Teaching Children Programming and Linux

[jing]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 8:12 AM, Kamran <linuxdarkstar-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I would be interested to hear experiences and recommendations that any of
> you have teaching young children how to program and how to use Linux.  My
> niece asked me the other day "Are you going to teach me all about
> computers?"

Disclaimer: I have no children and I have never taught any young
persons to use computers.  All opinions expressed here have no basis
or support other than a single data-point--my own personal experience.

I personally started programming around grade 3 or 4 on BASIC.  I know
that lots of people hate that language; and I personally came to hate
that language too.  Actually my elementary school had Apple computers
and we played with LOGO way back when I was in 1st and 2nd grade but I
didn't realize it was "programming".... it was just some arbitrary
game.  Playing with BASIC was what made me realize that computers
followed commands and I can structure commands to make it do stuff.
At around grade 6 or so I realized that BASIC was retarded(*) and what
I needed was a closer relationship to the hardware.  I didn't know
about Linux at the time (still on DOS) and couldn't afford a compiler.
 So I started planning out and writing my own assembler programs (.COM
files, for those of you that remember) using an old DOS program called
DEBUG.EXE.

Anyways, the point is, I think (IMHO) that all this talk of which is
the best program to start with is a bit misguided.  Like musical
instruments, much of it is up to personal taste, and for some people
it takes trying out multiple instruments (languages) to find the one
that clicks.  Pick a reasonable one and try.  If they lose interest,
see how they handle switching to another.  It might help reinforce
concepts if they see that there are themes which can be carried over.

(*) For the longest time, BASIC was serving me well for the little
programs I was writing, including simple form-filling and calculation
programs to do misc tasks.  It wasn't until I wanted to play with
sounds on my SoundBlaster that I realized I needed to move on.  BASIC
wasn't letting me read/write to port 220 fast enough and didn't
provide a means for hooking into interrupts.  I know that the OS and
hardware relationship is much more complicated now... but like I said
before, I don't think you can predict what will trigger the child's
interest.  I don't think people should under-estimate a child's
ability to work through complex environments.  After all, the real
world is pretty complicated and they seem to do just fine.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists