<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra">I too had the same thoughts when I was trying to show my young girls the rudimentaries of programming.  I showed them the "hello world" program (Python) and I was surprised at how curious they became.  It's all about how you present the concept to them.  I'm not an expert, not by a long shot, but, that was my attempt to help them understand.  One of my daughters has asked me for that program again, so, I've had partial success!!  :-)</div>

<div class="gmail_extra"> </div><div class="gmail_extra">Incidentally, I've just come across this article: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/get-coding-people-its-the-new-mandarin-and-its-not-just-children-who-can-learn-how-to-do-it-9117071.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/get-coding-people-its-the-new-mandarin-and-its-not-just-children-who-can-learn-how-to-do-it-9117071.html</a> .  I think she has been let down by the PR machine, which, I suspect, is currently engaged combating the negative press surrounding flooding.  Wasn't the gist of her message correct though?</div>

<div class="gmail_extra"> </div><div class="gmail_extra">Mike<br><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">On 7 February 2014 21:23, Jim Ford <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jaford@watford53.freeserve.co.uk" target="_blank">jaford@watford53.freeserve.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>

<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid"><div>On 07/02/14 20:19, Peter Grant wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid">
Programing mentality can be taught without programming languages being<br>
needed.<br>
Having seen Scratch taught in a school, I think it's well worth doing to<br>
the right age as it help convey the prinples of programming without<br>
requiring that the pupils don't accidentally use a colon instead of a<br>
semi colon.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
I'm surprised that it has been taught in a school! My experience of working at a secondary school (as a science technician), is that anything that wasn't in the curriculum was totally ignored. I tried to interest a couple of science teachers in 'Squeak', suggesting that some physics laws could be modeled using the language, but only drew blank looks. This was at a 'good' independent school.<br>


<br>
Powerful though the underlying Smalltalk language is, I feel that students used to sophisticated computer games aren't going to be inspired by putting a lot of work into crudely moving a simple avatar around a Squeak or Scratch 'playground'.<span><font color="#888888"><br>


<br>
Jim</font></span><div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div></div>