The Computer for Children Project

Phrogram is a programming application geared to those with no coding experience including children.

John Schwartz, one of the developers of Phrogram (formally KDL or Kid’s Development Language), posted a presentation that gives you the basics. Great presentation – give it a look if you are considering Phrogram for your kids.

Both my children are interested in programming. (I suppose it’s to be expected when two IT professionals marry, along with intense Star Trek debates and romantic evening involving home networking, but I digress.) It didn’t start as “Mommy, I’ve want to create this killer app about ABCs—what do you know about Java?” No, it’s much more insidious. It starts after a few years of learning CDs and online games at nick.com, when the idea occurs, “hey I can do something cool too, I want to make a game”.  They have no idea what that entails, for them or for me. Which actually is kind nice, they just want to do it so it can be possible.

So my quest to introduce programming to the kids began.

We started with Stagecast when they were 5 and 7. Great program with an excellent, easy-to-understand, interactive tutorial. Heck, if you don’t know anything about programming, follow along the tutorial with the kids. The cost is low and worth it.

We’ve worked with Scratch. I don’t like it as much as Stagecast, but they are about the same as far as the limits to programming. It introduces what object oriented programming can be.

Now that the kids are 8 and 10, they want more. We are installing and looking at other programming applications that the average, <i>motivated</i> elementary school kid can work with, but along the way I’ve found a lot of interesting resources to check out, which I’ll post here.