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by Norman Richards.
Original Post: Teaching my kid Ruby
Feed Title: Norman Richards
Feed URL: http://members.capmac.org/~orb/blog.cgi/tech/ruby?flav=rss
Feed Description: peace, love and burritos
My son is 8, and I've been wanting to get him started programming. I taught myself BASIC programming on a VIC-20 at 10, so I know it's quite possible for young kids to understand the basics of programming. With a simpler environment and some actual instruction, I certainly think it's possible to get started at his age. But, I never was quite sure how to go about it.
Last week, I discovered a JRuby-powered turtle graphics environment that I thought would be fun. Last saturday, we spent some time with it, and I was quite pleased to see how easily he was able to get into it. It's very easy to grasp the concept of loops and functions when you can relate them to something visual on the screen. There's enough room here to work in the concept of variables later, so it seems like you can get a pretty solid intro to programming techniques through it. It will be interesting to see if the environment can keep his interest long enough to get to more advanced ideas.
The app itself is a little primitive. It worked well enough, but I did need to babysit a lot more when things got stuck. I don't think you could leave a younger kid in front of it without close supervision. Ruby syntax is well suited for this sort of primitive interaction. Though Ruby can be rather awkward at times, it's mostly hidden here. The error messages are definitely not kid friendly, and probably would be tricky for anyone who didn't know Ruby.
All in all, it was a great afternoon. If you've been looking for a way to introduce programming to younger kids, definitely check it out.
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