CODING FOR KIDS
Essential Concepts and Principles That Will Take You To The Next Step
Part 2
William H. Ricci
Copyright 2020 by William H. Ricci
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
L et's admit that coding is the future language. This new industrial revolution has its roots in IT, computing, and STEM. Artificial intelligence, robotics, mapping are no longer amazing extraterrestrial concepts. They are here, shaping our lives and changing them like never before.
It is no coincidence that your feeds in social media reveal things from your last search in Google. Moreover, it is a very subtle reminder of information technology's impact (or control) on our lives. The future without computers is incomprehensible, and the language these machines understand is coding.
So coding is like a language. Every child must possess a basic skill at a decent level. We don't say your child must be a whiz. Yet, we certainly conclude that today children need to consider coding as a second language. A profound understanding of coding is crucial.
Coding is a mechanism by which you can guide a machine to accomplish the tasks you want. Simply put, coding is like setting the computer's command instructions.
These instructions must be in a language that the machine (in this case, the computer) understands. You can not speak in your mother tongue and expect a computer to follow it unless there is already some code to decode your mother tongue.
Coding includes writing a set of instructions to execute a process in one of the programming languages the machine understands the language. These languages can be C, Java, or Python visual blocks. Interestingly, coding can be used to make young minds curious and is attractive to girls. Most child coding is achieved through visual blocks that don't require children to write codes.
What children need to understand is the logic behind the bricks, not the syntaxes. After mastering the visual drag and drop programming, it is easier for children to move into core programming languages like C, Java, or Python.
Think self-driving vehicles, automatic food refrigerators, robotic hands running procedures, AI robots writing legal briefs. Technology is all around us. With this improvement in technology, STEM skills will prevail in the future.
Learning the coding fundamentals will help children develop a solid base for STEM skills, as most innovations will overlap or use computing in one way or another.
Coding is machine language that does not recognize implied context and emotions. You must be precise, reasonable, and straightforward in your thoughts to communicateall of these constructs critical and logical knowledge.
Soft skills such as collaboration, teamwork, adaptability, and active listening can be learned easily using coding. Coding gives children the chance to cooperate and work in teams to develop important soft skills (often disappearing.).
There is no one way when it comes to coding. Using a variety of languages, you can code the same program using various operations and logic. The fact that it is process-oriented and not necessarily product-oriented is another significant feature of coding. This creates inspiration and offers the spark for imagination and divergent thought.
Mathematical skills are a vital part of the future. In our everyday routine, we all need basic math skills. One of the key aspects of coding is the structure, interpretation, and manipulation of data for the desired result.
These are the core mathematical skills and coding practice in a fun and practical way. Coding is only one way to do mathematical practices and develop a sincere mathematical interest.
Debugging and testing is an important coding aspect. Both are inherent in coding, educating children to be resilient and not to leave and thus to work on their mistakes and develop resilience and a growing mind.
Children of any age can learn to code. There are some activities planned specifically for children to understand and learn the coding basics. You can choose offline coding or online coding platforms depending on your screen policies and your child's learning style.
Thanks for downloading VOLUME 2 of CODING FOR KIDS. Youll discover basic ways kids can make cool money from home using cool tech gadgets and learning in-house and offline coding.
Happy Reading
CHAPTER 1
What is Kid Coding?
M ost parents assume that coding should be learned only by adults and that it would be inappropriate for children. However, you must realize that the code lines you see when you use the word "coding" in Google are not what your child will start with. Over time, they will build up to these complex languages.
This leads us to the question: what is the best language for children? There are many choices, but some good options are available to consider if your child is just starting.
Scratch - the language of block-based programming
Scratch is a programming language focused on blocks that are ideal for children over the age of eight. It was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Mitch Resnik (MIT). The software has been translated into more than 70 languages and can build mini-projects using blocks by children.
The visual blocks make it a perfect coding choice for children because it removes the irritating code lines that can frighten even young people. The learning of code is easy, and a first step is good for every child because it gives them the courage to move on to the second.
The child goes away with the idea that they are the real creators of the game or project they have made. Another cool feature is that you store your saved work on the Scratch server so that other users can access and benefit from it.
