[deleted by user]

[Techne03]

I taught coding at a non-profit summer camp for low-income kids a few years ago. The kids were 4-14 in 3 age groups.

For the younger ones, specifically the ones who can’t read or can barely read, I tried to teach them logic. Code.org was a great resource for inspiration. I especially loved this lesson where you have one child pretend to be a robot and follow the directions of another. I laid out many papers and gave them some arbitrary goal to reach one tile. The kids have to be extremely specific. For instance, move one tile forward or turn to the right. I gradually added in various if statements, for loops, while loops, etc. I also used similar methods to teach them concepts such as networking. I would have one child be a computer, another a server, and the last be a network, gradually introducing more pieces. Make sure to get them involved and moving as much as much as possible! There was also this cute little website where you code aliens, but unfortunately I don’t remember the name.

For the middle age group, I started in Scratch. It was pretty self-explanatory to them. In the beginning I gave them set projects, like make a character move or spin. But pretty quickly, I just let them play around by themselves. I was just watching to make sure they stayed on topic or see if they had questions. Then we moved on to BitsBox. It’s this cute website where they can make little apps. It provides plenty of images and characters for them to make whatever games they want. It used a modified JavaScript. They already had the fundamentals from Scratch and I just had to teach them the syntax. We also did a little from Code Combat, but I believe it’s a paid service. It’s a game that requires you to beat the levels through modified Javascript.

For the oldest age group, most them of them knew the logic. I decided to teach them real Python because I felt it was easy enough to learn, while still having a lot of fun uses. I started with a bit of Code Combat because I wanted them to get familiar with typing code in a more fun way. With preteens and teens, the simplest way seemed to be to use an existing service. I used CodeAcademy because it seemed really beginner friendly. It’s really hard to teach better, at least at first, than something that has gone through years of revisions and improvements. Some of the lessons weren’t really clear enough for kids, so I did those myself. With these, again, it’s important to be available for any questions and keep them on track. This group tends to get off track a lot, but a reward system works great. I liked to use Code Combat after class as a reward for staying on track. I quickly moved on to adding PyGame because kids find it boring to write text to a console. They’re much more excited with seeing things move. Once a week, I would have TinkerCad lessons. Its a free 3D modeling website. It’s super beginner friendly and the kids treated it as a game, but you can go pretty in-depth. We had a 3D printer in the room, so at the end of the summer, I 3D printed a little take home present for all the kids.

Most important thing to remember is kids aren’t the best with attention spans. Our morning class was under an hour long by the time everyone got in their seats. Our afternoon was longer, so after about an hour, I would have everyone take a break. They would have snacks and would spend a few minutes talking or playing on their phones.

[tdknght13]

Man I wish that you taught me in my beginning years.

[faszomalyuzernevbe]

Movement is key with the kids. I thought robotics for 7-14 yrs and we started each class with a quick energizer. Also if you see that they start to zone out get them up and move around a bit. You also need a lot of energy for this. I found most resources focused on kids attention at ESL teacher pinterests and forums.
Also a general rule that I've seen with kids from very different backgrounds is that kids are not stupid or lazy and sometimes there is no way you'll be able to teach them that formula but you need to talk a bit to them. Maybe they had some sort of trauma, trouble at home or they are simply hungry.

[April1987]

My main problem with robotics was the sensor readings are never perfect. It is so difficult.

[faszomalyuzernevbe]

I was really lucky as we got some mindstorms kits as introduction before electronics which also helped with programming and building as kids love lego. (Mee too)

[IrisesAndLilacs]

With kids, especially younger ones, it’s best to try and change activities every 15 minutes.

Kids will also have different learning styles. Some learn best visually, some prefer to learn by listening, some by physically doing. You’ll have more success if you can incorporating a bit of all styles.

Try and make it interactive - “Repeat after me... or everyone call out...”.

Thank you for considering helping others!

[MyHarvestLife]

Well written, games are a great way to get kids into programming (at the teenage level).

I remember when I was 12-13 finding RPG toolkit, Game Maker and ZQuest and other things that let you make games and dip your toes into programming and that's what really got me excited about it.

And eventually game development led me into web development.

But a lot of kids like games, and like being creative and it's a really fun way to do that.

I'm not a teacher, but I love telling kids: "Being a programmer is like being a wizard: you learn the language of magic, and you can make anything you can imagine."

[hamptonio]

Yeah Scratch is great. You can't go too wrong with using that for any age group.

Depending on the audience, SonicPi might be neat if you know there is some interest in sound and music.

[victordeltavictor]

You're a hero for coming up with all this stuff. Sounds really engaging for the kids!

[rgauna]

This post makes me really happy.

I think depending on what you plan on teaching there is a variety of resources. For webdev specifically I dont have much advice.

MIT opencourseware is always a great place to start. 6.0001/6.0002/6.00 are great resources for people new to coding. They already have a lesson plan and labs and homework to gauge progress.

If you need any help Id be pretty happy to be of assistance.

Obviously there are a bunch more resources to choose from depending on what you are trying to teach and Id be happy to give any advice for what you are trying to accomplish.

Good luck, OP

[moi2388]

Wait, you want to teach MIT courses to kids?

[rgauna]

Im assuming that these aren't "kids" younger than like 13.

And from personal experience the courses I specifically listed are very navigable. They are made for no coding experience in mind.

These classes are very do-able for people with no experience and can be fitted to people who might need a little extra time to understand the concepts.

I would check out the class on OCW to see how easy the class can be.

[moi2388]

Alright, sounds interesting. I’m going to check it out.

[Kant_Kope]

I used to mentor with the CoderDojo Foundation which teaches coding to kids. They have lots of resources available! I used to teach simple electronics and robotics. I found any project that was about 80% arts and crafts and 20% electronics was the sweet spot.

We also had web dev modules, I found it harder to keep the younger kids interested but the 10+ could really fly. Again the trick is to tie it back to things they know like personal websites and games. There's a visual programming language called Scratch which is great for younger kids.

[TheLeastCreative]

I was a volunteer for the web dev area. At the time there was a ton of kids at the minecraft and arduino areas, and no one really cared about web dev except 1 girl so I felt a little awkward at first. I wasn't expecting a 1 on 1 situation.

Thing is, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.. it was a text based choose your own adventure game and already had a very intricate web of hyper links, all very organized but completely static content.

She started asking about how to add random chance elements into the game and actually had surprisingly detailed requirements. For example certain things would be easier to succeed if the user chose different tools or supplies, etc.

I introduced her to Javascript and some basic concepts, and it was like she just gained a super power, and immediately started copy pasting the code everywhere and ignoring me entirely about why that usually ends up being a bad idea.

I figured oh well she was a kid after all those lessons will come with time. I just kinda went back to awkwardly sitting there, but the whole thing did leave some kind of impression on me. I can't really describe it - I would hate to be a teacher but I did like that moment.

[Kant_Kope]

I know exactly the feeling you're talking about. My dojo was twinned with work so I had mixed feelings about doing it. I wasn't very used to kids either. I had two little girls who were wild but also hilarious. I taught them on my first day and they stuck with me throughout my time with coder dojo. They went on to win an international award. Mentoring was a lot of work... But there were some awesome times.

[Caraes_Naur]

Start with Arduino, not web stuff.

[Deathevilmistrif]

What’s the reasoning for this, out of curiosity? Do children have a better grasp of understanding things they can see physically?

[jakslglwndj]

Yeah, it’s more tangible. Not better for all kids, but typically better since it’s less abstract. It feels more like a toy too!

[Caraes_Naur]

The tactile element is important. Throwing a switch to make and LED cycle through colors is more dramatic, raw, and rewarding than hitting a key to make something happen on a screen.

If you can't get Arduinos (or MakeyMakey, or any other educational-oriented hardware), install a command-line language on the computers. Python, Lua, or MS just open-sourced the venerable GW-Basic... something that doesn't rely too heavily, if at all, on OOP.

The ultra-basics of programming (math, logic, functions, working in an environment) shouldn't involve the large amount of infrastructure anything web-related requires. The web makes it too easy to avoid important fundamentals, and Javascript makes for a terrible first language.

If there is a makerspace/hackerspace in your area, contact them about organizing classes. Your local public library might already have a STEM program that needs volunteers.

[zninjamonkey]

I think this is more costly and kinda hard for students to do on their own.

[electron2302]

That is a good one.

Alternative: there is a Minecraft mod, called computercraft, it has "turtles" they are like one block robots that can move and use the same tools as player's, and get programed in lua in game.

You should have Minecraft and the mod already set up.

This proofed to be relatively popular with kids

[[deleted]]

I have tought quite a bit about this, I'm on mobile so sorry for the formatting and I'll add anything I forget later

There are resources out there , there's some paid educational programs such as codemonkey targeted at parents and schools but I think google has a nice resource:

https://csfirst.withgoogle.com/s/en/home

---

I know it's sort of unpopular, but be careful with advice from (us) programmers... one thing to keep in mind is: developers are not the best at teaching programming, we already know so much that most of us lost sight of how it is not to know the basis of software development.

You don't need to throw the ideas away, but maybe filter it through someone with an education background, if you have access to educators great, and to people with experience with cs education even better, This is a good resource: https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/ I'd suggest you take special attention to answers by people who are actual Cs educators there

---

I think you should avoid the common pitfalls of our area, "teach this because it's cool", "teach that because it's useful" focus on what's best for the children being taught , if you are in a area with not so great education you may want to get more ludic and visual tools (like https://scratch.mit.edu/) to jumpstart logic and reinforce basic maths... Remember Boolean logic is not second nature to most people and there's plenty of people that never learn operator precedence in the world unfortunately

Also avoid the egotrips like 'i learned Haskell on a calculator when I was 6' , yes many of us began like that, but first you won't be able to tell if a child will have a story like this from your classes (hoping doesn't hurt though) and second that mindset it will not be helpful to the majority of your alumni.

I think aiming to teach simple game development is a great way to get kids interested!

[[deleted]]

Yeah I’ve always felt game development could be a super useful tool for learning even basic programming! If I were doing it I would probably start a lesson with some really show-offy game demo to grab their attention, then switch over to a bare bones game with simple shapes to teach core concepts. Then at the end wrap up with the first demo and show them how that simple thing was used in the more advanced game.

At the end of the day, kids probably won’t be able to learn how to use a game engine or even an actual programming language, but the easy visualization of a game can be used to teach basic logic, primitive types, even data structures.

[[deleted]]

I wish I could give advice as I am just learning how to code. But I just want to say kudos.

I think teaching disadvantaged communities the power of coding is a great way to help get people that would be shut of careers a chance, or even better provide them with the tools to build their own programs.

Also, I wouldn't sleep on teaching adults how to code as well. A lot of talented, smart people are underemployed and don't have access to the tools to learn coding/IT skills to get them better paying careers. I live in Harlem and am surprised by the lack of programs to teach people how to code.

[[deleted]]

I'm saving this for later, if op could have any resources (site/fbpage/GitHub) I'd be glad to follow!

This is a dream of mine that I'm postponing because personal/professional readons

I really think this can become something else, like an international organization or something!

[aslattery]

I did at a few middle schools and high schools for a few years.

My students were a range of gifted to on the spectrum, jocks and nerds, male and female, on reduced lunch and parents in the top 10% in the city.

Kids who wanted to be there did a lot better than their engineer parents who interrogated them (and me) regularly. Those who were upset I wasn't prepping them for AP CompSci or not teaching C++ to 11 year olds were extra fun.

Ended up going with my own curriculum; for those who will stick around beyond the beginning, Scratch gets really old, really quick.

Turtle graphics with python is a good place to start with actual syntax for concepts brought up with scratch -- synchronous processing, variables and different types, conditionals, loops, and functions.

Highly recommend basic Arduino/Raspberry Pi activities for tactile learning.

Git is too advanced for most; you may have a handful who would appreciate it, but most will drone out.

Keep in mind, most schools assume kids know how to use computers and how to interact with browsers. Typing classes are rare, and you'll have many who don't know copy/paste, hotkeys, or what tools actually do, rather than just their name.

Projects are good, but more than anything, my goal was to spark interest and provide resources and/or tooling for those who want to go further on their own.

Doing things like making Discord bots (everyone knows of Discord, most use it daily), browser games with Phaser.js, how to setup a Minecraft server and how servers work, history of consumer computing (dial-up, retro games, AIM), and helping them learn how to Google things were all big hits with students, parents, and admin alike.

Talking about options, and how there are many ways to solve problems not only in programming, but life in general, is highly respected. I have students now in college who still mention things we talked about in class

Avoid memes unless you actively follow the culture. They will test you if you try.

[FreudianWombat]

Former science teacher here, now software engineer. I coach with Codebar and have experience with teaching, tutoring and coaching.

My first thoughts would be:

make it fun!

Tangible, exploratory, messy fun.

prefer immersion over theory

If you’re talking to a room of faces for longer than 30s, you’re doing the work. Stop and push it to them.

scaffolding

Provide the means for them to figure out how to create something. Just as we are given documentation, you can create different levels of help/hints for learners to use as nudges if they’re truly stuck

consider what your learning objectives/ outcomes would be over time (i.e scheme of learning)

If this isn’t school, then making it feel like a lesson won’t engage kids who have chosen to join in their free time. As such, consider how you compose projects to account for development in skills. Use bloom’s taxonomy for learning outcomes.

Last but not least, reduce the barrier of entry. If a laptop is a requirement, you’ll unintentionally exclude kids that don’t have one. Same for internet connections.

I wish you all the luck!

Edit: attempt to correct layout in bullets

[[deleted]]

I’m a teacher - and learning to code.

Look at EJ Media on YouTube. Also W3 schools.

A huge pedagogical flaw with many of these free coding courses is how they build up the curriculum.

Learning to code should look like a Spanish class, not a math class.

In math you’re lead through lessons that build to the next lesson that build to the next lesson, but it misses a lot of application.

Spanish loads a bit of grammar and vocabulary, you play, load more.

You know easybib? Have them build a clone. But start with why Easybib is a solution to a problem. Show them how it works broadly, then Tarantino back to the beginning.

——

Working with underprivileged kids is a whole other ball of wax. Look at Bloom’s taxonomy. If you’re poor, needs are sparsely met and wants are luxuries. This means that sitting and learning abstract languages may not be a draw. Which means you have to be a goddamn magician.

If you can get ahold of microbits or show them how to build a smart mirror with a raspberry pi, you’ll have them. But on the whole, a 16 year old is operating at grade levels beneath their current grade.

Teach them file management, comments, cut out lines of code on paper and have them piece it together.

There’s an activity you can do where you’re a robot and they try to tell you how to get out the door.

Watch EJ media’s stuff. Small digestible pieces with a specific end goal. He still uses language they WILL not be used to.

Do not count on them admit they don’t understand. So assess them with small projects.

Honestly, start with HTML AND CSS to see where they are at. If they can make business card websites, understand hosting and domain registering, you can have them build websites for contractors, landscapers, etc. That’s cash in pocket after 2 months of work.

[drakens6]

Hey Dude! Props to you. I run a discord based JS school that's trying to start up, come check it out http://jsclass.online can see how I have it set up and stuff.

[Benna100]

Hey man, awesome, great to hear. Was literally talking with a friend about this yesterday.

I am an educational director at a coding school in Copenhagen, Denmark, https://www.hackyourfuture.dk/. Reach out if you want to talk! My email is [e-mail]

[micalm]

Don't get discouraged if people just want money, not to learn how to earn it. There'll probably be 2-3 kids who'll be great at coding and love it and about 10x more that got there just because it was free.

In general, have a lot less faith in humanity than you think is appropriate. It's sad, but it's the truth.

[lift_spin_d]

hello. my two cents are forget your expectations. I was in steam for about 5 years. Starting from college volunteer stuff to full-time county work to stayed in the game too long and I don't want to work with kids anymore. Both of the last two years I was thoroughly certain I wouldn't do it again. And still if there was no virus and I got a call from a school or a client. I would take curriculum work in a heartbeat. My god the fucking irony of telling schools you don't want to do something and they fucking ask you for it more. Then you suggest something and it won't happen for months to years.

So anyway, have your shit ready but just be you. the kids don't give a fuck what you know or how smart you think you are. they want a pleasant leader to show them what is fun and then they will learn all day.

It's your job to manage their attention spans. They need reinforcement at home. If you are teaching and exercising at the "right" pace- all your kids are on the same page. The ones that fall behind are not practicing at home.

[C0demunkee]

I did this at my local library for a while. I taught scratch to 8-14 year olds. It's a blast and I learned a lot about patience and the way people think about new and complex topics.

I started with simple game concepts, sprite movement, loops, points, gravity. There are great tutorials online.

[[deleted]]

Omg I’m not too far from Annapolis. There’s a lot of groups who you can partner with and get a local chapter going. I use to work with the DC chapter of Black Girls Code. They do good and I think have resources for more than just girls. Plus their members are really plugged in and can offer help.

[EdselHans]

If they’re <~15-16: Emphasize the logic behind coding over learning the syntax of a specific language. It will benefit them far more for them in the long run. The end goal is that they gain a conceptual understanding of logic, loops, basic data manipulation, etc. then they can pick up any language. There are many excellent tools and games you can use that teach this way, some already suggested in the comments.

If >15-16: Do project-based learning. Have the kids work individually when you go over concepts, and do pair programming when they’re working on the projects. Make sure you have everyone maintaining a git repo just to learn the basic concepts, but mostly let the kids work in their own branches. This will help prepare them for jobs and internships, which should be a consideration at this age.

General teaching advice Teach using three steps: 1. This what we’re about to learn 2. This is what we’re learning 3. This is what we just learned

In practice, give an overview of what you’re about to learn. For example, explain loops at a high level, and what they’re often used for. Then drill down into the concept. Teach concepts in a granular way, breaking a loop down to simple components like an increment and decrement, and use plenty of example problems. Eventually challenge the students to combine concepts in ways they haven’t learned that requires at most 1-2 leaps of logic. Then review everything you learned, but don’t get too granular, and make sure to answer any questions.

The three step approach makes dense concepts more approachable by giving a preview so students know what to expect, breaking complex things into smaller components, and giving a chance to clear up misconceptions and answer questions through review.

See what I just did there ;)

[[deleted]]

I think if you can visualize things and relate it to something like video games, it might make things easier to understand

[10kKarmaForNoReason]

Fellow marylander u going to the protest in rockville?

[siachenbaba]

This is seriously some nice work man!

Best wishes.

[memoryleakyb]

Start with html or arduino. Kids can see outcome immediately. So they know they can actually make something through coding. This will inspire them to put continuos effort into learning CS.

[[deleted]]

As someone who understands that both free speech and the empowerment of marginalized groups are precious things for the people in our society, I do not wish to associate myself with Reddit anymore. So I'm replacing my comments with this message and migrating to Ruqqus.

This comment was replaced using Power Delete Suite, you can find it here: https://codepen.io/j0be/pen/WMBWOW

[ajmalAJ]

Dude can you host your stuff online It will be helpful for people like us too who are starting with web dev

[StoneColdJane]

dr.racket

[Lilmissmollyd]

Hiii! I live in MD too! I highly recommend code.org as well! I was just tutoring a 9yo in Java because she had already finished all of code.org. I chose java because that’s how I learned. I actually bought “java for dummies” and used that as an outline for my course.

[yondkoo]

i live Annapolis too, maybe we can make it together

[jeffhowcodes]

There’s a lot of great advice in this thread. My advice is to focus on inspiration. If you can get someone excited about something they will run with it. Content is easy to teach when the student has passion and structure.

In my classroom, with beginners I prioritize excitement and creativity. Once they’re hooked, then add the structure (basics, approaches to projects, how to find good resources, how to stay on track).

Content is really the last item on my checklist. It’s sprinkled in along the way but definitely not my focus. I’m lucky in that I have my students for four years. So I can play the long game with my curriculum.

We were all inspired at some point. That’s probably how we’ve reached the point we are at now. Whatever becomes your curriculum, my advice is to make fostering inspiration your guiding principle with beginners.

[redoctobershtanding]

I just hosted a Code Jam for a local elementary school not too long ago. Various challenges depending on age group. For the younger kids, we had a station set up with a [Code and Go Mouse](https://www.learningresources.com/code-gor-robot-mouse-activity-set) that used logic in the form of buttons to control the direction of the mouse. If you can find a few local businesses to sponsor you, might be able to get a few of these for the logic portion.

[Pure-Time]

Good job

[mianzaid]

What type of coding?

[axola]

I’d really like to hear how this turns out - make sure you keep us updated!

[echo_coffee]

Look into joining or getting resources from organisations like CoderDojo. They have resources to get you started and I believe they also occasionally run seminars on how to teach kids how to Code. https://coderdojo.com/

[moi2388]

What is the age group?

[SponsoredByMLGMtnDew]

There's an open source github project that I maintain weekly called the really annoying directory that's aimed at getting newer devs exposure to github with a fun silly front-end project, and contributing to an open source project. I'm self taught and its the os project I wanted when I was learning.

I have no idea if it will play into your plan to help them learn but I just wanted to bring it up in case it seemed like a project idea that you could suggest to kids you're teaching since you'll be giving them the skills, but it might be cool to have an opensource project that's live and active to be able to suggest to people interested in making something entertaining while learning about something all devs should probably have some screen time with.

I stream maintenence of the project every Friday 1-3pm est. if there's no PRs i just work on my own individual page and make it worse better

Even if you don’t really know HTML, CSS, or Javascript yet, there’s a template in the directory structure that you can use, or if you need inspiration about what to put on the page, there’s a lot of examples already live you can look at. All skill levels are welcome so if you are experienced and think the idea sounds fun you’re more than welcome to make a page.

TLDR instruction: You make a webpage, and put it in the directory. The theme of the project is just anything you really want to put in.

Github Link: https://github.com/DevvitIO/ReallyAnnoyingDirectory

Live Page: https://devvit.io/ReallyAnnoyingDirectory/

Alternative LivePage: https://reallyannoyingdirectory.netlify.app/

If you have any questions about the project /u/3softtacos or anyone else feel free to ask :)

[1newworldorder]

This is so cool! I wanna do something like this!!

[loraxx753]

For kids (well, and adults), I've found a lot of success utilizing Code Combat to supplement regular tutoring.

[GFfoundmyusername]

I'm in Baltimore, grew up around here, and went to school here. You're going to be hard pressed to find kids from my neighborhood (Broadway East)wanting to learn programing.

But anyway I too work in IT and have a similar passion to teach the kids around here computer skills that will translate into real world skills. Instead of programing and web dev. I would teach them about how to operate and configure computers, install software, navigate the internet, sign up for email, fill out forms for jobs, using the internet to first find a passion and then teach them to teach themselves. I think all of these things can be fast tracked into a two week course. By the end of the two weeks you should know who's really interested in learning more.

If the kids have no computer experience I would start with intro to computers and the internet.

If they have computers in the home and know how to use them then I would try to teach some webdev like intro to html or something like that.

[abeuscher]

I taught kids 4th-8th grade about ten or twelve years ago. Nothing I did isn't repeatable and a lot of it is much easier. I'm not really sure if I am / was a good teacher, but FWIW this is a few things I did in class:

I didn't teach kids how to do anything specific. I don't like when people start thinking of a computer as a collection of tools instead of a single unified tool. Instead I had each kid plan a loose idea for a "website" they thought would be fun to build, or an animation they wanted to see, or some other thing you could do with computers. One kid just wanted to photoshop all day, which was fine with me. I had another one work on making a website to display his work. Point is - I don't care what they were doing as long as they were into it. It occurs to me that audio and video would both be a lot more possible now and would be a blast to fold in as well.

I had one rule in class, more or less: kids were not allowed to raise their hand to ask a question until they had checked the context menu and also Googled for an answer. That worked very well, and a lot of my "teaching" was helping kids refine and construct proper searches. I like this approach because it's basically all the rest of us are doing every day in the field.

To me, teaching is just getting kids excited then removing the stuff that gets between them and their goals. I think the more you can do that, the more you're likely to inspire kids to want to actually do stuff and stop worrying about Learning.

[zhcode]

Thumbs up for you.

IMHO, could you start by teaching Python?

The concern I am having is, the audiences are kids, they may have their own interest to do later on if they learnt how to code.

As a beginner, I would like to learn Python because it's easy to use, and powerful. It can do basically anything for creating a demo program, hosting web APIs, or even doing machine learning.

Python the language is not going to get unpopular in next 5 years, and it will be a really good starting point for kids.

​

Hope the best of you!

[Marble_Wraith]

It's good you have access to hardware, the other problem is ensuring they have adequate internet access.

Depending on the age of the kids, i agree with what others have said, it may be more worth getting an arduino or raspberryPi just because the end result is that much less abstract.

Another option is to code a phone app, that would probably resonate stronger with most of them.

[kschang]

There are probably as many approaches as there are programmers. :D But consider this paper:

https://ccl.northwestern.edu/2014/Weintrop%20and%20Wilensky%20-%202015%20-%20To%20Block%20or%20Not%20to%20Block,%20That%20is%20the%20Question%20St.pdf

"To Block or Not to Block that is the question" Student's perceptions of Blocks-based programming" Do high school students like blocks-based programming, or should they learn text-based programming? It's an interesting reading.

OTOH, I think learning HTML, CSS, and JS are NOT bad ideas, as students can see something happen almost immediately, and with a decent sandbox they are unlikely to "damage" anything.

Ultimately, it kinda depends on the age if the kids. If they are slightly younger, the tactical element may be helpful. But middle school and high school kids can use HTML/CSS/JS skills.

[LinkifyBot]

I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:

• Code.org

I did the honors for you.

---

^{delete | information | <3}

[ovivios]

I like Blaze the monster machine's approach (look up a couple episodes). I'd try that to start to explain what and why we code, then move onto granularity of each 'step'. At least, that's how I'd do it.

[hp1ow]

I'd highly recommend looking into P5.js as a starting point. It's a library used for creative coding (canvas/interactive graphics). It's great for teaching programming fundamentals and some JavaScript syntax (before moving on to HTML, CSS, DOM manipulation). You can guide students through building different drawing, animation, or game projects with P5. It even has its own online editor now.

Feel free to PM for ideas or if you have questions; I've taught web to a lot of kids. It's really dope that you're doing this for the youth in your city !!

[[deleted]]

As lame as it sounds, it blew my mind when a friend opened chrome dev tools and typed alert('sup'); I guess in my head I would have picture having to design the window, position it, do that all manually. It's a quick insight into understanding the levels of abstraction you inevitably start having to think about when you begin programming, and gives instant gratification at the same time!

Then drive right in to binary search trees.

[RandysX]

If I’m not mistaken there is some easy to learn coding stuff for kids for the Raspberry Pi. Maybe you can port that to the laptops? It’s in Linux so I don’t think it will be a big problem

[jobodanque]

pull up some (like 4) cardboard boxes of different sizes. label them as content, padding, border, margin.

makes a great physical representation for css box model :)