Introduction to computer programming

Motivated from the code.org video, I emailed my oldest daughters 3rd grade teacher telling her about code.org, and asked what the school offered in the way of computer programming. Then followed that up with an email to my brother (who is also a Seattle Public School's 3rd grade teacher) informing him about code.org.

On my way home from work I tried to imagine what teaching my kids about computer programming might be like, how I would keep them engaged and interested (especially my 6 year old). Would this be something that I could get them excited about, or something that they would find interesting for 5 minutes then move on to playing with Barbies. I knew that teaching young children the concepts of computer programming would require starting with something other than Fortran 77, Basic, Java, C (all of my first programming languages) or even Logo.

When I got home my daughters were both sitting in the kitchen coloring, I asked them both to describe in their own words what they think their daddy does at work. After a few silly answers, I received answers along the lines of "help people with computers". I explained that I was a computer programmer, and I asked them if they knew what that was, again I got answers along the lines of "help people with computers". I explained that computer programming is making a computer do what you want it to do. I gave examples like iPhone games, making show videos, using it to play music...

Then I said I wanted to show them a new game on my iPhone: RoboLogoc. RoboLogic was one of the games mentioned on code.org for teaching computer programming. In the game you come up with a series of commands for a robot with the goal of getting around a grid. We mirrored my iPhone to the TV so both girls could both watch, and I explained how the game worked and then let them go at it. Before long both girls were very much into the game. I was able to use the game to explain to them how they can use functions for series of commonly used instructions. My youngest daughter would remove all instructions her sister had input before she would give it a try, saying that she wanted to do it on her own. I explained that in programming you often use what other people have done to help you accomplish what you want to do. I was also able to use the game to explain the concept of testing functions to confirm they accomplish what you want them to do (even if it doesn't let you complete a level in the game). After playing the game for half an hour I gave the girls a challenge: complete 3 levels in the game, and write down the instructions to complete those 3 levels on paper so that I can confirm it works. I said once they could do this, I would set up a computer that they could use to start creating with the programming language Scratch, then I game them a quick demo of what people had done with Scratch, and how they could create their own programs with it. They both seemed excited. We'll see how it goes.

So it begins...

I used to think I began computer programming as a second (or third) career. I used to think computer programming was something I discovered I could do and enjoy doing after deciding that I didn’t care for a career as a technical writer, and that I was really bad sales man. However, if I think back to my relationship with computer programming or literally getting a computer to do what I wanted it to, I think I can say my earliest experience was with a popular toy (at the time at least) known as a Big Trak. Later my parents furthered my interest with the frustratingly slow Timex Sinclair 1000, and eventually the super cool, original Apple Macintosh 128K. Inspired by games like Zork, I would write simple text based computer programs on that Mac for my friends, or even write my own version of Pong.

When went to college, computer programmer was not really a commonly known or accepted profession. Instead I was going to become a Mechanical Engineer. The problem was that I was not so good with math beyond calculus, and the computer programming that they wanted me to learn (something called Fortran 77) convinced me that I never wanted to have any career that involved that level of understanding of computers. I changed majors, and graduated with a degree in English Literature. It took a while for me to find my way again, but several years later I found my way back to college pursuing a second bachelor degree, this time in computer science.

Flash forward to present day: I work at the University of Washington for The Graduate School. With a team of two other brilliant programmers and an excellent team of tech workers, I work to simplify and automate the process of admitting and graduating graduate students at the University of Washington. However, I had never considered what I did as anything special, as something I could proudly tell my daughters about. I love my job, but I didn’t really talk about it, because I assumed everyone else would think what I did was boring. Then today I read about something called code.org, and my view about what I did for a living changed. Now I need to teach my daughters computer programming.