The educational diet of children seems to be forever in flux however it had never been so important for all young people to learn to code. I myself started back in the early eighties and what began as interest, became a passion and blossomed into a career as a programmer. However, many years later I now teach ICT and Computing at the Ebbw Fawr Learning Community.
When it comes to computer programming, experience has taught me that gender and age are completely irrelevant factors when it comes to achievement, however I feel it would be fair to say here that the earlier we get them started the better. As a teacher I frequently get asked where to start with computer languages because there are so many free learning resources out there it is difficult to know where to begin. My personal choices would be as follows depending on the age and goals of the learner:
- Younger coders / getting started → code.org
- Intermediate coders → codecademy.com
- More advanced programmers → Microsoft Visual Community (with Channel 9 video support)