The kid’s grandparents got him an Amazon Fire tablet and I loathe the thing. It teaches literally nothing about computing and the games they have for kids are barely even games, and are more focusing on advertising various IPs.
I’d like to get the kid started, as he learns to read, on something that will be more useful than detrimental, let that soft little brain soak up some actual computer science, literacy. I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
But what to get for a first computer? I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose. Is there anything like that, that would require him to learn some command prompt and basic computing skills?
Every time and try and Google it, I get a bunch of crap suggestions and ads.
I was writing code in first grade, which I guess would be 6 or so. And I didn’t have a home computer back then, had to do so on what time I could scrounge up in my limited windows of time of access to other people’s computers or computers at institutions, which raised the bar. Today, computers are cheap and plentiful enough that it’s pretty easy to get ahold of one.
I could definitely write software before I could ride a bicycle. I still don’t know how to kick a football.
It’s definitely doable.
I think that a lot of what we set our expectations around is around when schools choose to teach things. Like, I remember — as an American — being shocked when I discovered how young people in the UK and some other countries started being taught foreign language. In the US, our school system doesn’t really do much by way of foreign language education until…I guess high school? 9th-12th grades, so maybe around 14-17 years old. But in the UK, you can (or used to, dunno if things have changed) take Latin in primary school.
kagis
Yeah, sounds like they made it mandatory recently:
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/school-year/subject-guides/languages-at-primary-school/
I thought “that seems like an incredibly-advanced topic for a young age”. But…really, that’s just my expectations set by convention here in the US, not that there’s an inability to learn language at a young age (and in fact, there are some strong arguments that learning language is easier the younger you do it).
I think that it’s possible to start learning just about anything at an early age if the child wants it.
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