Many Computer Science Freshmen come to college with little or no background in computational thinking and almost no computer programming background. In my part of the world, only a very small number of freshmen become adapt at programming at graduation.
A very basic environment giving visual feedback is Scratch:
https://scratch.mit.edu/
It promotes algorithmic thinking and discovery by composing structured blocks. The graphical aspect means it's easier than Python or C/C++ but exposes complete novices to the same ideas (loops, conditions, function calls, etc.). Here in Canada, we see Scratch being used with kids for 10 and older with great results and interest from the students. Once they have done a few projects solving problems with Scratch, they might be more ready to start with "real" programming languages...
Another thing that's good is that it can work web-based or stand alone and that it's light on hardware and can be run on old computers or Raspberry Pi.
Have a look and tell me what you think!
Regards,
Bruno
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