How To Train Your Robot

My kids are in ages 8-12. One big problem is that I must find a way to have them work and explore on their own, but most of the tutorials and documentation that I know is good and up-to-date, is in the English language (and I'm Dutch, as are the kids). At that age they really can't yet read English very well.

Of course the best solution to that problem is to spend some more time and try to find good Dutch HTML tutorials. They should be out there, it's just that my Internet bubble seems to be a bit anglo-centric :) Also if Python was invented by a Dutch guy, there should be some quality Dutch language material written on it, no?

But apart from that, I also wonder if there's some other ways that do not involve reading manuals. While the cards thing seems interesting, I wonder whether the kids would be excited about it, it's not a school, they go there after school and are offered the opportunity to work on all sorts of technical projects with our guidance (there's also an electronics lab where they get to solder resistors and diodes and such to make flashing LEDs etc).

I'm kind of looking at how the more "crafts" like departments have it easier (apart from electronics, there's wood, metal working, clay/pottery and more). There, the teacher can just show how to do something and explain, multiple kids can watch and then try it themselves. With the computers it's like they can't do very much or explore new things without me explaining them one-on-one. Which takes way too much time and also isn't really the best way to facilitate the "exploration" aspect (which is one of our goals).

So I sort of know where the problems are, but I'm kind of stumped on how to fix them. Except for taking the time out to write tutorials (and perhaps some screencasts) myself.

Awesome work!

If I were to teach programming to a class of kids in the 8-16 range, I'd probably get a Python environment up and running and spend:

- Two to five minutes explaining a small concept (start with the print statement, go to variables, then operators, then functions, and so on and so forth) - A couple of minutes playing around with the concept using some neat functions or classes which you write before the lesson. Like a send_email() function, where you supply each kid with a disposable email address and password. - Up to an hour repeating the first two steps. - A few seconds giving them an optional homework assignment which they can work on and show off to their classmates when they come back.

I'm sure they'll be hooked when they find five hundred emails in their inbox, that's certainly the sort of thing that got me hooked back when I first started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_(programming_language)

Many of us are taught music lessons early in life but only some become musicians. The main goal of these lessons is not really for us to become professional musicians in future, but to know that music is composed of notes, who the classical musicians were, what instrument are there, and so forth. The same thing applies to arts and painting classes. The basic goal is for us to get an idea about basic techniques and gifted people.

The main thing to learn is the fact that both music and painting are forms of expression and that we will continually encounter them in life. Also, with the help of these early lessons many uncover their inner genius and that helps them go in the known direction from that point on.

Since coding is an activity that trains one's computational thinking - a skill that is so relevant today - it better be introduced early in life too. It is also a form of expression, and knowing that it exists and how it can be applied is just as relevant as knowing about arithmetic, letters, music, art, etc.

I don't suggest that the format of the current classes is the right one (in fact, I believe that it is not), but it is essential to have a child-friendly methodology and teach coding, or rather "programming", as a skill early in life.

Similarly, programming is the ability to control computation. It's very hard for us to understand just how a society would behave when 90% of the population has the power to create any software tool it needs, to compute sophisticated statistics, and so on.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone today who disagrees it was a good thing that (almost) everyone learns how to read and write. I'm also convinced 100 years from now, you won't find anyone complaining about widespread programming ability.

Fundamentally (and one would hope that this part is made clear to students, teachers, administrators and parents), what is being taught and learned is a method for developing procedures. And I don't mean "procedures" in the context of computation, but procedures in general. I'm talking about the act of dividing a task into its component bits, determining what has to happen in what order, and deciding when things are "done" (whether that's in the sense of being absolutely complete or "close enough for government work").

Those are skills almost everyone needs in life. Programming computers or computer-controlled machines is a great way to learn those skills because of their (to anthropomorphise a bit) literal-mindedness. They aren't going to make assumptions about your desires or correct your meaning. They'll do what you tell them to do if it's at all possible, even if what you told them to do is wrong or stupid, or fail in a most ungraceful way (unless you also taught them to fail gracefully).

We may never reach a point where we need everyone to be able to write software, but we're beyond the point already where we need everybody to be able to give and take instructions.

I absolutely agree with Nikos' approach to teaching programming young learners without using an actual code. If we teach kids the idea of programming early - it will then be much more intuitive for them to pick up the language formalities later. Because by that time, such a fundamental question as "why" is already answered in practice.

In other words, the time for a real language comes as an actual need that has been experienced in practice and doing. And that makes all the difference in understanding what you need and why.

It's all over the web that more and more parents and teachers come to appreciate the idea of teaching kids to code. But the problem is that they don't know where to even begin or what tools to use. As a result, kids looking to learn programming today are faced with two main extremes:

(1) storytelling, game dev, and animation programs; and (2) real-world languages or tools based on IDEs;

Programs in the first category are all fine, except for cases when the app is too compute-intensive, or 3D objects are clumsy or rough-looking (but these problems are just temporary).

But those using real-world IDEs to introduce programming are effectively training young pilots on real fighter jets. Such tools seem too complex and intimidating even for experienced computer users. What they really ought to be using is a "flight simulator", but currently there are too few tools that allow to do that and all pretty limited.

Even when we have something that useful it makes absolute sense to use physical games in the gym to introduce the notion of composing instructions for something/someone else (a parent-robot in Nikos' case :)

Nikos, thanks for sharing your work, and congrats on joining Knewton!

Hope you don't mind me including a link to videos of your class once again:

https://www.facebook.com/drtechniko

Their team just raised 170k on Kickstarter and they have the beta ready for download.

http://primerlabs.com/download

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-ga...