The Harris County Library should have a coding program for kids Anna Xu 1.

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The Harris County Library should have a

coding program for kids

Anna Xu

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Why Maud Marks Library should have a “Learn to Program” session for elementary-aged kids

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Reason 1 to teach children to code

It’s going to be a vital 21st century skill, like basic literacy was for the 20th century.

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“I have an idea for the next big app!”“Awesome, can you make it happen?”“No. I don’t know how to code.”

The ability to code is the difference between a kid with an idea and a kid with an idea who also makes it a reality.

A child can tell a computer to do has a huge advantage over a child who can’t.

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Reason 2 to teach children to code

Programming is “low floor” and “high ceiling.”

That means it’s easy for kids to understand the basics, but these simple tools allow them to creating very complex projects.

Kids can program games, apps, automate home activities, anything they want.

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Reason 3 to teach children to code

Basic computer programming can be learned by children as soon as they can think logically.

In my opinion, this sort of critical thinking can emerge around age 5 or 6 for gifted children, but perhaps age 8 for most children.

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Wait, 5 to 8 year olds? Aren’t they too young to learn to code?Answer: No way!

We’ll be teaching using a graphical drag-and-drop computing language, called Snap.

We might also use BYOB or Scratch, depending on curriculum, but all three languages are virtually the same.

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Beauty and Joy of ComputingAn introduction to Computer Science, for non-computer scientists

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All right, I’ll give Kindercode a shot. What would a typical lesson look like?

We’ll use Hour of Code’s SNAP tutorial. In one hour, a child can create a game in

which they can click on a yellow alien named Alonzo as fast as they can.

The alien moves around, and they are timed. High scores are recorded.

http://snap.berkeley.edu/hoc/#1

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Step 1The first page tells how you the lesson is planned out. There are 10 steps to programming this game, and each one is a mini-challenge. They can see whatever they’re programming in the picture on the right. In step 1, the kids learn to how to program Alonzo to turn around when they click on him.

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Step 2I’m going to skip to step two. Here, kids learn to program so that when they click on Alonzo, he turns around AND he jumps around randomly on the screen to a new place. If the kids get suck, they can click the “Show Me the Answer” button and it’ll solve it for them.

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Step 4Skipping to step 4. As you can see, the programming blocks are getting more complex, but each step is incremental.

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Step 5By step 5, children have been introduced to different “if” statements, and a “for” loop.

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Steps 6, 7, 8You get the picture. I’m just going to include the objectives for steps 6, 7, and 8.

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Step 9By step 9, the game is done. As you can see, I’ve made a game in which I can click on Alonzo as fast as I can, while he’s jumping all over the screen leaving a pen trace, and I have 49 seconds left on the clock.

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Step 10Step 10 is the best part. Now kids can try adding their own elements to the game. Make Alonzo run away faster? Add a second alien to the game? Maybe create an entirely different program altogether.

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Caveats Requires Chrome Browser: Snap does not require

any special software installation. It runs in the web browser Chrome, not Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Solution: we can copy and paste the instructions and use Scratch, which works on both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Computational requirements: It may be a bit slow on older computers Solution: we’ll do a dry run with one of the computers to see

how it works.

Requires attention span of 1 hour: This activity does require some prior interest and motivation. Probably this should be a small class at first, for “gifted” kids.

Also, I’ve never taught kids.

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Thanks for watching! Questions?

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