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Ideas on how to teach children, e.g. 10 or 14 year olds, about computers, hardware and software. A project instead of playing Minecraft and Brawl Stars. More designing instead of consuming. I haven't really found anything yet, maybe you have an idea.
Jun 10 · 2 months ago
I quite enjoyed learning basic programming concepts as a child using ComLogo; I gather there’s a Python equivalent. “Make the little turtle draw a circle” was fun.
As far as “projects”, I think the BBC Micro is often used by schools
— Sorry, meant the BBC Micro:bit.
📡 Queen_City_Nerd · Jun 10 at 11:11:
I had a game in the late 80's that you learned logic and programing with designing chips and flashing to IC to control robots. There's a circuit city game now, but it's still how to make it real. Learning to install things on my own and not call on help to get what I wanted was a motivator. But anything that could bridge the gap from programming to reality was nice too. So, what can the program do for them? Is there a reward for the work? I hated math till I was working in survey and then I had a reason for the abstraction.
the standard response usually is to try 'scratch', software developed at MIT, or kturtle - the software to program with language 'lego'.
but i think, i dislike scratch a lot, the turtle thing is ok.
but the best is uxn from 100 rabbits.
oh, but i was talking about programming. why programming at all? i think kids have to learn to type, have to learn the power of commandline.
thus most of the tasks they do, even connecting to wifi, editing texts, chatting, reading email, everything is better done in console for some time. that would teach them how to communicate with computers, because with mouse you talk with gestures, and by typing you communicate via text.
here comes another problem, if you limit them to the simple window manager, and mostly text mode programs, wouldn't they feel limited, and jealous of what 'others' have.
so i sincerely don't know.
if i had a kid that would be a great motivation for me to make oberon system really working, and to start writing for it more software. like gemini browser and server.
i would tell my kid - this is your system, if you don't have any program - write yourself.
that was my situation when i was a kid. i was already privileged to have an 8bit machine, and i knew there is no way i get more software for it (nowhere to get it from) and no way to get another computer: no money for it.
so the only way was to write a software i saw others have for myself. but i didn't understand programming and my parents were of no help. but i had a couple of books for the basic of different dialect, and i had a manual for my version of basic. and i was struggling, and struggling for days, because i had no other choice, i was isolated, i had no other life (we lived in such an isolated place), so the only thing i had was this machine and trying to squeeze something out of it.
I've taugh young kid around that age about computer by :
1- finding used part of computer from locals
2- building the computer with the kids (as many as we can)
3 - Installing Linux on the system
4- Installing Processing and Arduino
5- Introducing to arduino
6 - Programing a simple game on processing
7 - connecting an arduino board as a controler for the processing game.
It was a huge success in my view, and there were a lot of lesson about hardware, OS, software, electronics and programming. I hope I'll have the chance to teach this again :D
@daruma: that sounds like an awesome project - it introduces so many concepts about reusing hardware and free software. If only people gave more importance to these topics.
First, make sure they are interested in that. Maybe they just want to play Minecraft because school is overloading them with crap and they just need some downtime. If they are infact interested in computers or electronics, I would watch some crap on youtube for their reaction to what really gets them interested, and go from there. Don't just stuff Arduino and Python into them!
🚀 mimas2AC [OP/mod] · Jun 11 at 06:37:
@stack I fully agree with that. For me, it's more of an offer. The games have their good and also their bad and are part of it for us. I haven't found the offer I'm looking for yet, but there are some exciting things here. Depending on their age, children can also focus differently and stick to one thing differently. Just look for an offer that, in the best case, takes their interest. I'm looking forward to more ideas :)
🌲 Half_Elf_Monk · Jun 15 at 20:27:
Personally, I'd say you shouldn't give a kid access to too many devices until it's time to work (rather than amuse). Then, start with the command line and basic (or BASIC? lol ) programming. After that, build a robot/drone and a gemini server/capsule. Daruma's ideas above seem like a good outline. I might try that...