A Little App for Kids to Get Digital-Native
A blog about an ebook app aimed for kids to learn programming.
Kids nowadays don’t have the same attitude toward technology and programming that we had when we were kids. Back in the days we felt like a secret agent or a magician when we would write some code, because everything was new and magic.
Today’s kids are not just familiar with technology and computers. They’re actually born digital natives. So, they see technology and apps as something normal and already integrated in their lives. And that’s why they’re not so impressed by apps anymore.
In order to get them excited again, you need to show them how cool apps are, by showing them how they work from the inside. Yeah, that’s right! I’m talking about letting them play with the source code of an app!
The good news is that there are several educational resources available on the web that can help us do this in a fun way without requiring us to write any code by ourselves. The bad news is that most of these resources are not very fun or practical for kids who want to create their own apps without needing someone else’s help. It can be hard for them to understand other people’s source code and it also requires some
A little app for kids to get digital-native
A little app for kids to get digital-native
I have always been interested in digital media and the internet, a huge world of information, knowledge, and entertainment. The internet has become so popular that it is changing our lives. My grandfather was a kind of person who goes out to walk every morning and sees what is happening in the neighborhood. He often visited his friends and went shopping at local markets. Today, more and more people are staying at home and connecting with other people through the internet. Some of my friends have even lost contact with their relatives because they spend too much time on the internet. As a father of two young children, I am concerned about the impact that increased online activities will have on my family. I wanted them to grow up to be digital-natives but not digital-addicts. I want them to see the positive influence that technology can bring to their lives, but also to be aware of its negative side effects. After all, “too much” almost always has some negative effects.
My son is now five years old, and he is showing an interest in technology like many other kids his age. He is good at using mobile devices for games, books or videos but does
At the weekend, I had a nice chat with my niece about programming. She is currently learning some fundamental knowledge about math and computer science. And I was thinking about what kind of coding tool I could help her get into the digital-native era.
I’ve been thinking about making a little app for kids to learn something new from coding. This is why I decided to share this idea on this blog with simple examples and notes.
The target platform will be iOS since I am an iPhone user and its API is so much fun to work with. The first version will be an ebook app that teaches kids how to program in Swift Playground by Apple.
I want it to be like a fairy tale book, where the story will be told by an old lady who is knitting something in the knitting store she opened for kids after retiring as a teacher for many years.
As technology becomes a bigger part of our lives, the demand for programmers is increasing at a rapid rate. According to the Wall Street Journal, there were about 1 million job openings for software developers in the U.S. in 2013, with more than half a million job postings added last year alone.
We decided to create an ebook app that teaches kids how to code through simple puzzles and games. Coding allows kids to interact with computers and is useful in many fields including science, math, art and music.
Kids get digital-native with Coding by Khan Academy: enjoy this sneak peek of our new ebook app! Available in the App Store July 15th!
It’s a little app that helps kids learn to code, by making it fun and digestible. It’s called Hour of code.
I think this is pretty cool for a couple reasons:
1. It’s an hour long, so you can’t get bored or lose interest.
2. There are a variety of languages, to accommodate different interests (Star Wars? Angry Birds? Plants vs. Zombies?).
3. It makes it accessible to anyone with a computer/tablet/phone/etc., which is pretty much all of us.
4. It’s not only about coding, but about learning to think like a programmer, which can be extremely useful in your career and life in general, whether or not you end up working as a developer.
Children’s book author and illustrator Nicholas John Frith has created a beautiful new iPad app for kids that is designed to make learning about computer programming a fun experience.
The app, called The Little App That Could Coding, is a storybook that teaches children how to use the programming language Scratch.
“I wanted to create a book that would really bring the medium to life and allow users to play with the subject matter in an interactive way,” says Frith. “Rather than being just a passive experience of reading, I wanted it to be alive and touchable.”
As coding continues to gain popularity, the need for digital natives has become more and more desirable. Coding is not just for computer scientists anymore and it’s time that we start introducing coding to kids at a young age.
As a self-taught programmer who wrote my first program when I was 9 years old, I know first hand that learning to code as a kid can open up so many opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach.
Every day, we work hard to continue improving our product and making it accessible to students regardless of their background or income level.