Estonia To Teach Programming In Schools From Age 6 307
An anonymous reader writes "With the launch of the Raspberry Pi, computers are becoming affordable again for the younger generations. Now what we need is kids learning about computers in greater detail, including what the hardware is inside the box, and how to create rather than just use software. Estonia looks to be the pace-setter in this regard, and has just announced that it is introducing computer programming learning for all children attending school. By all, I mean from grades 1 through to 12, meaning children as young as 6 will be writing their own code and producing software. The program is called 'ProgeTiiger' and is being introduced by the Estonian Tiger Leap Foundation as a pilot scheme to some Estonian schools this year. Next year the program will expand, adding programming groups for older kids who want to carry on activities outside of the classroom. Eventually it looks as though ProgeTiiger will become just another standard part of the curriculum, just like math and language studies are."
Great Idea! (Score:5, Funny)
But seriously, I hope that the U.S. adopts a similar program ASAP.
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I'm not sure you'll have a lot of luck getting people to take advice from somebody who would stick a serrated knife in their own rectum before doing basically anything other than sticking two serrated knives in their own rectum.
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I'd stick a serrated knife in my own rectum before I let my child learn to program instead of playing with other kids or learning sports.
Why do you imagine the two are mutually exclusive? I, in fact, started programming at the age of six. My "best friend" at the time would come over and we would program together on my C64. He now works for Google; I'm working on a PhD in Aerospace Engineering. I had other friends who weren't into programming so much, but would still get together for games.
Have you seen kids today? Computers and cell phones are a background part of their lives - like dish washers and microwaves, and I think that is a very goo
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Are you saying the technology they teach first graders today will be obsolete before they enter 6th grade? And the technology they learn in 6th grade will be obsolete by the time they graduate HS, and the same for what they learn as freshmen in college?
But just think, if they drop out before the 5th grade they'll be able to get jobs programming turtles to draw pictures on the floor... What? That isn't a career?
Take a look at a graduating HS senior this year - how many versions of MS Office have they worked
CNC machine tools (Score:2)
But just think, if they drop out before the 5th grade they'll be able to get jobs programming turtles to draw pictures on the floor... What? That isn't a career?
You'd be surprised [wikipedia.org].
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You've never heard of -fno-errors? Best paired with -Wnone.
It's about time (Score:2)
I have for a long time thought that basic programming skills are a necessary part of basic literacy education. It is irresponsible *not* to give everyone the tools they need to leverage computing technology to the fullest extent. Just as widespread adoption of reading, writing and arithmetic skills have enabled vast progress, the use of computers as tools to solve customized tasks that require some programming is the next logical step. Just as you can't go about in your life only filling out form letters, s
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You are absolutely correct. Programming is not solely a tool for IT professionals any more than math is solely a tool for professional engineers. Everyone has problems they could automate, if they knew enough to think about automating them.
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Hear, hear!
The only objection I can see is from those who think that being able to program makes them special somehow or feel that it would threaten their jobs in some way.
I'll bet that's at the root of most of the negative comments here.
boo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:boo (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer programming is not such a fundamental area of study that it deserves to be elevated to the level of "math", "reading" and "writing". To a large extent this is a zero sum game. To teach programming in primary school necessarily crowds out something else. History? Foreign language? Music? Some subject other than "computer programming" is getting the shaft.
Hopefully it's religion.
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Re:boo (Score:5, Insightful)
Programming actually teaches more than just programming computers. It teaches you to build structure into your thoughts. I personally think learning foreign language or music or other subjects will in fact benefit from programming basics.
BTW i am Estonian, but did not have such luck - ran into programming in late teens.
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Computer programming is not such a fundamental area of study that it deserves to be elevated to the level of "math", "reading" and "writing". To a large extent this is a zero sum game. To teach programming in primary school necessarily crowds out something else. History? Foreign language? Music? Some subject other than "computer programming" is getting the shaft.
Hopefully it's religion.
In what US public school is "religion" taught? I don't know about your country (Ireland?, judging from your nick), but in the US, courts have pretty much chased any religious studies whatsoever from public schools. Instead, we spend half our time doing essential courses badly (English, Math, etc), and fill the rest of the time with feel-good nonsense fad courses, that come and go according to fashion.
Here's my prediction: any requirement for a programming education at public schools will come at the expense
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I had to write essays like "Compare and contrast the attitudes to life after death between Christianity, Buddhism and Islam". "Explain the different attitudes to euthanasia for Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and atheists".
(So I can see why the US wouldn't want children to actually think about religion.)
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The problem, of course, is that despite all the elementary teaches who put "develop critical thinking skills" in every other lesson plan, no one has a good way to teach or otherwise develop those skills in their students. Go ahead. Hunt down a primary or secondary teacher and ask them if their lessons help students develop critical thinking skills. The reflexive answer should be "yes". Then ask them how and watch the color drain from their face. (The point? Students aren't developing critical thinking
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It should be clear that neither of those things work. Word problems are a common problem for many students, who learn only how to turn the problem into a problem of the form that they're currently studying -- and that's if you're lucky.
In history classes, "why" questions never come up. Teachers are struggling just to get the students to repeat "what happened".
Even if both cases worked well, students can't develop the deep critical thinking skills that are required by computer programming in those subjects
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10 PRINT "Hello, What's your name?"
20 INPUT Name$
30 PRINT "Hello, "; Name$
40 END
Here is a simple BASIC program. It asks for a name, the user types it in, and it prints it back out again. However, just teaching what this little program does could have been worth months of lessons and questions in a Pre-algebra class. As I recall from my experience in school, the two biggest hurdles for the kids in the classes I had to sit through were the concept of variables and the order of operations. While you can memori
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Computer programming is applied math, and requires at least some level of reading. It'd probably be easier to get kids interested in maths if it came in the form of computer programming, rather than pen and paper. Although I'm not sure what level of programming you can do before you're functionally literate or numerate (kids at age 6 are frequently neither)
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Yet another reason not to start at age six.
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That's a reason not to start at age six, but not a reason not to start in primary school. I first began learning to program when I was in 3rd grade (so, about 10) when computers were far less user friendly, and there was nobody really around to teach me. With a better environment, I can't see why kids in that age group shouldn't start to learn a useful skill.
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Computer programming is not such a fundamental area of study that it deserves to be elevated to the level of "math", "reading" and "writing".
To actually do some programming, one'll already need some "math", "reading" and "writing". And, IMHO, having coded a working program is a good incentive for kids, as it reinforce their sense of "control over something" - to put it briefly: in regards with derived satisfaction, "make install" seems some levels up over "make believe".
Besides, the writing in the Estonian language is mostly phonetic [wikipedia.org] (every grapheme corresponds to one and only one phoneme). As a result, learning to read/write is highly simplifi
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Ah, good. I was looking for a comment like this. The thing is that I started writing my own programs before I knew algebra. I was comfortable with the idea of a variable around the time I was memorizing my times tables. I think my early experiences with computer programming helped imensely in forming the kind of abstract thinking that was crucial for learning higher maths. What would have been really cool is if when I was 7 there had been somebody to explain to me what those strange functions that ret
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You are completely wrong. Programming is not only pervasive, it is the most important fundamental technology that emerged in the last 100 years. Teaching calculus and linear algebra is less useful, but we are doing that with quite a bit of effort.
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Oh? In primary school? I'll grant that calculus and linear algebra aren't as worthwhile (for many students) as many seem to think. But here we're not weighing "programming" vs. "calculus". We're weighing "some really watered down primary school version of programming" vs. "reading". Or "numeric concepts". Or "language composition". At the primary level I'll take the those over "programming" any day
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would one want all kids to know programming? We don't require all kids to know automotive design or repair, nor manufacturing techniques for flat panel displays, nor cellphone antenna design, etc.
Programming uses math? Well some arithmetic, surely, but usually not much else.
Perhaps some sort of a fun introductory course might be good as it might spark interest in programming for some students, though.
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Why would one want all kids to know programming? We don't require all kids to know automotive design or repair, nor manufacturing techniques for flat panel displays, nor cellphone antenna design, etc.
Programming uses math? Well some arithmetic, surely, but usually not much else.
Perhaps some sort of a fun introductory course might be good as it might spark interest in programming for some students, though.
An introductory course for 6 year olds? What a great idea! If only TFS said exactly that.
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Yet my high school taught automotive repair, welding, had several after/before normal classes farm related courses small engine repair and more. But when it came to computer science they had "graphic design" read coral draw/photshop and "computers" which translated to Mavis Beacon teaches typing and introduction to Microsoft office. Real computer science needs to be taught in our schools not "click the big blue capital W to write, and the big green capital E to make a chart, and big blue lower case e to bro
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In a society as dependent on cars as the US is, that's actually a huge negative. It makes it easy for people to be taken advantage of, and makes repairs that would probably cost a handful of parts and an hour or two of labor a rather expensive ordeal.
Ridiculously obscure.
Computers, however, cannot be avoided. They dominate modern life and the only way to escape them
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This statement is so fucking stupid I can't even begin to comprehend how you came to conclude that teaching the basics of programming (and, by connection, how computers function) is anywhere near equivalent to what you just said. It's almost as if you want children to be ignorant of how computers work.
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It is a good chance to exercise their analytic and problem solving skills. Imagine a generation of children who could form their opinions about things like economic and environmental policy by testing theories against simulations. . .
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the root of the issue: that programming is seen in the same light as design and manufacturing, in other words, something that only professionals with years of training should do.
It's not. Most computer users could benefit from having some (very basic) programming knowledge. For example, my dad does software translation, and he doesn't really know much about "proper programming" (I did try, unsuccessfully, to get him to learn Python), but over the years he's worked with a number of scripting languages to automate parts of his job. These days, he tends to use AutoHotkey scripts, but a number of years ago he also used Windows analogs of shell scripting and sed to automate a number of tasks, including munging (ASCII-based) document formats in various ways. He understands the basics (variables, while loops, etc.) and can use them with a simple language to make his life (much) easier.
What could Joe Average Computer User do if he knew a bit about programming? For example, he could write a userscript to fix up a gripe in website that he visits frequently. Or write a batch file or shell script to automate a daily task. Or add some more complex logic to a spreadsheet. Or write a tool to organize his music collection in exactly the way that he wants it. Or write out a long mathematical calculation into a script so that he doesn't have to type it into a calculator over and over.
Keep in mind that the steepest part of the learning curve for an average person is figuring out the initial concepts (and the younger you start, the more likely it is that you'll "get it"). Once you know the basic constructs of computer languages, you can quickly pick up on any special-purpose language. Anyone who knows, say, Javascript (or any half-decent BASIC dialect for that matter) should be able to breeze through the Python tutorial.
Now, say, teaching Software Engineering to everyone would be a silly idea. Most people couldn't care less about MVC, or proper object-oriented design.
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Because its about 5-10 years from being a REQUIREMENT in jobs.
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Because its about 5-10 years from being a REQUIREMENT in jobs.
Nah. It really won't. Most people will never have to interact with computers other than through canned UIs that are purpose-built to help them do their actual job applying all the skills and insights they gained in the time not spent learning how to program.
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If I can build a canned ui for you to interface with, who really needs YOU?
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Why would one want all kids to know programming?
So that they can create Web sites linking to "pirated TV shows" and hack xIAA/Sony/Strafor/etc while young, without being afraid to go to jail?
You'd better start teaching your kids to defend them (that is... if they don't find much funny to hack them too).
Fine if used appropriately (Score:3)
I can see the benefit of using computer programming as a method of teaching kids to approach problem solving and apply these skills in ways that are likely to seem relevant to their generation.
If they think they can raise a generation of super-nerds, good luck with that. Programming isn't hard if you are wired correctly. If you are better suited to other work, learning programming will only ever make you a mediocre programmer who could have been an elite something else (granted, those alternatives aren't always feasible).
I started coding around 4-6 myself (Score:2)
Sign of the times... (Score:2)
With the launch of the Raspberry Pi, computers are becoming affordable again for the younger generations.
The world economy is really that bad. When I was 6, nobody had a personal computer. When I was 12, people had $2000 personal computers. When I was 14, my parents could finally afford one of those $2000 personal computers for me to write my school papers on. (Hello Word for DOS.) And today? We're grateful we can buy computers for $35, because otherwise we couldn't afford them.
As an aside, is anybody else amused that buying a keyboard new costs almost as much as buying the Pi itself?
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Your logic doesn't work. The reality is that the cost of computing, as a whole, has dropped to the point that a fully capable system c
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It means you could include a pi in every single screen and keyboard in the world without too much of overhead. Computing power is really cheap nowadays!
XO (Score:3)
Programming at 6? Why not critical thinking? (Score:2)
Strange as it seems, not everyone wants to program. And a nation (correct me if wrong, Estonia) doesn't really want a nation of programmers. A nation does want a nation of thinkers though. (well, most of the time).
Interesting move (Score:2)
Programming is the new manufacturing... (Score:4, Insightful)
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To want to "bring the manufacturing jobs back" is a lost cause. Programming is the new manufacturing and what Estonia is doing is brilliant. More and more everything in our daily lives is governed by software. Estonia is a small country and choosing this as their national specialty is going to prove monumental to their long-term success.
Being the "new manufacturing" is a dubious honor. What is to stop programming jobs from being off-shored and sucked into a race-to-the-bottom?
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And it is not. Programming is both art and craft. The average atrocious Java "programmer" is not going to cut it and has not cut it for quite some time. Just requires a bit more time to become obvious.
Finally, somebody gets it (Score:2)
Without some programming skills, you are just as uneducated as without some real math skills.
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Oh noes! Estonian child prodigies! (Score:3)
And I hear that the Chinese now teach programming in kindergarten.
Maybe we've got to bite the bullet and find a way to teach programming in the womb. It's the only way we can maintain our lead, right? And we can give the child-bearers a refresher course too while we're at it.
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Not only there's no good reason not to, doing otherwise (not teaching) is IMHO a travesty.
To me, personally, not being able to program is akin to being illiterate. Paper, writing instruments and books and other printed matter are widespread, it'd make one look real bad not to be able to use them. Same goes for computers, and I don't qualify using prepackaged software without any ability to script anything being real use.
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To me, personally, not being able to program is akin to being illiterate. Paper, writing instruments and books and other printed matter are widespread, it'd make one look real bad not to be able to use them. Same goes for computers, and I don't qualify using prepackaged software without any ability to script anything being real use.
For most people, computers are still TVs with typewriters attached. Every so often someone figures out how to bolt another gadget on to them (camera, phone). People who don't know how to turn on a computer, navigate the filesystem, launch applications etc. could be considered illiterate. Beyond that, its like saying that anyone who doesn't know how to tune their car's engine is incapable of driving.
That said, programming is not particularly difficult if there is a reason to know how to do it. Knowing ho
Re:Finally a country that gets it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and this is a bad thing.
And they would be functionally computer illiterate. A bad thing when so much of our lives involves these devices.
Driving is separate from maintenance. Someone who can't drive can't pass the test to get their license. Someone incapable of maintaining their car spends lots of money at the mechanic or ends up destroying it far earlier than it would have otherwise failed.
Do you realize how important that makes programming? In the first world we have literacy rates well above 99% and for good reason. Anything less damages a nation as a whole and makes it unable to maintain a functional economy.
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Driving is separate from maintenance. Someone who can't drive can't pass the test to get their license. Someone incapable of maintaining their car spends lots of money at the mechanic or ends up destroying it far earlier than it would have otherwise failed.
Tune, not maintain. There is a difference. Still, not knowing the difference does not preclude someone from driving their car in the factory configuration.
The point is that using a computer does not require the ability to program it. The only reason that computers are so ubiquitous these days is that programming skills are not required to use them.
It is more practical to concentrate certain skills among a few functionaries.
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Well above 99%? Are you sure?
Many inner-city school systems have fewer than 1/4th of incoming freshmen graduating here in the US.
The literacy rate is high, but 99% seems high to me.
I guess it depends in large part what we define 'literate' as...
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People need to in fact use computers not as typewriters, but as computers: general purpose programmable things where you can leverage a whole lot of software to do what you need done without manual, repetitive labor so often seen when people have no clue that their day-long task can be described to the machine in a page of VBA, powershell, applescript or whatever other scripting environment is present. I have leveraged fairly minor scripting in homework and assignments all the way through high school and co
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By only using the information processing equivalent of a car, which happens to be a program somebody else did for a computer, you lose the WHOLE DAMN POINT of having a computer in the first place, and are actually never using the computer. You just use the program. A fixed-function appliance again.
For most people, their PC/tablet/smartphone is an appliance. They exercise their power and freedom in other domains.
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I don't know where the heck do you live, but being capable of learning reading and writing skills doesn't make you able to, you know, read and write. The idea that I measure intelligence according to specific knowledge is a fantasy you made up on the spot.
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I do expect computer literacy in fact to include basic programming concepts. Everything else can be acquired fairly easily, but there aren't all that many kids out there who, say, learn mathematics from scratch by themselves. There are some, just as there are some who can learn decent programming and then software engineering all buy themselves. Yet those are few and far between. Mere use of prepackaged software is like only being able to fill in the blanks in form letters.
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Why shouldn't every barista at Starbucks know about bubble sorts, recursion and optimizing compilers?
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It's OK as a hobby, I'm not suggesting they need to know about it. What they should know is, say, how to use applescript (if they have a mac), or VBA/powershell on windows. No bubble sorts needed, and recursion isn't that big of a mental leap if you teach it early enough. The whole compiler thingy can be pretty much left out as far as I'm concerned.
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OK, so you drew the line in the sand already and obviously decided that reading, writing and arithmetics are basic skill that everyone must learn, but suggesting anything more than that is narcissism on my end. That's where we disagree.
To me, computer literacy means being able to program the damn thing to do what you want it to do, not what someone who wrote a prepackaged piece of software thought you will want to do. One doesn't have to develop whole applications, scripting is a perfectly fine ability to h
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I'm also looking into ways to teach my son to program at an early age. I wasn't planning on starting at 6, but now I wonder why not.
Maybe, just maybe because at age 6 the brain's ability to handle abstract concepts is not yet developed? Teaching programming to a handful of 6 year olds who show precocious ability is one thing, imposing the same on all kids this age is beyond stupid.
Re:Finally a country that gets it! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no basis for this statement, unfortunately.
Perhaps we should stop teaching basic math to 6 year olds as well? Math itself is pretty abstract, as it's all numbers and not anything physical. At least with programming they can see the results of their efforts play out before them.
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Woodworking doesn't have nearly the impact on your daily life that computers do.
You act as if that's the sole purpose of teaching programming. Nice myopic thinking there.
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teaching kids programming is going to make them pump out bots. literally!
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I taught myself programming in BASIC when I was 8. For me, it was writing neat little games and such. Mostly input to variable, check variable, print something. Later I started dabbling in QBASIC's graphics functions. Sure, I haven't used BASIC in over a decade. However, what I didn't know was that I more-or-less taught myself the basics of logic, algebra, and even some simple geometry. When I got to pre-algebra and algebra in middle school, the biggest hurdle for most students was the idea that letters wer
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Well, is that not programming too? Start with simple instructions, and then slowly move up.
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My son? He can recognize most letters and numbers.
But the thing with kids is that they develop faster than you think. If I only consider what he's learning right now, I'll be behind by the time he's ready for the next thing.
But GOTO is a NONO (Score:2)
"type RIGHT 90, FORWARD 100, LEFT 80 and within an hour he is programming and not realizing it"
Yes, you are correct. But remember, as long there is no GOTO statement it is a kind of programming. Otherwise it will end up as an Italian cooking class.
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Real programming begins when the turtle impacts the wall and you have to figure out how to handle it properly.
That's right!! If you can't code it out in hand assembled binary, it's not Real and has no real world use! And Punch Cards all the One True Interface, it's the only way to get close enough to the metal!! And everyone who ever started programming based basics is an idiot! That includes you, because I was born knowing how to program! I have a direct neural binary interface, it's an adaptation.
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While I agree with the idea you present, I have to say that there is nothing wrong with teaching someone to address a problem step by step. The need to learn how to handle the turtle, before they can understand how to handle exceptions.
Really what they need is work with something like LOGO through 4th grade, basic through 6th, Pascal to 8th, and c++ until they graduate. It should be mandatory for all. Worst case scenario is you have a guy in his garage building a machine that builds a rake to give to the m
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Why does Logo suck? It's Lisp with a Turtle and usually has a very friendly immediate mode.
What would YOU have 6-year-old kids use?
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i am reminded. here is a logic statement for logo programming (straight from the manual mind you)
Can you Spell mississippi?
Yes.
Spell it.
I T.
there is no variable no database in logo, yet the damn thing had 3 motorola and one zilog 80 processor to work with. (at least mine did) the next attempt was basic which was all just spaghetti of gotos, on my own i tried mirc scripting. that killed any real effort at becoming a programmer. though i tried learning perl, php, html, ksh... i also tried to learn how to writ
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I don't see how that first bit is relevant. You had a book about Logo that had a weird/poor example?
there is no variable no database in logo,
You'll find that just about every Logo supports variables -- I can't think of a version that doesn't. I can't speak to DB access in Logo, though that's not really a fault of the language, is it? Either way, the lack of DB access does not diminish it's pedagogical utility.
the next attempt was basic which was all just spaghetti of gotos,
It's not the languages fault that you wrote bad code, you know. "Spaghetti code" is not a consequence of using an old unstructured BASIC
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Actually, you did.
No matter what, LOGO sucks but
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LOGO forces a step by step approach to everything without a consideration for code reuse. I do think that there needs to be an early exposure to thinking that way.
That's ridiculous. Code reuse is difficult for professionals to achieve to any significant degree, and is not a topic for beginners to explore to any depth. (Just a simple example. Do you remember all they hype surrounding OOP and code reuse? No one in their right mind makes that claim now, but it stuck around for years -- repeated by professionals and even taught as gospel.)
In the simpler sense, Logo undoubtedly encourages you to write reusable procedures.
This is something they'll learn early on:
To Squ
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Please re-read my post. I said that I support the use of LOGO up to 6th grade. I think that the mental process required to step through a specific procedure is met well by the application. I think it sucks because personally I would have preferred pascal quite a bit earlier. LOGO forces a step by step approach to everything without a consideration for code reuse. I do think that there needs to be an early exposure to thinking that way.
You've actually never used Logo, have you? Logo is Lisp with syntactic sugar. It is a full-featured functional programming language, and to say it doesn't encourage code reuse is just mistaken. When I wrote adventure games in Logo - decades ago - the same Eliza-like natural language parser was used by non-player characters to interpret one anothers' speech actions as was used to interpret command-line input from the user.
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At the age of 6, it's really all they can do. And, yes, it's a great way to introduce computer programming -- they could even toss REPEAT in to the mix.
You want conditional branching? Great, but that can come later. You know, when they've developed the cognitive capacity to actually understand and use those concepts. (See: Piaget's theory of cognitive development)
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Find a single legitimate publication of his that was peer-reviewed by non-morons.
Impossible. Any peer-reviewed publication would, by you, be considered illegitimate. Failing that, you'd assume the (anonymous) peer reviewers were morons.
No true Scottsman and all that...
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I am absolutely against turning education in to job training. OTOH, I think that computers can be used to learn the basics.
Granted, this is probably just a scheme to attract "job creators" with the promise of a buzzword-compliant Estonian work force.
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Programming _is_ part of the basics. Don't think C or Java. Think Python, Lua, Haskell, or any other language were you do not need to think about the machine you are doing it on, but are doing applied, executable mathematics instead.
Age 6 is a little bit too early, methinks (Score:2, Interesting)
Teaching programming to a 6-year-old kid is a little bit too early
The art of programming is not about programming itself. It's much more than that.
The person who does the programming must first have a grasp of logic, and it's not an easy task for a 6-year-old kid to grasp the concept of NOT, OR, AND, XOR and all those shits yet
Especially for a kid who is still in a state of "blank sheet".
If you want to teach a 6-year-old programming, you just gotta hafta "pre-programmed" that kid beforehand
In my own experie
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I am afraid of the unintended consequences - that the kid might be psychologically scarred for life
You really think a child might be 'scarred for life' from being introduced to programming at age 6? Really? That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read in my life.
Re:Age 6 is a little bit too early, methinks (Score:4, Funny)
They would be if Perl was their first language...
Re:Age 6 is a little bit too early, methinks (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that children can be "scarred for life" by learning skills that "they are not ready for yet" seems pretty common in U.S. culture. (Much less so in Europe, and even less in eastern Europe, so I'm not surprised they are doing this first in Estonia.)
The hypothesis is that if you'd teach a child something "too early" then he'd not be very good at it, and therefore feel that he "failed". This would damage his self esteem and "scar him for life".
That hypothesis has been disproven in two ways. First, children don't feel that they "failed" if they don't master a skill immediately. They enjoy the process of learning and getting better, even if it takes a long time. And they compare themselves to what they could do the day before, not to what adults can do. (They also compare themeselves to other kids the same age, and in that respect, learning a skill early is good for self-esteem.)
Second, it is acaually bad for a child when parents try to build his self esteem by only giving him tasks that he can master immediately. The good kind of self esteem comes from knowing that some things take years to master, but you can get there if you work hard.
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If there are any essential elements to programming they'd be:
1) Direct sequencing
2) Iteration (a. Bounded, b. Conditional)
3) Branching (a. Conditional, b. Unconditional)
4) Data Types and Structures (Scalars, Aggregates, etc.)
At six, with something visual and interactive like Logo,1 and 2a are not only easy to teach, learning and applying them can be tons of fun. They'll also learn some important critical thinking skills for free, all at their current level of cognitive development!
They don't need a foundat
Re:Age 6 is a little bit too early, methinks (Score:4, Insightful)
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Teaching programming to a 6-year-old kid is a little bit too early
You're wrong, everyone develops at different rates. You have ancient repressive ideas of learning. I began learning .BAT (batch) commands to launch my video games more quickly -- some had to have EMM386 loaded, so I made a script to rewrite AUTOEXEC.BAT and reboot (if needed), then launch the game I wanted to play. I was only 6 years old, and had learned boolean logic and program flow. At the age of 8 I taught myself BASIC. I would have LOVED to have a teacher to ask questions. Fortunately BBSs and Li
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I first did some programming at about 6 years old.
My school (in the UK) had a "floor turtle", a simple robot on wheels that could run a LOGO program (Forward 20, Left 45, Forward 10, etc). We programmed it to run over the lines of the netball court. We didn't use any sensors or anything (I assume it had some) -- I expect older kids did that, but by the time I was older the teacher who knew how to use the software had left. Or maybe the curriculum had changed into "use the word processor", which is what mo
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I apologize if what I have said causes you to be confused.
What I actually wanted to say is that it is too early for a 6 year old who is unprepared
As for my kids, I prepared them since they were 2 to 3, to deal with simple logic, and until I can see that they have acquired ability to solve simple problems and find other solutions on their own that I started them, at age 5 or 6, with LOGO
But for kids who were not "pre-programmed", I am not so sure 6-year-old can handle the programming course easily
The guy abo
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Believe it or not, this has been studied.
I can't seem to find the paper I wanted to reference, but here are a few others that might interest you:
The Effects of a LOGO Computer Programming Experience on Readiness for First Grade, Creativity, and Self Concept.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ320159&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ320159 [ed.gov]
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/76/6/1051/ [apa.org]
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/ [tandfonline.com]
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The average monthly salary in Estonia is about 800 EU or $1000 USD. That's why the Raspberry Pi is relevant and Apple systems that be useful to do development are not to them. Would you give a 6 year old a computer that cost you a full month of income to buy? No one who's ever watched a 6 year old in action would.
The same economics are true in the majority of the world. Apple's products are relevant only to the best developed countries in the world. Estonia is some distance from being one of them. It'