Teaching Kids about Programming

Tech Talk Tuesday
May 14th, 2019

Topics

  • The benefits
  • Opportunities
  • Breaking it down

Benefits

  • Learn procedural logic
  • Understanding directions
  • Thinking about context and state
  • Feel more comfortable with technology

Opportunities

  • FIRST
  • Scratch (and others)
  • Web browser
  • Root Beer City Codes

FIRST

  • Mason is very involved
  • Michigan is a global leader
  • FLL Jr, FLL, FTC, and FRC
  • Similar robots in "Library of Things"

Into Orbit Challenge Board

FLL Challenge Board

Scratch

  • Free
  • Books available at library

Web Browser

Root Beer City Codes

  • "Building Your First Video Game with Bloxels"
  • "Fun with robots!"
  • "Kids code"
  • "Let's Sort Out Sorting: How to Think About Sorting like a Computer"
  • "The Magic of Internet of Things (IoT)"

Breaking it Down

  • Limited vocabulary
  • "Remembering" or "anticipating" are difficult
  • For adults: "Human Resource Machine"