There are not very easy for children.

An interesting article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/04/coding-school-computing-children-programming

Check this out: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/cool-tools-to-help-kids-learn-to-code

In my opinion, children from 4 to 7 years don't need to learn sophisticated terms or complex syntax, but they can learn about programming using "macroinstructions" (sequential commands to make something happen), and you can use videogames.

Games like Lightbot, Piktomir or Blockly allow little children to identify the adequate sequences to accomplish different goals, improving their algorithmic thinking to solving problems. 

This publication (spanish) show you different methodologies, tools and techniques to initiate kids into this kind ot topics. I hope it would be helpful. 

Article Estado del arte sobre experiencias de enseñanza de programac...

I use a couple of tools at home. Programming concepts is the best manner to starts with childrens. I'used http://www.robotturtles.com/ with my daugther 2 years ago.  Actually she have 6 years old. The programming concepts for she are easy. She understand functions, conditionals, iterative functions, etc. The second tool that I used is coding of osmos https://www.playosmo.com/en/coding/. The last one is Scratch but 

this tool is not so interesting for my daughter because for she the editor is complicated. However it is fun to teach programming to children. 

Scratch will be very helpful. It is simple and easy to use game development environment for children, parents and teachers that introduces all the fundamentals and even complex programming concepts. It was developed and being supported by MIT. https://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/ 

https://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/

I think the whole idea of tools like scratch is to introduce children about programming without the need of using concepts they cannot understand at their age. To their mind, they are just having fun creating things that move and do things, but behind that is them being introduced to important aspects of programming. When the time is right and they get old enough, they will realize the fun they have been having is productive.

Thanks for your response, Ibrahim!

I also think that children (under the age of 13) do not understand the concepts of programming, and they do not want to use the tools like Scratch. My observations that applications such as Kodu are more exciting and fun for them. But the idea the children understand the basics of programming, through such tools is wrong for me.

That's why I would like to know what tools you use at school or home when you want to introduce your children to programming (or coding).

There are not very easy for children.

I just noticed this article, although I've never tried this thing: http://www.wired.com/2016/05/osmo-turns-blocks-code-teach-kids-programming/. Looks a bit expensive, though.

I think that Scratch is a perfect start for a lot of Kids. Here in Slovenia, it is very popular, normally ages 10-14. Lego Mindstorms is another popular platform.

My Kid is 5 years old and have been using the programming challenges found at https://code.org/learn since 4. He does not know how to read but he can easily learn by hearth the meaning of each block and then complete most of the challenges. He loves the star-wars challenge. I recently bought Osmo coding kit and I think is quite nice for him.

Hi Radoslava.

Once again, you have a great skill for asking great questions that provoke some cool answers.   Since I am still on vacation, I had some time to give my 2 cents..... (Sorry for the length).

There seems to be a general accepted dogma about learning in the "digital age" (as coined by many of the proponents of the excellent tools mentioned above) that children need graphics and stories to learn.  I do not doubt that they learn something from these tools, however, I am more skeptical about this populist view that learning must first be converted to entertainment before being digested and then converted (presumably with ATP) to something intellectually useful. Thus, I would be more cautious to assume that such tools help at all in teaching programming, nor do they  really represent what the activity of programming is all about.  

By putting together visual components and then claiming to have participated in some form of programming is, at least, disingenuous. By analogy, this is sort of like putting together a collection of VST vamp plugins (for creating some repeated musical rhythm) by using a graphical interface in a modern  computer music program, and then saying you understand/appreciate some of the nuances needed to play music or a Rachmaninov piano sonata.  The two activities are entirely different (without the risk of judging or assigning a different value scale to either). In the same way that playing the piano  contains a huge amount of technical subtle problems that must be resolved (e.g., fingering of complicated passages, interpretation such as loudness, softness, timbre, etc), not to mention the mental dimension that must accrued from years of study, so too does the "art" of good programming (that which would be needed by novices and practitioners alike). And,  I would argue to the same degree, inasmuch as the wide degree of practitioners  - let the experts play Liszt and Rachmaninov, while the amateur can be contented with a few intermediate level bagatelles.  To finish the analogy, certainly creating with computer music programs helps to develop music acuity and appreciation, but from a pedagogic point of view  it does not contain any substantial cognitive element (or motivational, if not already desired), to create music from a "traditional" instrument requiring  “online” hand/eye/mind coordination.   

Coming back to learning to programming and education pedagogy. I think one needs to distinguish between two issues in education: ways to motivate young learners as opposed to how to "best" teach young learners.  Quite frankly, there is a big difference both with respect to ‘methods’ as well as ‘objectives’.

If the objective is to teach to a wide audience (and it normally is, such as in classrooms), with largely varying talent (e.g., think Gaussian) and interests, then in my opinion, teaching is defaulted to a common denominator -  try to get the most number of students engaged.  Under such pressure, (and/or objectives) the teacher assumes the role of "motivator" and “facilitator” (in modern parlance), trying to win the attention of students (assuming android/iphone devices are turned off). With respect to the youngest students, this way of thinking (in my opinion) is then converted to "cajoling" youngsters into some activity, because this activity in its pure form is somehow not interesting enough, or "way too complicated" (which is a cop-out of an educator). Instead the activity gets shrouded or packaged in something furry and funny, and all of a sudden "hey!,  it’s still learning!".  This is supposed to rid the poor young student of the possibility that they might get bored and thereby abandon the activity altogether, to the horror and bewilderment of the elders.  But once again, the objective of the educator has shifted to become a show-person, whose job it is to engage "everyone" (and I mean everyone!...that must  later be measured externally later down the road).   Since the objective from the start was to engage the maximum number, then the "motivational" aspect of educating has certainly won out in this case.  This logic is founded upon the following dictum: my children like playing games and hearing stories; thus, it follows that the "best" way to teach must be to use these vices as a vehicle toward the end of educating.

My opinion is that this is flawed logic.  It clouds the important distinction between the objective of "motivating"  students, to providing the best and optimal cognitive development methodology.   Boredom can also be most profound if one does not have a good enough understanding of something, thereby lacking the fundamentals (if you want to test this, try picking up a book on differential geometry without a solid grasp of maths and you will find yourself rapidly sleeping). A good model is needed before beginning to understand something.

Following the music analogy, several anecdotes serve as something telling: YoYo Ma as a youth learned a new Bach passage by memory before going to bed; other greats had countless hours of hard practice -- compare for example Mozart nurturing vs Beethoven's endurance of extreme pressure;  albeit, these are extreme cases (some of which are not even humane) and about experiences of utter genius, but it is to support my argument. The point is that these cases show that "watering down" or cajoling with nice pictures and easy methods will not teach you to play Bach; there is a clear path towards such ends.  It is done with preparatory steps, and except in rare cases, very slowly, with deliberate understanding of each step.  No amount of cajoling can supplant interest where there is none.  Another analogy: going to an art museum could spawn an appreciation for art, but the steps needed to create realism paintings,  such as those by Sargent, requires deliberate study, careful method, together with a profound understanding of color and values.  A coloring book is not a vehicle towards these ends - they can be fun - but one is not on the correct road for creating a work of art by filling in coloring books; such thinking is illusory.

In the same way, programming (and especially beginning to program) is hard for three reasons:   1) it requires problem solving skills, 2) the solution requires an algorithm, and 3) the implementation of such algorithm requires translation to an arcane language representing a set of predefined instructions.  Now, going back to the idea of having a good model in one’s mind:  I recall when I learned about computers and then many years later taught my son how to program, that the biggest stumbling block  to overcome was to exactly define what a computer “is”, and what it actually "does".   In other words, a useful model of a computer is needed to appreciate what you are doing when you program.  Without that, you are simply back to using a coloring book…. It is really fun, but you are not creating art (programs), nor on the correct path to create art (programs) in any meaningful definition of the term.   Given a decent understanding of what a computer does goes a long way to understanding what  a program does and is capable of doing. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons that assembly code (at least a reduced set) still remains part of a core course in computer science degrees.

Proponents of the tools mentioned in the question are excellent researchers and this is by no means a criticism of their work. But, they argue that such visual tools respond to each of the points I made above.  To some extent, I agree.    But, I would only point out that there is room in such methods for misconceptions as well.   It is is well known that "unlearning" takes far more effort than "learning". So, why not get young students (that are motivated to learn) to do it right the first time?

In closing, permit me an anecdote from when I was back in grad school studying Physics. It was my second year, and I was in a really complicated (what I thought at the time) advanced quantum course. Since it was the second year, most of us in class knew each other (classes in physics were small back then), but there was a new student, that started asking really annoying (but fundamental) questions; stuff that one thought "man, he should know that if he is here!".  It turns out, that his undergrad degree was not in Physics, but was in Philosophy.  Most of us on the other hand, had been used to sloshing around the Schrodinger equation and had second quantization down pat! But this student knew how to analyze and solve problems through logic, and he could question and formulate logical arguments.  By the end of the year, this student from Philosophy had become one of the best students and went on to do his thesis in high energy theory (I think strings, but I lost track of him).  What really mattered was the ability to think!  If you get that right, all else falls into shape very fast.  Get the thinking right, and the language (or domain knowledge) of a subject matter is a piece of cake.   

This anecdote could easily be applied to any of the incoming students we have here in my computer science school (or to youngsters interested or not in computers).  If they didn't know the first thing about a for loop, but they knew how to think, solve problems, and formulate; then the rest is just dressing, domain knowledge, and practice.  I would argue that just by using a computer in and of itself, doesn't get you any closer to thinking like a computer scientist than by using PlayStation. It is fun to use computers!    But, I don't believe that just by using them to create eye candy is an optimal path (or more useful than anything else) towards learning to program.  For this reason, I often cringe when I read or hear that “classrooms of children are now using ipads ...etc…”.  To look up information, most youngsters learn very quickly (often faster than adults). But, if we are talking about learning to program, then, I am afraid there is only one way ... having the basics of problem solving down solid.  We need to be inventive for teaching students to problem solve, but I argue it has nothing to do per-se with computers.

So, we should really ask what is the point of these tools? Do they get people to really think or do they simply provide an illusory idea that we are motivating the youth towards an activity, that is in reality, dissimilar in nearly all aspects?

Thanks, David,

For your philosophical analysis of the problem associated with the use of tools about the visual programming languages appropriate for children. I'm glad to know that my questions provoked not just your interest but also of the other researchers, who have written here!

I support your opinion.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is the children to learn:

•  Logical thinking.
• To solve step by step a task or a problem.
• To understand how a complex problem can split into smaller, easily solvable tasks that lead to the creation of a comprehensive solution.

In my view, before the children start to use tools for a visual programming language, they should understand how to think logically.

I don't know what is a math education in other countries, but in Bulgaria logical tasks are omitted from textbooks in mathematics. Unfortunately, for more teachers is more important the children can feel just as calculators and not to be able to think or can build a logical decision. With this I don't want to offend the teachers in Bulgaria, they are great!

Therefore, I believe that some tools like Scratch, Alice, Kodu et al., will help to children to think out of the box and with them, they will build the logical solution for a simple algorithm.

But one thing is sure that the programming cannot learn with these tools.

Best regards, Radoslava

Dear Radoslava,

So nice question, I like kids so much times but unfortunately this topic is out of my domain.

Regards, Emad

Yes, my son in the VII th grade has learnt Scratch. He enjoys it.

I think Visual Basic language is suitable for children since it has interface So, they will be happy with results And they can study c++ since it is easy 

Visual studio.net package provides vb.net. I think for the children vb.net is better.

This is the link where Kids will start from.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Although visual programming languages are great for programming tasks. But I think they are better used as modeling languages.

From the usability standpoint, I think they are yet to be used easily. Hence, my strong suggestion is to consider visual-code duality principles which allows those who will prefer coding and those preferring visual approach.

 Just to emphasize coding is more easy to use as it stands today. Consequently, I am not a fan of drawing but writing. 

Its good but vb.net is better for children more than 10 year age.

The traditional programming languages like Visual Basic, C#, Java et al., are very difficult for children under the age 9-10 years. My daughter is 8 years old and she prefers visual programming language as Code Studio (Code.org), ScratchJR and Kodu Lab. She thinkable that Alice and Scratch are confusing.

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

From my country of origin Visual Programming Languages have been happily accepted by children within the age  of 11 - 14

An average kid in my country is not interested in programming of any sort  like most kids their age from developed nations. I came to this conclusion when i volunteered as a tutor for Google CS4HS (Computer Science for High School)  program. It occurred to me that from the educational curriculum developed for 8 - 15 years, in regards to logical development mathematics and a little bit of Quantitative Reasoning thrown here and there were their proposed solutions.

Programming for kids is not in anyway promoted.

So that was what we did when we got the Google CS4HS grant. We took kids that were in age range of 11 - 14 from different schools with different educational background, taught them the basics of Scratch and Alice.

They couldn't believe that programming can be approached from this perspective. Among these kids the ones that were quick to absorb this new knowledge were those who knew their way around a keyboards, for some of the kids that was their first time  on a keyboard.

My conclusion was those kids who spent  weeks with the Google CS4HS team were exposed to the power of logical reasoning and they took to Scratch and Alice like Fish to Water. 

Yes it is not easy to learn , but i always refer kids to get Scratch and Alice.

For me it has enabled me construct a solid foundation for kids who are interested in programming.

Thank you very much, Hajara,

If you have an article or some other paper on this subject, would you give me its title or a link to it?

I will happily cite your work in my new research...

Best regards,

Radoslava

You are welcome Radoslava, 

I do not have any article published in this regards. When i find one i will definitely send you a link.

Thanks

The trends is APPS if you want to start your children programming Journey start with something they used to use , like build a simple game for android or ios

And introduce this little talented boy to your children 

https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_suarez_a_12_year_old_app_developer