My opinion is that most educational stuff treats kids super super carefully. If you’re a parent or doing 1:1 teaching, you very precisely target which things to do and how to teach them. Like, “don’t go into the deep end of the pool” is for when there isn’t someone paying attention and watching. But you are. You can step in and help. Go have fun in the deep end.
The bigger problem I see, is that for learning to happen, there needs to be genuine interest and a genuinely good project for the kid to do and chances are they can’t do that, because they don’t have any problems that need solving.
You can bridge that by making something up or buying a kit, but ultimately, learning to code is about empowerment to solve your own problems.
I definitely agree that finding a purpose is key to success. I’m surprised there aren’t more mentions of Minecraft here. Some of the best young coders I know got their start hacking up Minecraft.
Of course. You can even use the syntax.
My opinion is that most educational stuff treats kids super super carefully. If you’re a parent or doing 1:1 teaching, you very precisely target which things to do and how to teach them. Like, “don’t go into the deep end of the pool” is for when there isn’t someone paying attention and watching. But you are. You can step in and help. Go have fun in the deep end.
The bigger problem I see, is that for learning to happen, there needs to be genuine interest and a genuinely good project for the kid to do and chances are they can’t do that, because they don’t have any problems that need solving.
You can bridge that by making something up or buying a kit, but ultimately, learning to code is about empowerment to solve your own problems.
I definitely agree that finding a purpose is key to success. I’m surprised there aren’t more mentions of Minecraft here. Some of the best young coders I know got their start hacking up Minecraft.