Programming language for children

Mon Jun 22 07:00:22 UTC 2009

What is the child good at and interested in? For example, I put Ubuntu on a girls computer and she's been using it for years. She has no interest in programming with the exception of html and trying to teach her programming was useless. But I know she has very good art talent and creative, so I encouraged her to use Gimp and provided her with resources. Now she's so good with Gimp, it amazes me when all I do with it is crop pictures and compress images/convert to jpg to make them smaller for sending to my friend with dial up and posting on the web. Even the desktop backgrounds she has created, I am using as my own wallpaper for my phone and computer. Maybe you can do the same for your child depending on what her talent and interests are. 
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: gpc <gcarr343 at comcast.net>

Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:14:03 
To: <christopher.lemire at gmail.com>; Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: Programming language for children

The real issue is whether the child is interested in learning the
subject or not, and if they are bright enough to deal with the subject .
If the are interested, they will learn more than we can imagine at
amazing speed. If they could care less, it is almost useless to try and
cram it down their throats.

There is a school in education that claims a sufficiently good teacher
can make any child want to learn almost any subject. I don't really buy
that theory.

christopher.lemire at gmail.com wrote:
> Tias (try it and see) I agree you should challenge them and the brain of a child is more capable of learning than adults. I've been working on becoming fluent in Spanish for years and I see these little 2 or 3 year old kids speaking Spanish very fast and fluently. And they also know English. That's just an example of how young children are better learners. They just need to be disciplined and rewarding them is positive reinforcement. Tell them they can do it, encourage and provide a way for them to get help if they are stuck on trying to understand a difficult concept. I admit it was tough learning how to implement and understand how a recursive quicksort algorithm works and the call stack being made from it and then the stack unwinding, but I was determined and now I'm glad I did learn it. I think its interesting how a calculator uses a stack to first convert a mathematical expression from an infix expression to a postfix expression and then evaluate the postfix expression to give the result and it's all efficient and fast way to do it. Many schools are using java to teach their students programming and its modern language being used even on my phone that I'm using to send this email and with a huge api, cross platform, very well documented and linux users can now be happy about it because sun made it open source. 
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kjetil Halvorsen <kjetil1001 at gmail.com>
>
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:03:06 
> To: Ubuntu user technical support,not for general discussions<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: Programming language for children
>
>
>   
>> If you can understand it, then it is too simple for the children!  I think a
>> good starter language for children IS C as they can do things is a week it
>> took me years to develop!  Plus it is a basic in Linux.
>>     
>
> " Our educational
>   
>> system has been making our children into dummies for some time now, what
>> children are really after is challenge and pride in accomplishment and we try
>> too hard to take that away from them, telling them they aren't ready yet. "
>>     
>
> I do very much agree with this, but am not yet convinced that teaching
> the C programming language
> is the right answer!
>
> Kjetil
>
>
>   
>>
>> --
>> 73 de N7PSV aka Pastor JW <n><   PDGA# 35276
>> http://the-inner-circle.org_Registered Kubuntu User: #27403
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_original_inner_circle
>> http://h.webring.com/hub?ring=universalministr
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-users mailing list
>> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20090622/d5cd5ac7/attachment.html>