Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 102 posts

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#71

Post by umeshunni »

matherial wrote: post #68

I think it's the same story as with Snap Circuits for learning electronics, or baking soda + citric acid "chemistry sets". Many parents really wanted their kids to have a STEM career, and so we lowered the bar to the point where STEM-shaped educational activities are accessible to any kid. But because there's no bar to entry, playing with these toys doesn't reliably translate into motivation to really learn electroni…

I was inspired to learn programming when I first saw Logo on my school computer in the 80s. Till then I thought computers were something that only offices had and grown ups used. Not sure how any of this can be measured at scale but I'm sure some nontrivial % of students got into computers at an early age thanks to these tools.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#72

Post by itomato »

matherial wrote: post #68

I think it's the same story as with Snap Circuits for learning electronics, or baking soda + citric acid "chemistry sets". Many parents really wanted their kids to have a STEM career, and so we lowered the bar to the point where STEM-shaped educational activities are accessible to any kid. But because there's no bar to entry, playing with these toys doesn't reliably translate into motivation to really learn electroni…

Snap Circuits are just ingredients - or a way to develop fine motor skills with something that is entertaining for a parent.

You wire them up to something else then blow their mind by programming an ESP32 to be a switch with a touchscreen.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#73

Post by itomato »

umeshunni wrote: post #71
matherial wrote: post #68

I think it's the same story as with Snap Circuits for learning electronics, or baking soda + citric acid "chemistry sets". Many parents really wanted their kids to have a STEM career, and so we lowered the bar to the point where STEM-shaped educational activities are accessible to any kid. But because there's no bar to entry, playing with these toys doesn't reliably translate into motivation to really learn electroni…

I was inspired to learn programming when I first saw Logo on my school computer in the 80s. Till then I thought computers were something that only offices had and grown ups used. Not sure how any of this can be measured at scale but I'm sure some nontrivial % of students got into computers at an early age thanks to these tools.

All it takes is for someone who knows how to make regular tech bend down and say "this is for me." not to dumb it down beyond recognition.

Logo was a Programming Language, not a blunt-edged primary-colored disposable plastic blinkenlight.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#74

Post by matherial »

itomato wrote: post #72
matherial wrote: post #68

I think it's the same story as with Snap Circuits for learning electronics, or baking soda + citric acid "chemistry sets". Many parents really wanted their kids to have a STEM career, and so we lowered the bar to the point where STEM-shaped educational activities are accessible to any kid. But because there's no bar to entry, playing with these toys doesn't reliably translate into motivation to really learn electroni…

Snap Circuits are just ingredients - or a way to develop fine motor skills with something that is entertaining for a parent. You wire them up to something else then blow their mind by programming an ESP32 to be a switch with a touchscreen.

If the parent knows electronics, that's already a pretty good predictor that the kid will learn it too. But in the absence of that, the kit itself doesn't teach much. The instructions don't really explain the circuits, they just show you how to put together colorful blocks.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#75

Post by jvvw »

It might still be a bit too early to tell I would have thought - Scratch 2.0 was released in 2013 so a child who was 7 when that was released would only be 20 now. It might also be hard to disentangle from the effect of AI on early careers in programming these days.

I have mixed feelings about Scratch but it does engage children more than most other tools out there and I suspect its value isn't so much for the children who would have become programmers come what may, but in terms of increasing a baseline understanding of some programming concepts in the more general population and helping some children discover they enjoy programming who never would have done otherwise.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#76

Post by ch71r22 »

For me, yes. I was introduced to Scratch on a field trip as a 5th grader and went home and tinkered with it, making a bunch of games. I later got a Lego Mindstorms kit. As a teenager I learned Java through the Minecraft server modding community and YouTube. I'm now a software engineer for my career.

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#78

Post by robinpie »

Yes!! I am a case of this!

I started on Scratch when I was 7 years old, and although I'm not mainly going into programming, I'm very passionate about IT infrastructure and cybersecurity. I absolutely credit Scratch for my interest in computers and systems. I'm one year away from graduating college in IT and am currently working in IT. https://dreamstation.systems/professional/

Feel free to ask me anything

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#79

Post by gavino »

ch71r22 wrote: post #76

For me, yes. I was introduced to Scratch on a field trip as a 5th grader and went home and tinkered with it, making a bunch of games. I later got a Lego Mindstorms kit. As a teenager I learned Java through the Minecraft server modding community and YouTube. I'm now a software engineer for my career.

Very similar path for me too, though was all in High School/College courses for me.

Basic HTML class -> Scratch Android dev -> Java course that used Lego Mindstorms -> Exploring Minecraft mods in free time -> Realized I don't really like Java

Re: Has early Scratch experience led to fulfilling careers?

#80

Post by hombre_fatal »

I don't think there's always obvious linearity with learning, especially not these days where you have more options vs. elders copying programs from magazines line by line or however the legend goes.

How responsible was fiddling with vbulletin/phpbb forum plugins in my eventual career, one of the first things I remember doing and for quite a long time?

I have no idea, and it was just one of the various things I did as a noob, none of them with an impact particularly memorable. There were a bunch of nodes in a daisy chain of things I tried out, and over time I could take on bigger and bigger projects with fewer and fewer rails.

Post reply on HN