use-revolution Digest, Vol 84, Issue 47

[Marty Billingsley]

On Sep 23, 2010, Scott Morrow <scott at elementarysoftware.com> wrote:

> Hello Monte,
> <snip>
>> - Starting programming for older kids (9 or 10 year olds).
>
> It sounds like the age of children you are looking at may be a  
> challenging group if writing code is the goal. I teach 8 and 9 year  
> olds and my experience teaching them HyperCard (and last year,  
> revMedia) is that (no matter how hard I wish it to be different)  
> very few are developmentally ready to program.  A simple PowerPoint  
> type interface and/or templates that they can customize is more  
> appropriate with the kiddos I work with.  A few of the more gifted 9  
> year olds can get their head around variables and if-then branching  
> but my experience (and the general consensus of folks I spoke to at  
> a few RevCons) was that 10 or 11 year olds were usually better able  
> to think at that level of abstraction...  On the other hand, it  
> hasn't stopped me from exposing kids to scripting in order to see  
> who gets a light in their eyes!  Let us know what you end up doing.   
> I'm certain I'm not alone in wanting to know what someone of your  
> skill will end up contributing inside a school setting.
>
> Scott Morrow

Kids that young will do better with a drag-n-drop programming  
environment.  Typing in scripting commands is just too difficult at  
that age. Even if they can grasp the abstractions, they can't keep  
enough information in their heads at one time to program in an open- 
ended environment. Scratch is a great place for kids to start.  Cross- 
platform, free, and robust. Lots of good curriculum materials out  
there for Scratch.

The middle school kids I teach are 13-14; they do quite well with Rev.

   - marty

--
Marty Billingsley
Department of Computer Science
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools