[PJUG Javamail] Teaching Children Programming

[Howard Abrams]

The Mindstorms are quite good, but only for older kids. Doesn't work  
at all at the elementary school level, as the children have a very  
difficult time making the leap between the physical object and what  
they want it to do. I found that for elementary school kids, Scratch  
is a better choice to begin with. Once Scratch has taught them the  
basics, then the transition to Mindstorms (or even the Picoboard) will  
be easier.

BTW: Mitch Resnick created the original software interface for  
Mindstorms and then went on to create Scratch.

On Jan 22, 2009, at 1:12 PM, Ken Paulsen wrote:

>
> Yeah, I'd have to echo that.  I used to have an big interest in  
> writing games.  I've written a Tetris clone in Basic, Pascal, C, and  
> Java... and even an "Ultima III"-style RPG game in C that helped me  
> land a internship with Dynamix in Eugene while I was in HS.   
> Although I was never as fortunate as Joe to have been paid to write  
> any of those. ;)  It's out of my system now... while I wouldn't  
> dislike it, I don't have a craving to write games.
>
> Helping kids learn, though... that is a passion of mine.  At one of  
> the recent J1's I picked up the Java-powered robot, I've been  
> meaning to see if that'd be a good tool to get kids interested in  
> programming (but I haven't made the time yet).  Has anyone explored  
> robotics at their kid's school?  If so, what did you use, was it  
> effective?  I know Lego-robotics is huge (Mindstorm, iirc)...  In  
> the past (5 years ago?) I've tried to lead a programming class at a  
> local middle school, but I didn't have a good curriculum at the  
> time.  Although despite that one of the students contacted me  
> recently -- he's now a senior and plans to go into Computer Science  
> -- he wants to write computer games. :P
>
> Ken
>
>
> Joe Hoffman wrote:
>>
>> I frankly don't have much of that interest.  call me wierd, my wife
>> already does.
>>
>> I once wrote a complete Pacman game that worked on a MicroVax
>> workstation.  1986 was the year.
>> All written in Ada.
>>
>> I worked for GTE at the time and was waiting for work, trying to keep
>> myself busy.  Those were the days ....
>>
>> On Jan 21, 2009, at 4:35 PM, Richard Johnson wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Okay, quick show of hands ... Who here has wished at least once that
>>> (s)he could seriously work on a game, at least for a little bit,
>>> before
>>> they retire from the programming gig altogether?
>>> -- 
>>> Richard Johnson
>>> If this doesn't cause noise, you're all hopeless :-)
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