A friend just told my wife about Computer Camps at the University of Washington, where I work. These are camps that offer a variety of different computer programming courses for children ages 7 to 17. The program doesn't seem to be offered by University of Washington, but rather just uses their facilities. The program is offered by an organization called iD Tech Camps that claims to be "The World's #1 Summer Computer Camp for Kids & Teens". I don't know anything about iD Tech Camps, but I am definitely willing to check it out if my daughter is interested.
So far summer camp plans for my daughter include a Woodland Park Zoo camp, a Campfire Camp, and a clay sculpting camp. I think a summer computer programming camp would be a worthwhile addition.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Do games count?
My two daughters are playing the twolivesleft.com game Cargo-Bot. The game requires users to come up with a series of functions to program a "cargo-bot" to move crates to a pre-determined pattern. In the past when they've played games like this the younger one gets frustrated because she wants to do it all on her own, and it all ends in a fight.
I've been explaining to them that this game is different, that the only way they are going to be able to solve it is by working together. One of them tries to figure out one function to solve part of the game, then the next one tries the function, and the keep testing and improving each others functions for completing the game.
So far it seems to be working. They seem to have real excitement over working together to complete a level in the game.
I've been explaining to them that this game is different, that the only way they are going to be able to solve it is by working together. One of them tries to figure out one function to solve part of the game, then the next one tries the function, and the keep testing and improving each others functions for completing the game.
So far it seems to be working. They seem to have real excitement over working together to complete a level in the game.
Found some help
So I've been frustrated with the lack of support and interest in teaching kids computer programming, or at least teaching elementary age kids programming. However there have been some exciting developments that might help me in my quest.
First, the elementary school my daughters attend was able to raise $23,000 at the school's PTA auction to bring iPads and WiFi to the classrooms. I admit the iPad might not be the ideal environment to learn computer programming, but there is CODEA, which I haven't fully explored, but it looks like a pretty cool environment to work in. They've written at least one pretty cool game using CODEA called Cargo-Bot that is designed to help teach some principles of computer programming. I mentioned all of this to my oldest daughters teacher whose class was the test case for using iPads in the classroom.
Second, I just found out that PluralSight is offering a couple of free online courses to help kids learn computer programming. The first is Learning How to Program with Scratch, which is the language I've been exploring with my daughters. The second course they have might be a bit more hard core; Teaching Kids Programming. The description says "Use this course to teach your kids to program with C#." I haven't viewed either of these courses, but we subscribe to PluralSight at work and I've used several of their training courses. The courses are very complete, and I look forward to exploring them with my older daughter.
EDIT: Just checked out the introduction to Teaching Kids Programming. It was developed by TeachingKidsProgramming.org which offers course ware to help teach kids programming ...as suggested by the name ;-) This course was developed was specifically for PluralSight, designed for parents to use in teaching their children (not necessarily teachers). It is designed for kids 10 and up, and they assume that it will mostly be parents who are developers teaching this so it uses Visual Studio and C#. Pretty Cool!
First, the elementary school my daughters attend was able to raise $23,000 at the school's PTA auction to bring iPads and WiFi to the classrooms. I admit the iPad might not be the ideal environment to learn computer programming, but there is CODEA, which I haven't fully explored, but it looks like a pretty cool environment to work in. They've written at least one pretty cool game using CODEA called Cargo-Bot that is designed to help teach some principles of computer programming. I mentioned all of this to my oldest daughters teacher whose class was the test case for using iPads in the classroom.
Second, I just found out that PluralSight is offering a couple of free online courses to help kids learn computer programming. The first is Learning How to Program with Scratch, which is the language I've been exploring with my daughters. The second course they have might be a bit more hard core; Teaching Kids Programming. The description says "Use this course to teach your kids to program with C#." I haven't viewed either of these courses, but we subscribe to PluralSight at work and I've used several of their training courses. The courses are very complete, and I look forward to exploring them with my older daughter.
EDIT: Just checked out the introduction to Teaching Kids Programming. It was developed by TeachingKidsProgramming.org which offers course ware to help teach kids programming ...as suggested by the name ;-) This course was developed was specifically for PluralSight, designed for parents to use in teaching their children (not necessarily teachers). It is designed for kids 10 and up, and they assume that it will mostly be parents who are developers teaching this so it uses Visual Studio and C#. Pretty Cool!
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The challenge of teaching YOUR children...
I've run into a problem, and I'm not sure how to easily get around it. My youngest daughter (6) wants to be involved in anything I'm doing with her big sister (9). The problem is that my youngest daughter just doesn't have the reading, math, and actually patience to really get started with computer programming. She quickly gets frustrated, and angry, and then threatens the technology.
With the goal of having a more focused time with my older daughter teacher her computer programming concepts, I've toyed with the idea of "teaching" a "class". As much as I would like to, I honestly can't really commit to volunteering at my daughters school right now to teach computer programming, my own job with computer programming doesn't give me the freedom right now to do that, but perhaps I could do something more ad-hoc with my daughters and some of her friends.
I did speak with my older daughters 3rd grade teacher. I had emailed her a link to code.org and asked her to watch the video. Then when I got a chance to speak with her in person, I asked her if the school had any programming courses available. She laughed then said that the school would need computers before they could teach computer programming.
Right now though my own job in computer programming is keeping me really busy and reminding me of this article, which makes it really hard to get motivated to teach programming.
With the goal of having a more focused time with my older daughter teacher her computer programming concepts, I've toyed with the idea of "teaching" a "class". As much as I would like to, I honestly can't really commit to volunteering at my daughters school right now to teach computer programming, my own job with computer programming doesn't give me the freedom right now to do that, but perhaps I could do something more ad-hoc with my daughters and some of her friends.
I did speak with my older daughters 3rd grade teacher. I had emailed her a link to code.org and asked her to watch the video. Then when I got a chance to speak with her in person, I asked her if the school had any programming courses available. She laughed then said that the school would need computers before they could teach computer programming.
Right now though my own job in computer programming is keeping me really busy and reminding me of this article, which makes it really hard to get motivated to teach programming.
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