I teach what I call "creative technology" to kids (my company is adaandleo.com). Parents keep asking me to teach THEM about this stuff. In particular, I keep getting asked, "How can I understand what programming IS?"
In other words, what these parents want is:
* a taste of what the experience of programming is like
* to experience what's unique to computer science, as opposed to adjacent fields
* to walk away feeling that they have programmed
What they are not looking for (from me):
* useful vocational knowledge (I mean, they wouldn't mind some, but that's not the point)
* the same circuits-Scratch-3d design "art class and tech class had a baby" curriculum I give kids
HN, any ideas?
Some things that come to mind:
* I could use a platform like coderpad.io to manage coding environments in a lightweight way
* It seems to me that Python and Ruby are roughly close to the sweet spot of clarity to a beginner; I want to avoid too much cleverly terse syntax, and be able to focus on basic building blocks such as arrays, functions, and loops.
* I keep coming back to CS intro concepts like sorting arrays and recursion, but a) I'm not sure how to neatly visualize these, and b) I worry they're not really that representative of programming work
* on the other hand, if I were TOTALLY realistic I'd have them try to update XCode certificates for two hours :)
In other words, what these parents want is:
* a taste of what the experience of programming is like
* to experience what's unique to computer science, as opposed to adjacent fields
* to walk away feeling that they have programmed
What they are not looking for (from me):
* useful vocational knowledge (I mean, they wouldn't mind some, but that's not the point)
* the same circuits-Scratch-3d design "art class and tech class had a baby" curriculum I give kids
HN, any ideas?
Some things that come to mind:
* I could use a platform like coderpad.io to manage coding environments in a lightweight way
* It seems to me that Python and Ruby are roughly close to the sweet spot of clarity to a beginner; I want to avoid too much cleverly terse syntax, and be able to focus on basic building blocks such as arrays, functions, and loops.
* I keep coming back to CS intro concepts like sorting arrays and recursion, but a) I'm not sure how to neatly visualize these, and b) I worry they're not really that representative of programming work
* on the other hand, if I were TOTALLY realistic I'd have them try to update XCode certificates for two hours :)