Programming For Younger Kids ... And The Technically Challenged

Even young students can try their hand making a simple (and not so simple) programs and games. Here are options that allow you and your students to create an experience without any static allocate gorp() hieroglyphics.

Try them out.

Light-Bot

This simple on-line "game" makes a great introduction for younger kids and teaches simple programming techniques. Drag and drop commands to help the robot complete a challenge. These same basic techniques are used to control many industrial robots. (Click the "Play" button under the ad to start the game.)

Scratch 2.0 overview

A video introduction produced by Paula Aguilera and the Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAsb2LVnNcY

Scratch

Scratch is an educational programming language and multimedia authoring tool developed by MIT. It can be used by pupils, teachers, and parents for a wide range of educational and entertainment projects.

Scratch is totally free and runs inside your web browser using Flash. Highly recommended by our webmaster.

larger image of https://scratch.mit.edu/educators

image of https://scratch.mit.edu/educators

Scratch for Educators

As an educator, you can request a Scratch Teacher Account, which makes it easier to create accounts for groups of students and to manage your students' projects and comments.

Check out additional educator resources for this programming language used by all grade levels, K thru 12.

Code the Future

Teaching programing in your classroom can be a daunting task. For many instructors, math looks easier than coding. Fortunately, help is on the way.

Code the Future is a global community of volunteer developers and educators providing opportunities for students of all ages, in schools around the world to learn how to code. It connects volunteer software & web developers with teachers and schools to make these opportunities possible.

While much of the site's activity is currently in Australia, educators in the U.S. are starting to use this site.

CS Unplugged

CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.

This site, created by the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, introduce students to Computational Thinking using concepts such as binary numbers, algorithms and data compression. Importantly, no computers or programming is required!

Separated from the distractions and technical details of having to use computers, students can concentrate on the concepts and get a better idea of how computers "work".

CS Unplugged trailer

Here's an overview of the CS Unplugged project, where you learn about computer concepts without touching a computer.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOYy4kyLEHs

A Number Guessing Game

Colleen Lewis has an extensive collection of YouTube videos on Scratch. This one shows how to get started with a simple guessing game. You can see how students can create something engaging by just assembling a few blocks.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IgVmUzdwDw

larger image of http://www.alice.org/index.php

Alice - 3D programming

Think of Alice like a 3D animated version of Scratch. Alice is freely available 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games.

Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

The only problem with resources like these is that, all to quickly, the students are teaching the teacher.

Have your students use Scratch or Alice to create a simple interactive presentation on a current class topic.

How to make a game in ALICE

This video gives you an idea of the steps needed to create a simple game or animation in Alice. It shows how to add objects, control movement and trigger changes. It also shows how having instant feedback allows you to see when things start going wrong and make adjustments.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6QVAgaT0_0

larger image of http://marshallbrain.com/kids-programming.htm

image of http://marshallbrain.com/kids-programming.htm

Teaching kids how to write computer programs

Marshall Brain looks at a number of different options for teaching kids about programming, from simple games (like Light Bot and Magic Pen) to working with robots and smart phone applications.

Simple Kodu game tutorial

This video shows you how to crate a basic game using Kodu. By layering on simple commands, you can create complex games.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-FjskAHgN0

larger image of https://www.kodugamelab.com/

Kodu game maker

Kodu lets kids create games on a PC and Xbox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Where Alice can create animations and demonstrations as well as games, Kodu is focused on creating games. Great for young children, as well as older students and adults with no design or programming skills.

Sphero SPRK review

This review shows the Sphero SPRK Edition robot and SPRK app are a great introduction to robotics, coding, and STEM principles. The SPRK app lets kids give their robot orders with visual blocks representing code (like Spark) and later move on to Sphero's own C-based language called OVAL. Sphero's clear shell allows users to see the immediate connection between the program they created and how the guts of their Sphero work and react.

While not transparent, the Sphero 2.0 can use this same software and does not scratch as easily. You can control it using a less than $100 Android tablet.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYUjLexsPvo

For teachers with little/no computer experience, any of these programs would be a good place to start. Check out the tutorials on YouTube and give it a go. You will be surprised how easy it can be.

MIT App Inventor Introduction

This video introduces MIT App Inventor, which allows anyone to create Android apps using just your cell phone or tablet and a web browser using a variant of Scratch.

The goal was to to create an easy to use platform to introduce older and younger students into programming.

YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNjGAiOrX-o

larger image of http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/

image of http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/

MIT App Inventor

This web site allows you to create fully functional applications for Android cell phones. It uses a variant of Scratch, the drag and drop programming language.

While App Inventor can be used to create some complex applications, it also allows simple phone applications to be created in under an hour.

Highly recommended by our webmaster.

Coding a LEGO Maze

Michelle has created a free, printable "Coding a LEGO Maze" activity that can grow with kids. Children as young as 5 or 6 can attempt the easiest challenges, while the concepts introduced in the harder challenges are would be familiar with to introduction to programming class.

Using the goal of teaching a Lego character to navigate a maze, this project introduces programming concepts like for loops, while loops, if statements, and random number generators. No computers needed!

This project would make a great first step to introduce the Scratch programming language.