhaps that served as inspiration and could help guide the quest. Or maybe
>>> she just heard the rhetoric around it and thought it would be neat?
>>> On Dec 23, 2015 11:25 AM, "Kenny Lussier"  wrote:
>>>
 Hi All,

 My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
 non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
 interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
 just want to learn how to code.

 What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What
 is most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
 teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
 never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
 ideas would be welcome.

 Thanks,
 Kenny


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>>
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>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Matt Minuti]

I have to agree with David here, except mindstorms is pretty awful, unless
the only concepts you're looking for are simple loops, do...while, and
conditionals, all mostly independent. It used to be based b some MIT stuff
and was scratch-like, but it's been LabVIEW since the NXT. The current
version, EV3, is also LabVIEW, though the brick itself runs Debian.
Ironically, there's no Linux support for the software. But for the absolute
basics, it's not bad, just don't try to do stuff with variables or you'll
pull your hair out.

There's a way to get scratch to talk to Lego WeDo stuff (the kernel
driver's been around forever), and arduino too. Might be offline version
only, or scratch 1 and not scratch 2, but I don't know. I left that job
before I had the chance to switch them to Linux :P
On Dec 23, 2015 9:38 PM, "David Rysdam"  wrote:

> Paul Beaudet  writes:
> > One thing I really want to recommend against is scratch or mindstorm. I
> > think they are both really fun and all, but no one that solely uses
> > graphical code block type systems self identify as a programmer or has
> > confidence to tackle issues that involve code. Honestly it defeats the
> > whole point of the exposure by making code look like a toy.
>
> No, sorry, I have to completely disagree with this. "Doesn't look like
> code" has nothing to do with anything.
>
> What Scratch is great at is abstracting "how do I describe and debug an
> algorithm" out from "how do I speak in this weird language and use these
> weird tools". Teaching someone to program has nothing to do with how to
> format Python/C/Java/Lisp code. Using pre-formatted blocks is a great
> way to introduce those real fundamentals.
>
> It is absolutely true (so far) that if you want to write "real" programs
> you have to move beyond Scratch. But that doesn't make it a bad place to
> start. But it is also true that if you want to write "real" programs,
> just typing well-formatted C isn't enough--you have to understand when
> and how to use conditionals, loops, functions and data structures.
>
> For some people, using the tools is the fun part and if they happen to
> learn some concepts that's a bonus. Those people might want to start
> with Python or even C. Other people are interested in the concepts but
> struggling with the tools is the barrier. For those people, Scratch is a
> great introduction.
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