Apparently, luring kids into programming are all the rave today. This morning I came across an article from arstechnica (via Digg) about Scratch that makes programming as easy as building LEGO bricks. From the creator of the programmable Lego Mindstorms themselves, Scratch provides an easy-to-use and colorful IDE for kids to do their programming through a drag-and-drop interface. Supposedly, this teaches them basic programming constructs such as if-then-else and loop patterns.
Also, another post from The Third Bit mentions that there’s a NSA-sponsored site for kids. This is all good although I don’t know if the target audience members even know anything about cryptography yet, or let alone pronounce it. Thus, the next time your 3-year old asks you how to decrypt a rainbow table or how quicksort works, you need not to worry.
Filed under: Computer Science, brainwashing, toddlers
