[TriLUG] Teaching Kids to Program

[Tadd Torborg via TriLUG]

I'm pretty old-school, doing assembly and C mostly.  I might not be familiar with the best choice.  My suggestion is that you ponder how easy each of the choices is from a few other perspectives. 

Does it have syntax?  Are errors in coding easy to read and understand?  Is it easy to use error-output to help fix the problem? 

Once the program is able to be run, can you trivially analyze what is happening/did happen or add programmatic features to diagnose the execution?  i.e. stdout, blinking lights, log files. 

Does it lend itself to real-time behaviors?  communicating with other devices, fetching and parsing web pages, controlling servos & motors, reading buttons.

Can you make copies of your product?  Reproduce hardware? Deliver code to friends? 

Can you show it off in another location?  I.e. is the platform portable? 

Does the choice teach the skills you want?  

Will it track your cats while you are at work?

   Tadd

On Aug 17, 2015, at 11:35 AM, Mike Viscount via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> While I have not done Python to date I'll just toss out that it's the first
> mentioned way to go with Raspberry PI so if you were to go that route it
> would open up the ready to go next step if you were interested in that.
> Lot's of projects and easy to do teaching stuff avail in that regard as
> well.
>
> Just a thought... hope it helps....
>
> Mike
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 17 Aug 2015, Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG wrote:
>>
>> So if you were going to teach your kids some starter programming, what
>>>>> language and/or ide would you use?
>>>>>
>>>>
>> I taught a 12yr old python for about 2yrs.
>>
>> http://www.austintek.com/#computer_class
>>  
>>
>> Alice is a gui oriented way of teaching programming. It was designed for
>> teaching girls as mostly you're manipulating images of people in daily life.
>> Susan Roger at Duke teaches it in summer courses (or she used to).
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> --
>> Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
>> jmack (at) austintek (dot) com - azimuthal equidistant
>> map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
>>  
>> Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
>>
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