Teaching kids to code
I learned to code when I was about 14 years old. I was fascinated by the whole idea of programming a computer. My first programming language was C++. However, it took me a couple of years to actually get somewhat confident in what I was doing. Coding improved my thinking process, so I wanted to teach my kids to code. For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to teach programming to my 9-year-old daughter with some degree of success, and I want to share a few tips and tools that worked well.
First of all, a teaching environment for learning programming is the most critical part. I’ve seen many apps and services for teaching kids to code, and most of them were not attractive by any means. As with all of us, kids are used to polished user interfaces that lower the barrier to entry by creating a positive emotion. Apple got it right. Playground, a free iPad app, is an amazing learning environment with multiple courses of various complexity. The app was designed and built to teach coding in the same intuitive manner as other Apple products. For complete beginners, the app provides access to two courses, Learn to Code I and II, that introduce most basic concepts and gradually advance the complexity. It feels like a fun game where you get to program an animated character who has to navigate a virtual world.
Programming is not like riding a bicycle that one can learn in a few sessions. Kids need motivation as learning to code could be frustrating at times. I was motivated because computers seemed like magic machines and I had limited access to them. I didn’t have my own computer till I was 16 years old, so had to go to my dad’s office to use one. Of course that was generally only possible during school holidays. This limited access to a computer made me read programming books and write code by hand so I could have enough time coding when I got my hands on a real machine.
Nowadays, computers or handheld devices are accessible to kids at a younger age. My motivation to overcome my limited access would not work. With my daughter, I created motivation by substituting money for limits. We made a deal that she would get $5 for each Learn to Code program that she wrote singly and $1 if we did it together. As a result, every time she needed money to buy a new toy, she started to code. Once in a while we would agree that she could do the previous five exercises one more time for the same amount of money to practice them again. This repetition felt easier and helped her to gain confidence to push further. Overall, this remuneration schema worked pretty good for her.
The Playground app also supports programming robots that are designed for kids. Some robots are pretty sophisticated, with multiple types of sensors, microphone, and speakers. We got Wonder Dash; it got us both excited to play with for a few days. However, later it was sitting in the drawer until my daughter got Learn to Code II, which enabled her to program it. These exercises for Dash were based on interactions with the real world, such as measuring distance, hearing noise, reading and showing colours. That changed her attitude from doing an exercise for money to doing something that by itself was really interesting. Yes, programming could be daunting in the beginning, especially if it’s not driven by your own desire. However, once you get to a certain level and find a real world application, then it can bring a lot of joy.
I believe that kids should be exposed to multiple activities like sports, board games, music, and dancing. Such exposure increases the chance that they’ll find their passion for life. From the beginning, my daughter and I agreed that she wouldn’t have to become a programmer. Programming is just another skill that she learned to enhance her thinking. This agreement removed the stress from meeting someone’s expectations. Overall the whole experience of teaching my daughter to code was pretty positive mostly because of Playground for iPad, which brought it to a whole other level. I can highly recommend this app to a person who wants to teach or learn how to code.
