[Fonc] When's the best time to teach a kid to program?

[Casey Ransberger]

Sorry if this is a little off topic.

I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology
might be a lot to think about at 4.

I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that
a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points
(as always) if you can point me at some research.

Anyway is 4 too soon?

--Casey Ransberger

[Alan Kay]

Look at what Radia Perlman did with "Tortis" with 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the early 70s at MIT
Cheers
Alan


From: Casey Ransberger <***@gmail.com>
To: Fundamentals of New Computing <***@vpri.org>
Sent: Friday, April 1, 2016 5:12 PM
Subject: [Fonc] When's the best time to teach a kid to program?

Sorry if this is a little off topic. 
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points (as always) if you can point me at some research. 
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger

[Patrick Logan]

What are you're goals? There's solid research indicating if you want your
kid to be good at math and science later in life, you should emphasize
piano and music in elementary school. It seems to wire the developing brain
for the kinds of pattern matching needed.

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology
might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed
that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus
points (as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

As Patrick wrote, what are your goals is a good question. There is
ScratchJr, that is meant for preschoolers, but I have to say that I am
mostly skeptical about it if your goal is any more than just having
fun with a child.

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Casey Ransberger

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology might
be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that
a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points
(as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

[K K Subbu]

At 4, he would be building his idea of the world through sensations
(textures, smells, sounds), speech ("what do you call this?"), and
explore spaces through large body movements like twists, turns etc.
There is still lot of time before he can sit still before a computer to
use logic tools.

I find research by Jean Piaget, Lev Zygotsky, Maria Montessori, Jerome
Bruner to be very relevant at this age group. Patricia Kuhl for an
earlier stage but still very interesting. Your local chapter of American
Montessori Association will likely have plenty of resources and programs
for parents and friends. Research experiments like (conservation of
quantity, theory of mind) are really fun to do in a social setup. See

E.g. conservation of quantity - if you keep two rows of beads of equal
quantity but different spacing and ask the child which one has more
beads, they tend to pick the longer one. Or, if you pour equal quantity
of juice into two glasses of different height, they tend to pick the
taller column as having more. Watching them evolve their idea of the
world is really tons of fun.

HTH .. Subbu

Post by Yoshiki Ohshima
As Patrick wrote, what are your goals is a good question. There is
ScratchJr, that is meant for preschoolers, but I have to say that I am
mostly skeptical about it if your goal is any more than just having
fun with a child.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Casey Ransberger

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology might
be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that
a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points
(as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

[Cory Bloyd]

By chance I saw this project today you might appreciate:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/cubetto-hands-on-coding-for-girls-and-boys-aged-3?ref=category_popular

It's basically a physical implementation of Logo (turtledraw).

Agreeing with Yoshiki, if you want to do techy/coding stuff with young children, you must relax and let it just be something fun you do together occasionally. If it comes across as something Dad is pushing on the kids, it's sure way to push them away from it.

For me, I was exposed to coding very young (8?), but didn't pick it up at all until I was introduced to Logo many years later. Even then, it didn't go anywhere until a high school class many years after that. But still, the early exposure was enough to give me the interest for when it was a good time to get serious.

So, if your kid isn't coding at 5, don't despair! ;)

Post by Yoshiki Ohshima
As Patrick wrote, what are your goals is a good question. There is
ScratchJr, that is meant for preschoolers, but I have to say that I am
mostly skeptical about it if your goal is any more than just having
fun with a child.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Casey Ransberger

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology might
be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that
a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points
(as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
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http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

--
-- Yoshiki
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[Anatoly Levenchuk]

Team that started their work in Russia in 80s with Dr.Papert and Acad.Ershov
and therefore have 30+ years of experience in children education in
programming, since invented a way to reliable teach full imperative
programming (with recursions and procedures) to 5-6year olds but have
moderate success with 4years. Here they are online:
https://piktomir.niisi.ru/online/ (sorry, Russian language) and they also
have real-world robot that mirror its virtual counterpart:

This group have now extensive testing of their teaching methodology in
kindergartens.

Best regards,
Anatoly

-----Original Message-----
Bloyd
Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Fonc] When's the best time to teach a kid to program?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primotoys/cubetto-hands-on-coding-
for-girls-and-boys-aged-3?ref=category_popular
It's basically a physical implementation of Logo (turtledraw).
Agreeing with Yoshiki, if you want to do techy/coding stuff with young
children, you must relax and let it just be something fun you do together
occasionally. If it comes across as something Dad is pushing on the kids,

it's

sure way to push them away from it.
For me, I was exposed to coding very young (8?), but didn't pick it up at

all

until I was introduced to Logo many years later. Even then, it didn't go
anywhere until a high school class many years after that. But still, the

early

exposure was enough to give me the interest for when it was a good time to
get serious.
So, if your kid isn't coding at 5, don't despair! ;)

Post by Yoshiki Ohshima
As Patrick wrote, what are your goals is a good question. There is
ScratchJr, that is meant for preschoolers, but I have to say that I am
mostly skeptical about it if your goal is any more than just having
fun with a child.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Casey Ransberger

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar.
I'd like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural
epistemology might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I
guessed that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of
thing. Bonus points (as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
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http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

--
-- Yoshiki
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[Joe Gorse]

In the 1993 *Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas*,
by Seymour Papert, he says that there are two factors which determine the
rate of learning:

- *Cultural references*
- *Affect (love) for the topic*

Where cultural references is the number of relatable, already familiar,
concepts. For example, Eskimos have more than 300 words for types of snow,
so new things which can be usefully associated with these concepts of snow
may be learned more quickly by Eskimos.

And affect, or love, is the desire of the student to learn it. As of the
writing of the book in 1993, there was little data to go along with this
notion, so Papert speculated for a moment, reflecting on its origin's in
Piaget's work. Intuitively I know this to be true in the sense that all
subjects are interesting and compelling with the right guide (teacher).

Good luck! =)

Cheers,
Joe Gorse

P.S. Disclaimer: it has been a while since I read the book, so for those of
you who remember it more clearly forgive my simplistic recollection.

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology
might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed
that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus
points (as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
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Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

BTW, I don’t recall Logo very well, but the Cubetto kickstarter game
appears highly similar to Robot Turtles boardgame:
http://www.thinkfun.com/robot-turtles/

Post by Joe Gorse
In the 1993 *Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas*,
by Seymour Papert, he says that there are two factors which determine the
- *Cultural references*
- *Affect (love) for the topic*
Where cultural references is the number of relatable, already familiar,
concepts. For example, Eskimos have more than 300 words for types of snow,
so new things which can be usefully associated with these concepts of snow
may be learned more quickly by Eskimos.
And affect, or love, is the desire of the student to learn it. As of the
writing of the book in 1993, there was little data to go along with this
notion, so Papert speculated for a moment, reflecting on its origin's in
Piaget's work. Intuitively I know this to be true in the sense that all
subjects are interesting and compelling with the right guide (teacher).
Good luck! =)
Cheers,
Joe Gorse
P.S. Disclaimer: it has been a while since I read the book, so for those
of you who remember it more clearly forgive my simplistic recollection.

Post by Casey Ransberger
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd
like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology
might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed
that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus
points (as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org

--
Joe Gorse
C: 440-552-0730
LI: Joe Gorse <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-gorse/7/12/397>
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[Antonio Casas Cortés]

"The medieval schoolman, following the Romans, made logic the earliest of a boy's studies after grammar, as being very easy. So it was as they understood it.(
), as soon as a boy was perfect in the syllogistic procedure, his intellectual kit of tools was held to be complete."
Charles Sanders Peirce. "The Fixation of Belief ".Popular Science Monthly 12 (November 1877)

BTW, I don’t recall Logo very well, but the Cubetto kickstarter game appears highly similar to Robot Turtles boardgame: http://www.thinkfun.com/robot-turtles/ <http://www.thinkfun.com/robot-turtles/>
Cultural references
Affect (love) for the topic
Where cultural references is the number of relatable, already familiar, concepts. For example, Eskimos have more than 300 words for types of snow, so new things which can be usefully associated with these concepts of snow may be learned more quickly by Eskimos.
And affect, or love, is the desire of the student to learn it. As of the writing of the book in 1993, there was little data to go along with this notion, so Papert speculated for a moment, reflecting on its origin's in Piaget's work. Intuitively I know this to be true in the sense that all subjects are interesting and compelling with the right guide (teacher).
Good luck! =)
Cheers,
Joe Gorse
P.S. Disclaimer: it has been a while since I read the book, so for those of you who remember it more clearly forgive my simplistic recollection.
Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I have a dear friend with a 4-year old. He's a clever little beggar. I'd like to put him onto Scratch, but I worry that procedural epistemology might be a lot to think about at 4.
I don't really know anything about how kid's brains develop. I guessed that a few people here would know a lot about that sort of thing. Bonus points (as always) if you can point me at some research.
Anyway is 4 too soon?
--Casey Ransberger
_______________________________________________
Fonc mailing list
http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org <http://mailman.vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc_mailman.vpri.org>
--
Joe Gorse
C: 440-552-0730 <>
LI: Joe Gorse <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-gorse/7/12/397>
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