The other day, out of the blue, my young niece starts telling me about Scratch (online visual programming site), and how she's written some stuff on it. She then proceeds to start telling me about other people, how they had done things wrong, and how she knew how to fix them.
I was so freaking proud. I had never tried to teach her to program because she's as hardheaded as I am. Trying to force it on her was doomed to failure. But because she discovered it, she bit in pretty good. She's playing at being a cheerleader now, but I can't help but think the experience will help her later, even if she never programs again.
My niece, also 10, has been bugging me to teach her how to make computer games of her own. After thinking about this for a couple of months the Raspberry Pi came out so I ordered 2 (one for her, one for me!) and set her up with Scratch. While waiting on the RasPis to arrive, I bought her a copy of Loren Ipsum[0] and read it first to make sure it was good for kids and had the right kind of information (it does!).
IMHO this might be the best way to introduce kids to programming. The book teaches fundamental concepts (she was blown away by the infinite string being less than 2 inches) without bogging them down in jargon and syntax (fuck semicolons...). On top of that, Scratch has really great visual logic and design pieces that fit together like a puzzle and let kids explore the concepts themselves, again without all the nitpicky syntax. This keeps things fun an interesting while they learn.
She is now a Scratch wiz and loves making stuff. Since she is an avid reader, she likes to create characters from her books and make them do crazy stuff. During the months I considered how to approach her education, she has amassed an impressive amount of design notes on her first game, including characters and levels. She is now working out the story to go with it and will begin putting it all into scratch soon. I can't wait to see what she comes up with!
I was so freaking proud. I had never tried to teach her to program because she's as hardheaded as I am. Trying to force it on her was doomed to failure. But because she discovered it, she bit in pretty good. She's playing at being a cheerleader now, but I can't help but think the experience will help her later, even if she never programs again.