A friend of mine's daughter is interested in tech, 12 years old, a little shy (if that matters), good grades, and a good circle of friends. Her mom wants to foster growth and confidence and all that good stuff. She has been to two two-week camps, one a co-ed disaster, one a girl only success. Anybody got any advice?
Thanks!
His Nature of Code work -- simulating nature through code -- also is really interesting but requires a little background in coding.
There is also Kodu from Microsoft (google it and take a look at the images and video) Kodu is ACE I love love love it. But it may be a little advanced for her.
And roll play games, D&D is tricky for most kids, but there is Hero Kids and Dungeon World (try some of the one shots) these are super geeky and fun and nerdy and min/max characters teach you a lot.
[0] https://youtu.be/8j0UDiN7my4?list=PLRqwX-V7Uu6Zy51Q-x9tMWIv9...
How would you approach that for teens? Do you have any specific advice? I'm having trouble helping them find things to continuously motivate them to keep learning.
Your advice is good.
The best thing you can do is be available and provide access to knowledge, don't funnel her into particular frameworks, languages, whatever. If she wants to learn ASM, let her. If she wants js, let her. If she wants to learn Photoshop, let her.
Parents are not supposed to direct play. They give kids toys and the kids find their own way.
One thing I'd recommend, if they still have the tech bug at around 16, is to see if they can do some kind of work experience in industry at an early age, ideally over the summer holidays. A lot of kids benefit from being around those that do tech on a regular basis, and it's a great feeling for them to work on the same stuff as we do. Even if they're picking up some less important tasks, or are re-doing the company site, it's still a great experience for them.
Key to modding seems to be start with a game they like.
As for the technical side: Make's Getting Started with Raspberry Pi book is one of the best introductions to computing I've ever seen. It starts at the beginning, uses simple language, goes deep and provides hands-on experience. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1457186128/ref=oh_aui_sear...
Get her that book and a Raspberry Pi, a nice case, encourage her, support her, help her connect with like-minded peers and then stand back. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ME5XUAG/ref=oh_aui_sear...
http://makezine.com/ and the http://makerfaire.com/ have done a great job with a community that encourages kids with a variety of interests.
http://www.meetup.com/ is great for finding people in your area who want to geek out together over something in common.
I don't have great book recommendations other than https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-Takahashi/... Read the customer reviews. I'm a greybeard and I enjoyed it and lend it out to my friends. The publishers https://www.nostarch.com/ have lots of similar books.
If she has little to no experience with coding, check out this as a start: http://code.org/
See the 'advanced' section of this handout for more coding resources for older kids: http://bit.ly/ortonacode
On the hardware side, there are projects to make programmable jewelry, clothing, and other wearables, in addition to the traditional robots, cars, drones, etc. See the Adafruit site, for example: https://www.adafruit.com/category/65
I have a 12 year old son. He's been interested in the raspberry pi and we have a PocketCHIP coming in the mail: https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip Install RetroPIE on a Raspberry Pi for a videogame emulator: https://retropie.org.uk/ Last year we did some code.org and scratch stuff and learntomod used blocks coding to learn minecraft modding.
What I would NOT recommend is starting straight up with traditional coding that is not designed with beginners and kids in mind. Don't throw python, java, C, etc. at them. Let them follow their interests: games, wearables, etc., and learn coding in pursuit of that interest, not force them to learn coding for coding's sake. I myself was interested in creating a webform 20 years ago for my student club, and in the process learned Perl for CGI scripts. It was only years later that I learned how sucky Perl was and what a bad choice it is for beginners ;)
No, this isn't the best advice in my opinion. Don't decide for the kid what is for them or what isn't. Let them decide that. Remember, Bill Gates coded at 13 in languages "meant for adults". I personally learned C at 14 from a tutorial that came with a C++ IDE (I had no idea what programming was, I just downloaded the program from the internet). Don't underestimate the intelligence and ability of kids.
I don't disagree with these warm and fuzzy environments for kids to learn, but that existed when I was a kid - logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) - and I thought it was a joke. It was demotivating and condescending rather than encouraging.
I have a 18 month old, and I don't know the answer yet, but got to figure it out soon...
1. We installed Scratch, and let him learn that.
2. After he got good at Scratch, I installed Love2d and helped him write a few really tiny games in Lua.
3. Last Christmas we bought him the book "Sam's Teach Yourself Minecraft Modding in 24 hours" by which he slowly learned the basics of Java.
4. This weekend he borrowed a 9-books-in-1 book for Java which he's using to port his Pong game from Lua to Java in, using a custom JComponent.
That's the order that's working for him. He's well on his way to being able to write things like 2048. Not there yet, but soon.
For example, if she is interested in how apps work, start with some iOS tutorials and demonstrating a simulator. Or perhaps she has questions about how websites are made, in which case demonstrate some HTML and CSS. Maybe "tech" means a hardware focus, in which case start with the Raspberry Pi or Arduino kits.
In general, the advice would be to dig deeper into what type of technology she's interested in and go from there. Her mom may have classified "tech" as "taking things apart and putting them back together again", which may indicate a more mechanically oriented (and not necessarily electronic/computer) mindset.
I agree with many of the sibling comments that project-based learning approaches especially for hobbies are generally highly successful with inquisitive children and young adults.
I've heard that "Adventures in Raspberry Pi" is awesome, but I'd also maybe throw in some additional R-Pi based hackery (for music http://www.instructables.com/id/PiMiDi-A-Raspberry-Pi-Midi-B... is pretty cool, but it all depends on what she's into!)
It includes ways to show of what she has made to her friends, but it is not directly social (unless you are sitting more than one person at a computer, which can totally work).
I also was big into fan fiction when I started using the internet in my youth, so it was fun for me to make a website for housing my fan fiction and that of others. The fanfic website eventually got unwieldy to style each story's page separately, so my dad pointed me at PHP: I could use `include` tags to include the same header and footer on every page. Voila, I was programming! Then came MySQL so I could offer filtering options for pairing, rating, characters involved, etc.
So if your friend's daughter is into creative stuff outside of technology, you might have traction encouraging her to combine the two.
The next day her father asked me, "How much is a violin going to cost me?".
Lesson: Children can get more interested in activities they see adults interested in and liking.
The difference: The girl's mother didn't like piano enough to play it. I really like violin and was working hard playing and practicing it. The Bach 'Chaconne' is not a trivial piece of music, and it's possible to get really involved in it, which I did. Those are all big points.
So, for a girl and computing, first, interrupt some of your hard work at you computer, sit her down next to you, and show her how to do some things. E.g., show her how to type "Hello World" into some word processing program and print it. Show her how to use a Web browser and e-mail. See what else she is interested in, and help her with that.
Eventually get her father to buy her a computer. I suggest a desktop computer in a mid-tower case, with your help, she can assemble herself. Likely install both Windows and Linux.
Get her started on programming, say, in some interpretive language, maybe Python.
Get her a project she would like to do, maybe build her own Web site and use her computer as a Web server.
Get her well into word processing so that she can do better with school term papers and, more generally, practice her writing.
Learning to read in some data, analyze it, and plot it stands to be good for her when she gets into high school math and science.
I have a special suggestion: Get her a really good editor, one with a good macro language. I use KEdit. Except for Web browsing, I by far my most heavily used program is that text editor; I use it for a huge range of things. Good skills with a good text editor are darned good to have.
Take it from there, and, say, report back on what did/didn't work!
I would suggest starting with particle photon and do some mini projects.
You might also look for resources on the social and emotional needs of gifted. Lots of bright kids wind up "shy." Having spent a bit of time involved in the gifted community and raised two bright kids, I think this is not mere coincidence and some of it is driven by the negative social fallout that tends to come with the territory when people at school figure out you are "smart."
* edit: added LadyAda
I think about this a lot and I think this is a big source of problems for women trying to figure out how to make it in business (or government or something other than as entertainers or someone's wife).
Thanks for contributing your list.
If it's electronics, buy some starter kits, a good iron, and get them a book on electronics. (Maybe also show them some people like EEVBlog)
If it's computer science, but some computers, get them an internet connection and let them have at it.
Although I always say this: no one will learn unless they have a project they need to do. This is no matter the field. If you're not interested you're not going to learn in the first place.
Though I was a highschooler back then and I had so much free time and watched 600+ videos in about 6 months, so not for everyone imo.
I think that you should try to let her learn to create webpages with HTML & CSS, and then later she could try to learn JavaScript. It's an relatively easy place to start, and you're learning real world skills. I tend to disagree with people who want children to learn "Python Scratch" or other toys that you'll never get any use for.
Theres a lot of resources online (ex. http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp), and on YouTube. But I will always recommend to start with a good book, the "For Dummies" series is usually very good (ex. "Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies").
I think this would be a good option because the courses cover a wide range of topics so she can explore computing/internet basics, different programming languages and other digital tools (Photoshop/Illustrator) before really committing to one technology.
Treehouse also has specific tracks for app, game and web development which provide a structured path to learning the technology which can be good for beginners that might otherwise be overwhelmed.
Safari Books/O'Reilly provides free access to all O'Reilly books and videos for K-12 students. The Head First series books are particularly good for beginners.
I remember fondly attending a coding course when I was around ~10. It was early 2000, so we used Visual Basic for Applications embedded in Office 97 :-) 5 to 10 kids + teacher. We were writing silly text adventures, and poem generators and then moved onto writing simple games.
Interesting development later on was, that girls in my group pushed for more and more math (I remember proving irrationality of sqrt(2) was a big topic) while boys were interested more in the coding, especially if the output was something visual.
So, remember that tech might be physics or math as well, at least where I come from there were many extra curricular activities I could choose from in this area :-)
Modding is advantageous because the feedback is often immediate and tangible -- small changes can result in appreciable results to a game world.
Working with game APIs, assets, and scripting is rarely elegant or academically pure, but the reward of accomplishing a successful mod produce a good incentive to learn real-world 'ugly' APIs. These are the sorts of systems that most people in tech have to interface with every day. By being introduced to these real-world systems early on, there is no jarring transition when arriving from a more learning-based environment.
I'd recommend showing them "cool" things that use programming. Wearables, small automated things, computer controlled squirtguns, 3d printers, visit a local maker space, etc.
Sure there's many people that self started decades ago and taught themselves programming from scratch with minimal resources. But lets face it, those people are the exception not the rule.
They make Arduino boards for wearable projects that run of batteries. The Adafruit blog is quite interesting.
Books like Realm of Racket can be fun introductions to programming that happen to teach some advanced stuff.
Books that the parent's might like are Carol Dweck's Mindset, Barbara Oakley's A Mind for Numbers, and Angela Duckworth's Grit. If she shows an interest in mathematics, the Art of Problem Solving books and forums are great.
Things I see recommended here but which I personally wouldn't do: 1. Drop her in to a Linux/Command prompt with a book and ask her to go to town. I think this may work for some folks but I'll wager the success rate would be pretty low as a general solution. Also I disagree that letting a kid walk through man pages or technical books like K&R is the most effective for this age given how many awesome resource there are to get started. Those things can come at their own time when they have an actual problem which requires it. 2. Don't start on a language other than blocky unless she can type. The typing will come but if you want a clean start and not have her too frustrated with doing the programming while also slow typing I would handle learning these separately. 3. Let her to go on her own. I'm fortunate (and most people on this site are) to know how to code so this applies only in this case. Its much more motivating her for this to be "our" project where I can help get her unstuck when there is a challenge and its something we spend time together on. I also get to model learning and debugging for her which is hard to learn by yourself. On the flip side though you have to be patient and not be tempted to do it all yourself as the idea is that she learns it all eventually.
Remember the big picture: keep this mind and realize that knowing this is incredibly powerful but at an early age there is so much to learn that keeping it fun and engaging is the best way to have her want to continue to come back to it. Also remember that these kids want to learn and helping them pick up the right tools to help them solve their problems will enable them to do that as an adult.
Seconded. Advice on learning tech and science tends to contain a large amount of survivorship bias. A lot of people in these fields had some unusual, unstated quirk in their background that led them to do stuff like read K&R front-to-back while all of their friends were watching TV. It worked out great for them, but it's bad bet to hope it will work for a large percentage of kids.
Ask the kid and see what her interests really are? Does she want to learn how to make games or what? She should be able to voice this at 12. Can she look up free programming books with Google? There's tons of them. Does she want to mess with a R-PI? If a co-ed camp was a disaster (at the age of 12!) simply because it was co-ed, she might need therapy, not just some hippy-dippy girls-only camp.
I suggest Maker Faire, arduino and raspberry by, wearables, etc.
There is enough material for free on the internet. Buy her stuff if its practical though.
But she very soon will need to be self-motivated for her learning and making a living. Encourage her to work on 'real' problems or projects that interest her. Encourage her to work with others as much as possible.
* Offer her some literature on the general topic of programming, theoretical and/or philosophical books.
* Women-focused events/communities (Lambda ladies, and many others) that will allow her to meet potential _female_ role models, which is very important.
I may forget some stuff.
If she wants to get into hardware start with a RPi or Arduino.
Also get her running Linux. Start with something simple like Mint or Ubuntu. Teach her how it is "like Windows and OS X" but a bit different. Do some basic command line stuff like making a folder, opening a file, etc.
Setup Minecraft which I would assume she already plays if she likes tech. Show her mods, maybe even a little Java to make mods although I feel Java with its strict OOP and compile/run can be a bit daunting for even an adult so maybe wait until she understands Python a bit.
The main thing is just explore all the different things. Tech is awesome today as if you have a computer you can get so much stuff free thanks to the FOSS community from the OS to everyday software to programming languages to books etc. And little hacker hardware like the RPi is affordable by almost all with a little spare income.
Wearable electronics are good; the Make book seems like a good intro to that area.
I also believe it's good to read CS history. Following article is a personal favorite. http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/fp.html
a = 3 + 2
print a1. Try changing the statement print your name.
2. Having to type the same thing over and over is unnecessary, we can save it in a variable.
3. You can use variables inside the print statement through a process called string interpolation.
4. In addition to strings, variables can hold many types of values, including numbers.
5. Operators can be used to manipulate values. Do some math with the variables.
6. Receive input and save in variable.
From there you can go to conditional statements, loops and functions.
There is a newer version you can buy on Amazon.
I've noticed that kids do what they want to do, at best you can steer toward a general family of actions. If the adult wants electronics, and the kid wants to learn by playing with MIDI and XLR connectors and semi-pro audio stuff, trying to steer toward raspberry pi isn't going to work unless you're incredibly sneaky, but bringing home a pile of surplus audio gear from work will be pretty well received.
My dad had plenty of money but knew I'd be a better engineer and better artifex in general if I didn't have the most expensive stuff. I'm not saying buy kids junk, especially not safety related which should be top of the line, but I learned a lot more designing and making my own ham radio antennas than I'd ever have learned opening a box and assembling a kit antenna or even worse opening a box to reveal an assembled antenna. You'll never really learn how to take care of (expensive) tools until you're "forced" to use junk tools.
You can learn a shocking amount of good engineering by osmosis, especially with some "pro" guidance. Buy her a broken down motorcycle or dirtbike (if not a car) and have her tear every piece apart figuring out how each part works and where and how its worn and how to use tools and just how stuff works. Tear apart some old VCRs and DVD players (older the better... modern set top streaming boxes are mechanically boring). Take apart at least three traditional desktops and put the pieces together into at least one working, "maxed out" desktop. I disassembled my mother's oven when I was about her age, this is not some weird metaphor either, this was back in the days of mechanical timers and clocks and rube goldberg thermostats that none the less sometimes worked. Every kid should tear apart at least one vehicle transmission and one carburetor in their youth. And talk talk talk, unless the kid learns something about metal fatigue or electrochemical corrosion or how to put out cutting torch fires they're just destroying stuff. Your job is very boy scout adult, chill out other than "no you can't use my cutting torch in the garage, take it outside first" and similar safety violations. All kids like burning stuff although its only socially (semi)acceptable for boys. Notice how I can melt aluminum in that wood fire, but not steel, tell me what that means? If I get one thing across in this post its that kids need to take stuff apart almost as much as they need to build stuff.
I don't know the "tech" SV social media coding equivalent of tearing apart a broken down Honda CBR 150. When I was a kid it would have been breaking copy protection on 8 bit micros which was well within my/our ability. Maybe fun with a packet sniffer or mapping out other people's wifi access points. Maybe replicate a software exploit following the premade instructions for the exploit, then try it on similar software and see what happens.
She'll have a server running in no time.
:)
Then K&R just because everyone should read it.
Grab C in a Nutshell, Understanding and Using C Pointers and C A Reference Manual for reference.
Then get the Linux Programming Interface book.
Okay maybe a bit overkill for a 12 year old...