DSC’s comments on “Four Reasons Why Kids Should Learn Programming” — from tynker.com by Jolie O’Dell
.I like this blog posting and others have discussed this topic before…but I respectively disagree with one of the assertions: Programming is not easy — at least it wasn’t for me. I think that’s true for others, as why else is it so hard to find good programmers and why are they paid so well? Most people I know do not think like programmers do — it’s a different way of thinking. I’ve tried a couple different languages (albeit at a beginning level!), and while I greatly appreciate what programmers do, I am the first to tell you that I am not a programmer. At least within web design and development types of tasks/careers, people tend to either gravitate towards the front end OR the back end — though there are exceptions to this rule of thumb who can do both types of tasks well.
So while I agree that students should learn some type of coding, we need more tools/services like this that aim to make programming fun, enjoyable, understandable, and relevant.
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About
Tynker is a new computing platform designed specifically to teach children computational learning and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way. Tynker is inspired by Scratch from MIT. It is a completely browser-based implementation written using Open Web standards such as Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and does not use Flash.
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Also see:
- Check out this learn-to-code platform just for kids— from venturebeat.com by Jolie O’Dell
- Why your 8 year old should be coding — from venturebeat.com by Jolie O’Dell
Excerpt:
The startup is Tynker; it makes a web-based learning platform and a visual programming language for teachers and kids in K-12 classrooms. In a discussion with its co-founder, we found out why teaching kids how to code is so important to him.