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Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#111

Post by lowken10 »

gshulegaard wrote: post #63

I am pretty surprised by the general lack luster comments bordering on negativity here. Personally, I think it is great to see a major retailer take even a misguided stab at improving child tech education which has quickly fallen behind demand (in America). Do I think the approach is more than a little bit wrong? Sure, GUI programming a non-useful task wouldn't be my choice. Would I prefer a more robust longer-term p…

The point is not that kids are going to learn how to program in two 90 minute sessions, rather the point is to spark a kids imagination and maybe that kid decides to explore the subject further.

My eight-year-old loves making movies on his iPad using iMovie and I'm so happy that Apple is offering a course.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#112

Post by jayd16 »

jshevek wrote: post #70
gshulegaard wrote: post #63

I am pretty surprised by the general lack luster comments bordering on negativity here. Personally, I think it is great to see a major retailer take even a misguided stab at improving child tech education which has quickly fallen behind demand (in America). Do I think the approach is more than a little bit wrong? Sure, GUI programming a non-useful task wouldn't be my choice. Would I prefer a more robust longer-term p…

For me, it has the feeling of being more of a PR stunt than a sincere effort to help education. Plus, its an opportunity to build brand allegiance at a young age. I would rather Apple donate an equal amount of money to any of those entities out there which help to bring technology to the youth.

Seems very reminiscent of classroom iMacs in the late 90s. Not 100% altruistic but nothing to complain about.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#113

Post by soundoflight »

gshulegaard wrote: post #74
jshevek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it has the feeling of being more of a PR stunt than a sincere effort to help education. Plus, its an opportunity to build brand allegiance at a young age. I would rather Apple donate an equal amount of money to any of those entities out there which help to bring technology to the youth.

While your skepticism is easily justified and I share it, I would just point out that: > Plus, its an opportunity to build brand allegiance at a young age. If this leads to other vendors like Microsoft, Google, etc. launching their own coding camps geared towards youth I think it's a net win and results in competition in an area which is currently under served. I also think it's a little unrealistic to expect a corpo…

Microsoft already does this at their stores with YouthSpark. https://www.microsoft.com/about/philanthropies/youthspark/yo...

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#114

Post by r00fus »

plg wrote: post #32

I took my kid to one of these last year. It was fairly useless. They drag around little action-icons into a list to make an animated character move around and do stuff. My 11-year-old was bored stiff. Edit: PS the Apple Store employee who ran this thing (he was a very nice guy) admitted he had zero coding experience himself

Would you agree your then 11 yo (12 now?) may have been more advanced than this course catered to?

Maybe some 8-9 year olds who don't have parents with a programming background would be more the target market.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#116

Post by hk__2 »

jshevek wrote: post #79
gshulegaard wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your skepticism is easily justified and I share it, I would just point out that: > Plus, its an opportunity to build brand allegiance at a young age. If this leads to other vendors like Microsoft, Google, etc. launching their own coding camps geared towards youth I think it's a net win and results in competition in an area which is currently under served. I also think it's a little unrealistic to expect a corpo…

> I also think it's a little unrealistic to expect a corporation to just throw money at philanthropic endeavors...as nice it might be to think about/wish for. Google gave 190,000 - and possibly much more that I'm unaware of. [1] > launching their own coding camps I think what apple is doing right now is 'mostly harmless'. The strategy is flawed and antisocial, but the reach and impact is minimal. However, if all the…

> Google gave 190,000 - and possibly much more that I'm unaware of

Also don’t forget things like the Google Summer of Code: $6k per student x 1000 students x 11 years = $66M so far.

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#117

Post by [deleted] »

soundoflight wrote: post #113
gshulegaard wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your skepticism is easily justified and I share it, I would just point out that: > Plus, its an opportunity to build brand allegiance at a young age. If this leads to other vendors like Microsoft, Google, etc. launching their own coding camps geared towards youth I think it's a net win and results in competition in an area which is currently under served. I also think it's a little unrealistic to expect a corpo…

Microsoft already does this at their stores with YouthSpark. https://www.microsoft.com/about/philanthropies/youthspark/yo...

[deleted]

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#118

Post by blendo »

jeffwass wrote: post #36
s_dev wrote: post #34

People often suggest that we should be teaching programming in primary/elementary school to kids. I'm skeptical that that would encourage kids to code. This opinion is particularly espoused by politicians who can't code but want to be seen as technically progressive. I think part of loving programming is discovering it on your own and seeking it out. Events/Sessions like this and CoderDojo that we have here in Irelan…

I've long felt that the utility of learning to code was less about vocational training but more about analytical thinking. Ie, figuring out how to solve problems by analysing a task and breaking it into small and discrete bite-size pieces that can be understood by a computer's rule set.

Hopefully a course like UC Berkeley's "CS10: The Beauty and Joy of Computing" can point the way: http://cs10.org/su16/

"But this course is far more than just learning to program. We'll focus on some of the "Big Ideas" of computing, such as abstraction, design, recursion, concurrency, simulations, and the limits of computation. We'll show some beautiful applications of computing that have changed the world, talk about the history of computing, and where it will go in the future. Throughout the course, relevance will be emphasized: relevance to the student and to society. As an example, the final project will be completely of the students' choosing, on a topic most interesting to them. The overarching theme is to expose students to the beauty and joy of computing. This course is designed for computing non-majors, although interested majors are certainly welcome to take the class as well! We are especially excited about bringing computing (through this course) to traditionally under-represented groups in computing, i.e., women and ethnic minorities."

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#119

Post by gshulegaard »

taytus wrote: post #115

Why surprised? This is HN

I suppose I anticipated a more open reception to the idea of Apple leveraging it's brick and mortar locations for something like this from a tech oriented community.

Not that you have to like the course, there is a lot to dislike about it, but the melding of Apple's store location infrastructure for providing accessible child bootcamps certainly is an interesting concept.

I was surprised everyone chose to focus on the course content instead (at least when I wrote the comment originally).

Re: Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

#120

Post by iamleppert »

It would be more useful to teach them an ultra-simple language like BASIC (there was an article posted about it recently -- the early DOS version -- still being the best language/IDE to teach kids), or even a stripped down version of javascript. Imagine the advantages in pure thought that would come for those kids that are able to grok functional programming at age 8?
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