Today I want to talk to that generation of parents who once dreamed of being doctors, teachers, actors, and the ambitious among them, inspired by the famous sentence: "This is a small step for me, but a giant step for mankind", dreamed of becoming astronauts . However, the interests and idols of our children today are completely different. They think about being programmers, gamers, YouTubers, bloggers, creating video games or building advanced solutions with the help of artificial intelligence.
If your child expresses a similar ambition, do not prevent him from achieving it just because he wants to sail into a world that you may not fully know. When we started the story with online DoMEn programming school, a large number of parents contacted us worried, because in addition to all the school material that they need to go over with their children, now the children want to learn something that they, as parents, cannot help them with because they are not programmers and may not know the programming languages that we process.
In order for your child to start learning programming, you don't have to be a programmer. To go beyond that, no special prior knowledge of programming is required. With the help of these tools and platforms, you will be a cool parent in the eyes of the child who can offer resources for learning and maybe even what he doesn't know, he learns together with the little ones
For the youngest, building an algorithmic way of thinking is a priority
Will the child immediately after an online or offline course be a programmer and be able to create a website or application? No. When we talk about courses intended for the youngest, we are not talking about the fact that they will immediately become programmers, but they will acquire something very important - algorithmic way of thinking.
What does this way of thinking actually represent? Algorithmic thinking teaches us to solve tasks by breaking them down into smaller problems or steps that we have to go through in order to solve a particular problem. A simple example of the algorithm is - in order to bring a child from kindergarten, I have to leave the house, drive to the kindergarten, pick up the child, and drive back home with the child.
The platform I always recommend to parents who ask me about programming is www.code.org. It is suitable for everyone - from children who can't read to high school students who are about to graduate and want to go through a course that would introduce them to what is happening in the IT industry. I especially emphasize the adaptability of this platform to younger children, up to the 5th grade, because with simple tasks and games with icons, which will remind them more of brain teasers than learning, they will seriously work on building their thinking like future programmers.
Your obligation will be to open an account for them (which is extremely simple and you only need a few minutes and an email address) and to transfer the platform to our language or translate how to do some part. The entire platform is intuitive and little ones will find their way around very easily. Children start with courses according to their age and each initial course starts from the assumption that the child has never encountered programming before, and then makes them solve the given problems and move to the next levels. You probably know yourself how much children like such challenges and games, so you won't have to "force" them to another study term. Most importantly, learning is completely visual and intuitive, practical for all beginners, including you, the parent.
This is just one way for your child to start learning programming with minimal involvement on your part. If a question arises for you as a constantly available and omniscient teacher in the eyes of the child, you will see that you will be able to help him and answer it because it is about simple tasks.
Of course, code.org it can become fun for the whole family at any time and together you can organize "competitions" in which you will try to pass as many levels as possible. :)
Scratch for upper elementary students
The recommendation of all computer science teachers, and in many elementary schools in the world it is also studied as a compulsory subject in younger grades, is certainly the Scratch programming language.
Scratch is an object-oriented programming language, which is intended for young people aged 9 to 16 years. This type of language also includes Java, C#, C++, PHP and many others used by professionals who program the sites you visit every day. This is an important feature, because working in the Scratch programming language will introduce the child to an algorithmic way of thinking, which later, learning more complex programming languages, will only build upon.
Although it is primarily intended for teenagers, it is also used by younger people - there is a special course for children aged 5 to 7 years. It is also used by older people because there are more complex video animations that are made with the help of Scratch.
The point of everything is that children make algorithms by arranging the offered blocks, and then on the display next to them, they see what they actually ordered with that algorithm and how the computer executes that order. Everything is very fun because children can make their own games, make characters, animations of their name and greeting cards.
In addition to the Scratch learning platform offering its own courses where children can learn the basics on their own or see how a project is made, during the first wave of the epidemic we also made manual in our language, which every elementary school student can follow independently from home and learn how to program.
Additionally, how is it DoMEn programming school this year online, every week elementary students can find a new lesson in this programming language at YouTube channel of the STEM education portal. The teacher Helena Đurović, who records these classes, tries to explain everything as simply as possible and go through each step separately, so that the children can follow the lessons independently without the help of their parents.
This is what the first class of our online programming school looks like, so parents, we now have more than three ways to help children start programming without us. :)
Let the children explore
This story would not be complete if I did not say that sometimes it is simply necessary to let the child explore independently and try to solve the problem he encounters with our guidelines that will only point him in the direction in which he should think.
It is likely that sometimes it seems to us that we know what is best for our children and with the best of intentions we can "push" them to learn and improve in areas they may not like.
Take a break from it sometime. Give the child space to explore and find out - the digital world, most elementary school students know better than us parents. We should be there to guide them and give them the resources to build themselves in the field that interests them. If you see that the child is fascinated by new technologies, that he likes video games, stories about robots, math is one of his favorite subjects, you might be talking to a future programmer. :)
We certainly recommend that you refer him to the portal www.stemedukacija.me, which, in addition to dealing with topics in the field of new technologies, also offers free programming lessons from this fall that are available to all children in Montenegro online, and at the end of each month they have the chance to to test their knowledge at the doMEn Cup online competition.
Let's create stories that will make a real change in our community, and that real change starts with our youngest. :)
This article is part of the socially responsible business of the doMEn company, which for years has been making efforts to bring the Internet and new technologies closer to Montenegrin society, especially to young people. Last year, the company launched the www.stemedukacija.me portal, where you can find out about all the free opportunities for young people that the company creates in Montenegro.
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