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
Why not? As Jerome Brunner puts it somewhere in his Process of Education, the foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
Interesting site by the way.
Haha, I’m not arguing that teaching kids at such a young age should be discouraged. However, it’s scary to think that perhaps shortage of CS and engineering students is so imminent not only in short-term but in the long-term as well, that they’re targeting even the smallest of kids. At least we’re rest assured they’re not contemplating offshoring here.
And thanks for visiting, btw
Nyay I didn’t mean to sound like I’m on attack mode in my previous comment lol. It’s just amusing how younger and younger children become more exposed to technology and computers and I want to explore related topics if I have the opportunity and the resources for a postgrad research paper. Now, really, there’s a shortage?
Maybe shortage of good ones… 