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Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

code.org

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Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#141

Post by mich41 »

Confusion wrote: post #113
jkeesh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a lot of assumptions about how kids have to be taught coding. > I tried everything possible. Every other trick in the trade. Even tried to start with Python first and not C. > They struggle to understand where or why should you use an if/else/switch statement, or a for/do/while loop. Its difficult for them to map solution patterns to a code pattern. Its not their fault. Its ours. Better luck trying to explai…

I think both you and the grandparent are making a mistake. He assumes children dislike math. You assume children will like karel. I think the truth is that children have different interests and that you can only bring them to programming by latching on to those interests. Many children like math. Many other children will not like karel. The result: to engage as many children as possible, you need several introductory…

Nobody assumes that children inherently dislike maths. They can't dislike something they don't even know.

The point is that children start to dislike maths once they go to school. And they do - all kids in my class either already knew basic maths before going to school or were completely bored by it.

The same will happen with programming once it will be "taught" in schools as well.

Think of it this way - if you want people equally competent as you to teach your child in school, you have to pay them 1/n of your salary, where n is the number of students in class. If you pay them less, they will find a better paid job elsewhere like you did. And you don't want n to be large since it's hard to pay attention to more that a dozen of kids at a time.

Hence, school must either consume 5% to 10% of your salary per child, or be ran by people less competent than you. It seems that usually the latter is the case.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#142

Post by arethuza »

cpressey wrote: post #133
jkeesh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you Hacker News reader for the very Hacker-News-esque constructive criticism. We are trying to improve our site, so if you have specific constructive feedback for us, we would appreciate it. Thanks! :)

Apologies if "absolute trainwreck" came off as harsh or unspecific. My specific, actionable feedback is: Check how your site looks in multiple common browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome...) while you develop it. Check how your site looks on screen sizes smaller than your own, by resizing the browser window. If it looks fine to you, then maybe the problem is on my end. But there is definitely a problem on my end, as I assum…

Looks OK to me using Firefox and Chrome on Ubuntu.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#145

Post by lefinita »

jkeesh wrote: post #120
MikeAmelung wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a good point, but I'll take it a step further. The kid that likes drawing doesn't have to be a programmer, so stop trying to teach it to him and let him draw without the constraints that programming brings. We don't all have to be the same.

The point you make here (and one made by many others) is a straw man/reductio ad absurdum argument. People who advocate that everyone should learn to code (like myself) to not advocate the absurd conclusions that are used by others to refute this standpoint. I do think people should learn to code. This does not mean I think: 1. Everyone should be a professional programmer. 2. "Everyone should be the same" You can mak…

> I do think people should learn to code. This does not mean I think: 1. Everyone should be a professional programmer. 2. "Everyone should be the same"

First of all, why we (adult) do programming? to automate something? to make repetitive tasks easier? or just for fun? and I don't see any good reason, why we teach kids programming. If it's to train their logical thinking, we can make a game for them, give them a basic set of rules, each rules have consequent, with their imagination they can make other rules based of basic rules, with one condition that new rules can't contradict with basic and other rules, I know it sounds like math, but they will get the basic idea of logical thinking, when you do something there is a consequence.

Programming is just a tools or way, if you prefer. Not to mention a new trouble when they have a solution but can't apply it with programming, because the technical barrier they had, even you use easy programming tools like Alice, certainly there will be technical problem for them.

I agree with, why we should learn kids problem-solving skill, because they just need their brain and basic tools like pencil and paper, maybe to scratch something, to visualize what they think.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#146

Post by cpressey »

arethuza wrote: post #142
cpressey wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies if "absolute trainwreck" came off as harsh or unspecific. My specific, actionable feedback is: Check how your site looks in multiple common browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome...) while you develop it. Check how your site looks on screen sizes smaller than your own, by resizing the browser window. If it looks fine to you, then maybe the problem is on my end. But there is definitely a problem on my end, as I assum…

Looks OK to me using Firefox and Chrome on Ubuntu.

I tried in Chromium on Ubuntu, and Firefox and IE on Windows. It looks trainwreck-y on all of them for me.

By the process of elimination, I believe it's because I'm using a T-mobile wireless dongle. The upstream proxy attempts to reduce bandwidth by doing things like coalescing external CSS and JS inline. I've seen this break one other site (LinkedIn profile editing, which seemed to be a bit fast and loose about its use of ajax) but every other site I've used has been fine (even e.g. Asana, which is rather intensive.)

I looked at the source of codehs.com (insofar as I can figure it out, what with all the CSS and JS put inline...) and I'll change my actionable feedback to:

Try to keep it simple.

That seems like far more stuff than you'd actually need on a landing page.

I also noticed that, when loading on IE, it pops up a message saying:

    You are using Internet Explorer, an unsupported browser :(
    You should download Google Chrome so you can get started!
It's a pity that the site doesn't support the browser with the largest market share -- that's probably something you should work on.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#147

Post by devgutt »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #112
devgutt wrote: post #30

favorite quote: "A computer doesn't care about your family background, your gender, just that you know how to code." — Dick Costolo (Twitter)

And a computer doesn't even care about that. :)

They should, like "come back to code, bastard!".

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#148

Post by rbanffy »

MikeAmelung wrote: post #124
jkeesh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point you make here (and one made by many others) is a straw man/reductio ad absurdum argument. People who advocate that everyone should learn to code (like myself) to not advocate the absurd conclusions that are used by others to refute this standpoint. I do think people should learn to code. This does not mean I think: 1. Everyone should be a professional programmer. 2. "Everyone should be the same" You can mak…

I'm not interested in logical fallacies. I don't think this is a particularly logical subject. When you say "people" should learn to code, do you mean everyone? I posit, completely illogically, that some people will contribute greater good to society without ever having their brain trained to solve a problem via algorithm. Even without contributing any good, maybe they'll just be happy. Of course I'm not against maki…

> I'm not interested in logical fallacies.

Careful. That may make you vulnerable to them.

> I don't think this is a particularly logical subject.

Are you sure advocating a solution that's not based on logic is the right thing to do?

> When you say "people" should learn to code, do you mean everyone?

First we must define what "learning to code" is. I (and, certainly, most others) do not advocate kids should learn Java (or Python). But I think kids should learn how to decompose complicated problems into simpler parts. I also think kids would gain a lot if they could make computers do what they want (going beyond "start WoW", for instance).

As for drawing, you can always draw with a pen and paper. I prefer to do it that way. However, if I decided to draw a fractal curve, I'd probably do a few sketches on paper, to grasp the ideas, then fire Emacs and write code to actually draw it.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#149

Post by eru »

zachgalant wrote: post #64
itistoday2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I really don't see much value add from these online teaching centers. All that's needed is the desire to learn to code, once someone has that, I think it's pretty easy to get the help and info you need (for free) already.

you'd be shocked at how many ways people who don't code can get stuck when trying to learn. Many times, they can't even form their question any better than "My code is broken. What do I do?" Having someone human there both gives them the answer much better than they can find themselves and gives them the knowledge that someone is there to help them, so they don't give up. Yes, some people will be able to figure thing…

> Having someone human there both gives them the answer much better than they can find themselves and gives them the knowledge that someone is there to help them, so they don't give up.

Yes. Even if the human doesn't actually give you the direct solution to your problem, but just reassures you that you are on the right path and with a bit more thinkingn you will overcome the current obstacle. (Or points out to you when you are blatantly wrong.)

Having confidence that there is a solution is often half the battle to finding one.

Re: Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

#150

Post by eru »

itistoday2 wrote: post #52
eru wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a neat idea. Just please be aware of the danger of extrinsic motivation crowding out intrinsic motivation. People help each other on the internet all the time without any reward apart from doing The Right Thing. Giving credits for getting more advanced help sounds like a good idea, though.

To be honest I really don't see much value add from these online teaching centers. All that's needed is the desire to learn to code, once someone has that, I think it's pretty easy to get the help and info you need (for free) already.

I am mostly self-taught, but I benefitted massively from having some programming friends when I was in my initial stages of learning.

Later I had been on the other side, too, having acted as a mentor for some learners. There is value added in connecting people. Just instilling the right values, and culture, and giving people pointer to the right resources. (E.g. friends don't let friends start off with PHP.)

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