Fw: Re: [seul-edu] Language to teach 10 year olds

[Douglas Loss <dloss@suscom.net>]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2001, owner-seul-edu@seul.org wrote:

> From: x-empt <x-empt@ispep.cx>
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Language to teach 10 year olds
> 
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 02:20:16 -0700
> europe@apollonian.net wrote:
> 
> > It seems that the accepted premise here is that 10 year olds
> are ready 
> > to learn abstract ideas about logic, or that teaching
> concepts involving 
> > a necessary jump from the tangible to the abstract would be
> beneficial 
> > to them.
> In 2nd grade I was programming BASIC... not because I am
> smarter than everyone else, but because it was taught to me
> through math books and my 2nd grade teacher had some apple
> IIes to teach us the very basics on.
> 
> In second grade you are only 8 years old...
> 
> This EARLY programming helped me a lot later on... I wish I
> could have continued learning in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and
> 8th grades... but computers and teachers were not available at
> the time.
> 
> Learning comes a lot easier for younger kids.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> > Creating a program that visually represents what a computer
> program 
> > does, and which gradually moves them from the tangible world
> around them 
> > to the abstract world of computer languages seems to be the
> best method 
> > I can think of to teach programming.
> 
> I agree, but this doesn't really involve language too much.
> 
> Probably the best example I've seen to teach the VERY VERY
> basic ideas of programming is using Visual Basic (or another
> visual language) to create a box on a form and then make a
> button that makes it move up xx units.  Then have the kid run
> the program and click it a few times until it goes off screen.
>  Then explain how a "down" button can make it come back on
> screen... make the button... then demo it.
> 
> I grasped stuff like this while I was young... although I was
> using LOGO and not Visual Basic at the time.  Younger kids
> tend to have more open minds which helps them to learn this
> stuff better than older people.
> 
> x
> 
-- 
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