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Apple launches coding camps for kids in its retail stores

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

#151

Post by tptacek »

jshevek wrote: post #149
tptacek wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still not making sense. You seem to believe that Apple should not be running coding camps out of their stores, which exist whether or not they're used for coding camps. That's silly.

> You're still not making sense. Maybe you could be more specific. You could ask pointed questions, or quote the line or lines which you find confusing. > You seem to believe that Apple should not be running coding camps out of their stores, which exist whether or not they're used for coding camps. That's silly. Apple is a machine for making money for their shareholders. They can do whatever they like, as long as it…

If all you're saying is that Apple shouldn't get extra kudos for running (Apple-tech-focused) programming camps at their own stores, fine. I might even agree with you. Super boring point, but, whatever.

But your original comment suggests you believe Apple is doing more harm than good with the camps. That point is interesting because, as I said, it seems silly.

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

#152

Post by chfhjcnfd »

dang wrote: post #144
fjrjfjdjjdd wrote: post #106

Well, personally, I think the cookie-cutter "I'm surprised by the negativity here" comments at the top of every marginally controversial HN post are a bit surprising.

We've banned this account. Creating throwaway accounts to break the HN guidelines with is an abuse of this site. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11948160 and marked it off-topic.

So what are you going to do about it? I'm not being uncivil: I'm merely pointing out HN's hypocrisy when I see it.

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

#153

Post by dragonwriter »

ralfd wrote: post #55
jshevek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, given the level of competence of the staff at Apple stores, it seems unlikely there could be a worthwhile coding camp at that venue. Apple would need to bring in some much higher caliber people.

Urgh, it is basics of coding course for 8 year olds. What do people expect? Albert Einstein giving lessons?

> Urgh, it is basics of coding course for 8 year olds. What do people expect?

Teaching neophytes (and, especially, neophytes who are also children) the basics of anything -- especially in ways that will engage them and not leave them both without knowledge and with less interest than when they encountered the teaching -- takes nontrivial knowledge of both the subject field and teaching methods.

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

#154

Post by jernfrost »

ben_jones wrote: post #102
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…

Why do I get the feeling that they'll only teach swift (or maybe scratch in order to lead into swift)...

What is wrong with that? It is a great beginners language and why should Apple not focus on what they know best and which can benefit them in the long run. Is is wrong for a company to think about their own well being? Apple technologies are seldom taught at University. As an iOS developer that has sort of been a blessing as you get in such high demand compared to Android guys since there is so much lower supply of iOS developers. People typically have to learn it on their own while Comp Sci people out of college today seem to typically be familiar with Android.

Anyway Java has been a preferred beginner language for many schools and it is a horrible beginners language, so Swift is certainly an advancement.

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

#155

Post by jshevek »

duderific wrote: post #140
rimantas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever met 8 year olds? Care to give some examples of "more penetrating questions"?

Maybe jshevek means that they tend to ask "why" type questions which can be difficult to answer, as opposed to "how" type questions which are less difficult to answer.

Yes. The way that children use "why", it can mean "with what motive" but also "by what mechanism" or even "which events necessarily precede that" depending on context.

I would say that most adults are often simply unable to answer those questions because they just don't know. Children are naturally curious to levels which exceed the average adults ability to answer. Even educators are often inadequate to the task, if the question falls out of their areas of study. Some educators try to condition their students to focus on the limited prescribed domain of 'material they are to learn' and not ask questions that cross outside of that domain - in part to avoid acknowledging their ignorance.

But I would go further and say that children often also ask perfectly reasonable questions beginning with "how" and "what if" which stump adults. You can see this very readily when the topic is anything related to the natural world, as most adults are ignorant of basic science.

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

#156

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

ben_jones wrote: post #102
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…

Why do I get the feeling that they'll only teach swift (or maybe scratch in order to lead into swift)...

I would hope that they would teach swift as they created it, it runs on all their hardware and it is open source so it also can run on Windows and Linux. And imagine if Google adopts Swift for android as an alternative to Java? Then you have it spanning all major platforms.

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

#157

Post by jshevek »

tptacek wrote: post #151
jshevek wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're still not making sense. Maybe you could be more specific. You could ask pointed questions, or quote the line or lines which you find confusing. > You seem to believe that Apple should not be running coding camps out of their stores, which exist whether or not they're used for coding camps. That's silly. Apple is a machine for making money for their shareholders. They can do whatever they like, as long as it…

If all you're saying is that Apple shouldn't get extra kudos for running (Apple-tech-focused) programming camps at their own stores, fine. I might even agree with you. Super boring point, but, whatever. But your original comment suggests you believe Apple is doing more harm than good with the camps. That point is interesting because, as I said, it seems silly.

If by 'original comment' you mean one of the grandparents in which I mention "social justice", I wasn't exactly trying to say "they don't deserve kudos" in that comment, and I wasn't exactly trying to say "they are doing more harm than good".

I would extract: "there is an additional axis to consider when considering the degree of social benefit and social harm caused by apple's camps - and that axis is suggested by the question: Does this increase or decrease social inequality?"

I think that the camps necessarily will increase social inequality, but not on a scale that I find concerning at this point. By itself, modestly increasing social inequality wouldn't mean that apple is doing more harm than good, as there is a good to be found in educating children, even if those children are not always the most disadvantaged children. It all depends on how one personally assigns weight to each factor under consideration.

As an aside (and this surely colors my tone, but not the argument intended) it happens that I do personally consider the camps to be 'more harm than good' (but only marginally so) when everything is weighed together, but I wasn't trying to make that suggestion in the grandparent.

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

#159

Post by dpc59 »

rimantas wrote: post #126
jshevek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, 8 year olds often ask more penetrating questions than adults. If they take an interest in understanding something, they often desire to understand it on the deepest level possible for them - quickly exceeding the capacity of their parent or teacher to explain (unless the adult is a 'renaissance person'). (Edit: or a competent teacher with adequate training relevant to the subject) If the 8 year olds…

Have you ever met 8 year olds? Care to give some examples of "more penetrating questions"?

In elementary school we had philosophy classes, some got filmed for a documentary about it. It's all in french though, but I remember some very existential questions got asked (mostly once we got slightly older, I remember discussing life and death as well as suicide). Obviously we had never been taught anything about fallacies and critical thinking in general, but the simple exercise of open minded dialogue was pretty great for forming curious kids and we asked ourselves pretty deep questions.

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

#160

Post by qq66 »

jshevek wrote: post #45
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

Yes, given the level of competence of the staff at Apple stores, it seems unlikely there could be a worthwhile coding camp at that venue. Apple would need to bring in some much higher caliber people.

A professional programmer isn't likely to work for whatever Apple is willing to pay to teach classes it isn't charging money for. Programmers who want to teach are probably charging a lot of money for it, or volunteering to teach through nonprofits rather than through Apple.
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