Programación para niños – Teach a Kid to Program – Wired How-To Wiki

Teach a Kid to Program

Teach a Kid to Program – Wired How-To Wiki

Contents

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• 1 The question
• 2 Tools
  • 2.1 Logo
  • 2.2 Lego Mindstorms
  • 2.3 Flowol
  • 2.4 Game Maker
  • 2.5 Scratch
  • 2.6 Alice
  • 2.7 Pipes
  • 2.8 KPL
  • 2.9 Hackety Hack
  • 2.10 Phrogram
  • 2.11 Toontalk
• 3 Practices
• 4 Books

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The question

I don’t really know the answer to this, so I’m asking for a How To. My kid is 5, about to enter kindergarten. What are some entry points for coding? Fun environments, or basics that are great foundations? Should I get a Apple II+ on eBay and start with BASIC? I’ll cross post suggestions to Geek Dad. Thanks, Ross Mayfield.

Tools

Logo

Logo is a programing language for kids. There is a free version for the PC, MSWlogo, which also has lots of online tutorials. There is also a free version for the Mac, ACSLogo.

I was able to teach children as young as 2nd grade the basics of Logo, including understanding programs that used recursion(!). I put my Logo lessons on the web.

Lego Mindstorms

Programmable lego sets that offer a fairly simple programming interface. There is also a free online Lego simbot which overlaps with Logo.

Flowol

Control applications offer a good visual way to learn programming concepts. Flowol is a popular one used with students.

Game Maker

Game maker is excellent and free and allows for both drag and drop and coding.

Scratch

Scratch is a superb new visual programming environment that is gathering a lot of attention amongst educators. It can be used to create games, tell stories, respond to variables and so on.

Alice

For the final stage I would recommend alice for OOP but without the headache!

Pipes

One thing I’m going to try with my 10 year old is Yahoo Pipes

KPL

Code for Fun says I would highly recommend KPL(Kids Programming Language) …It’s like BASIC on steriod..KPL is based on C#.

Hackety Hack

why, the luck stiff, put together an environment specifically designed to get kids interested in programming. It’s based on ruby and specializes in creating applications that would interest kids, such as a blog or a music player. This is why he did, here is how you can get it, and here is more info about it.

Phrogram

My husband started my then seven year-old with http://phrogram.com/ She was able to do «Hello World» and line graphics with his help, using the free version. They include a nice tutorial and it looks like a real programming environment, so moving up, when they’re ready, won’t be too hard.

Toontalk

I played this several years ago. In the game-like program, everything looks like it’s made out of legos, and you train robots to do things by going inside their thought bubbles and doing the types of things that you want them to do. Completely non-textual, but it is a form of programming. Website here: http://www.toontalk.com/

Practices

Dear Ross!

I need to tell you first that most of my reply is theory – I haven’t succesfully tried them. One of the things which supposedly needs to comes out is LOGO – it is a programming language for kids see the LOGO entry at Wiki for a starter. You should of course try the programmable LEGO sets.

The other what comes to my mind are the level and script editors to some computer games. My theory is that by grabbing/keeping the attention you can «teach» a lot more to any child than by force ( the same way hackers works ). Heroes of might and magic got some level editors with some scripting – you can put a whole story in it. There is scripting for the Fallout series – if you are able to dig it out – and feel it appropriate to your child :). There was a thing called RPGMaker. The games are all supposedly grab the attention for enough time to create a positive feedback when they create enough interesting thing to enjoy it, and it make them the energy

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I’m a secondary teacher rather than primary so am not an expert at teaching 5 year olds but I can say what I do in secondary:

I would say the first stop should be MSWlogo which is free – http://www.softronix.com/logo.html – with lots of online tutorials Control applications offer a good visual way to learn programming concepts. Flowol is a popular one I use with my students – http://www.flowol.com/ Another control application is a free online lego simbot which has overlaps with Logo – http://mindstorms.lego.com/simbot/ Scratch would extend what has been learned form the above applications nicely – http://scratch.mit.edu/ – and free courses are available on the web – http://www.meridianmoodle.com/course/view.php?id=35 Game maker is excellent and free and allows for both drag and drop and coding – http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker For the final stage I would recommend alice – http://www.alice.org/

I have these in my delicious bookmarks – http://del.icio.us/dagza – but have no experience of them – http://www.kidsprogramminglanguage.com/ and http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/default.aspx

Have fun!

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NRK says…

I’ll recommend Lego Robotics as first step and Parallax Robotic Kits as second step.

With the built-in programming language for lego bots the kids could learn the basics of programming like loops etc. and afterwards they can try out programming walking algorithms etc. in the more complex parallax language.

Most children love building things, so robotics is a good start…

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Piaget discovered that children develop in stages and that the transition between stages is often abrupt. I attempted to start my 12-year old son on Commodore 64 Basic with no results; the mental wiring simply wasn’t there at his age. I did, however, discover the following:

1. He could understand simple BASIC programs long before he could write them;

2. He could modify BASIC programs long before he could start from scratch;

3. One day he woke up and without warning created complete programs as though it was second nature to him.

I had read an article years before in Psychology Today on Piaget and knew a little about mental development, but it was still amazing and delightful to see the jumps in mental and emotional complexity that occurred almost overnight in my teenage son. Once he could write in BASIC, it seemed that Pascal and then C came without any difficulty and without my help.

TomL

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Books

I learned BASIC when I was a kid through a great little book– Let’s Learn Basic: A Kids’ Introduction to Basic Programming on the Commodore 64. It provided pictures and step-by-step instructions on how to program. I’d reccommend it. You can pick it up online for under 5 bucks.

This page was last modified 18:50, 5 September 2008 by snackfight. Based on work by kent and Anonymous user(s) of Wired How-To Wiki.

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Tags: programación, enseñar, niños

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