Programming for teenagers - know any forums/communities?

[t-ray]

I'm teaching my son some introductory programming stuff. He has gone through two semesters of the Kid Coder series, but IMO there was too much hand-holding and not enough critical thinking. So I've decided to start assigning him "homework" myself, but I'm running out of ideas.

I'm looking for communities or forums where I can bounce ideas off of other parents. I've spent hours googling, and I can't really find anything. The only stuff I can find is people offering resources or tips on how to *start* the process (which languages to learn, online resources, etc), but nothing about the continuation of the process.

Any pointers?

 

[Markbnj]

I'm not really aware of any gathering places for young programmers... but then I am no longer a young programmer . At some point if the craft catches on with him he should start coming up with his own ideas, and seeking out others doing the same thing. I take it that hasn't happened?

 

[Ken g6]

Critical thinking? Project Euler. Edit: See also the forum which doesn't seem to be well-linked from the front page.

I used to be involved in http://www.usaco.org/

where I can bounce ideas off of other parents.

OK, you stumped me there. Mainly because I was self-taught and I am not a parent.

 

[t-ray]

Thanks for such feedback guys. I will have to check out the linked resources.

More background: I'm self-taught as well, and I've now been doing this as a professional gig for almost 20 years. My son is 16, and he's autistic, so he's not operating at the same level of a typical 16 year old. He is very very good at math, but not so much at problem solving (which seems counterintuitive sometimes).

All he really cares about doing at this point is "planning" what he wants his software to do - which really amounts to defining fields and empty functions. No real logic.

My first attempt at homework was pretty basic: ask a user for his birth date, and calculate his age in years from today.

This turned out to be several days worth of work, and required multiple iterations to get right. He had not yet dealt with date datatypes, so he had to find the relevant documentation online. He didn't know how to even do that (like I said, too much hand holding), so I had to offer helpful hints on how to get started.

He learned a bit about converting from strings to dates, and then the difference between integer math and floating point math - the integer math produced off-by-one results depending on the month.

His first attempt used all kinds of convoluted string parsing logic that was very brittle, and broke depending on if the entered date has one or two character days and months. Regardless of the fact that it didn't work, it was critical thinking, which is what I was looking for.

So now I'm looking for more ideas - maybe scan the file system for a file that contains a certain character pattern in its name? You know, basic stuff. Stuff to build problem solving skills.

 

[LevelSea]

Get a cheap microcontroller dev kit. For me, it really increased the "fun" level of programming when you can make things move.

 

[smackababy]

Making it fun, is the hardest part but the most effective way to teach. What I would try and do is write some basic game and have him write a module to add some arbitrary functionality to it. Something easy like a login or other "feature" that isn't required and can easily be interfaced in, but lets him add on to the whole.

The fact that he likes to plan his projects already puts him ahead of most people I'd think. They just go with no real idea or goal in mind, especially when just starting out.

 

[Leros]

Making it fun, is the hardest part but the most effective way to teach. What I would try and do is write some basic game and have him write a module to add some arbitrary functionality to it. Something easy like a login or other "feature" that isn't required and can easily be interfaced in, but lets him add on to the whole.

The fact that he likes to plan his projects already puts him ahead of most people I'd think. They just go with no real idea or goal in mind, especially when just starting out.

The downside is that it's easy to get caught up in the planning and never actually accomplish anything. Sometimes when you're learning, you just have to dive in and start doing stuff.

 

[Leafy]

http://www.codecademy.com/

 

[exloser]

the teenage brain should be about as capable as learning how to program as someone in their 20's. but I don't know how his particular case of autism would affect things. identify his learning style and go from there.

 

[Tweak155]

Tic Tac toe is a good one. Easy rules for the players and easy to determine if someone won.