Programming is the new ABC. As the world becomes more and more digital, IT specialists are in greater demand. Coding skills should be taught in childhood. Even if your child doesn't believe they can become a professional programmer, learning to write code will enable them to develop logic and creativity, think critically and learn the meaning of cause and effect. So how do you go about teaching it?
The founder of the children's educational platform Kodable, John Mattingly, says that the best age to teach a child a second language is from 2-7 years old, so why not start off with the language of computers? He is not alone in this assessment: the world has already begun to create products that allow us to teach the basics of coding to toddlers who are just learning to speak. For example, in 2013 three students of the school of design Hyper Island in Sweden wrote the e-book ‘My first website: Cody Coder's HTML tutorial’. In it the authors tell kids how to build a website from the age of three – step by step, brick by brick, just like building a house.
No, not at all. Teaching children to read and think logically is possible without using a computer. For instance, you can start off by playing board games. This will help your child learn how to set tasks and find solutions. Once your child is 5-6 years old, you can enrol them in programming courses.
Schoolchildren under the age of 12 should start with simple programs, like Scratch. Designed by the MIT media laboratory, this programming language is fairly easy to work with on an intuitive level. It has a simple graphical interface. With Scratch you can make interactive animation with cats, edit videos and create games. So, in the process schoolchildren learn to think like a ‘programmer’.
Teenagers should be ready to use Python. This language is great for beginners since it has simple syntax, readable code and an active online community of developers who would be more than happy to answer any questions or help solve any problems. After mastering that, you can move on to more complex programming languages, like Java or C++.
Not necessarily. Programming is not only about mathematics, it's also about being creative. Therefore, it is very important that the child is curious and interested in the outside world and wants to get to the bottom of things. So, even if your child isn't a straight ‘A’ student in algebra and geometry, they can still turn out to be an excellent programmer.
It could take months or even a few years – it depends on the programming language that is studied. As a rule, children's programming courses offer different options – from one week to a whole year. Why not start with a short course, and then along the way you can decide whether it is worth enrolling in an extended course.
the World
All around the world, programming lessons are being included more and more as a mandatory part of school curriculums. Estonia and the UK, for example, were the first European countries to introduce the basics of programming at schools. Young Britons learn this subject from the age of five, and since 2012 Estonian kindergartens have been teaching the basics of programming with the help of the ProgeTiger program. In Finland, coding elements have been added to a number of school subjects, even to art lessons. In 2020 Japan's mandatory primary school curriculum will have lessons in coding. Coding is taught in schools in Israel, China and many other countries, and in Hong Kong children are even taught the basics of robotics.
If a child is really keen on programming, you could consider enrolling him or her in a specialized university. There is such a high demand for programmers that just having experience and a significant number of completed projects could get you a job even without a diploma. Nevertheless, higher education will build a strong theoretical background and a diploma from a prestigious university would make it easier to get a position and promotion in a large company.
In the US some of the best programs in Computer Science are available at Carnegie Mellon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford, UC Berkeley and others. In Europe, according to the Times Higher Education, the top three universities for programmers are Oxford, Cambridge and the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology).
This board game can be played by up to four people. In the game the kids are programmers, the grown-ups are computers. Children must use the playing cards (code cards) to make the turtle reach its goals.
This family board game was developed by Raj Sidhu, a 23-year-old programmer from New York. Move the monkey squads around the island – and learn the basics of binary logic.
One of the most popular computer games in the world that teaches children how to program while playing. Players can create whole worlds with three-dimensional cubes and pixels. It can be played in single-player or multi-player modes.
Lego allows you to create remote-controlled robots that can be programmed on Windows and Mac.
Tynker is one of the most popular children's platforms and a series of online games for learning programming in English. Using basic commands, you can, for example, give a digital dog a bone, create a sequence of actions and go to the next level.
When playing this computer puzzle game you develop a series of commands for the robot to complete a move in one turn. The child learns to understand logic and concepts of programming.
Kids today are literally glued to their gadgets. The company’s global task is to teach them to use the internet securely. We develop solutions to protect kids from problems on the web; we organize a regular Safe Kids Roadshow – an educational campaign on kids’ online security; we publish books and educational flashcards.
thousand students
in 40 schools across
the globe have participated
in Safe Kids Roadshow events.
million is the number
of views of the Virus episode
in Fixiki animated series,
which was issued by Kaspersky
together with Aeroplan Production
Company and aimed to let the kids
learn more about information
security in a comprehensible
and simple manner.
is the number of times
the flashcard set has been
downloaded from the company
website since October 2017.
Today, the cards are actively
used at elementary,
secondary and high school
classes in Japan.
the company organizes
New Year and Christmas
celebrations for the employees' children.
>1,000 kids
attend children’s events organized by the company annually.
Kaspersky hosts Children's Day. This allows children a to learn more about their parents’ workplace.
is always an educational event. Every year the kids are taught something new, like robotics, science, first aid, or they take part in a nature ‘boot camp’.
A nursing room is available
during these events
so even babies and toddlers
can take part.
This is a story about a nine-year-old boy, Kasper, his friend Sky and the green bear Kuma. Kuma is a toy bear that comes to life when Kasper needs his help.
The book was first published in November 2017 in the Netherlands and has since been reprinted by different companies around the world. It is distributed free to schools and helps children aged 6-9 to safely explore the digital world.
Through the publication and distribution of the book, Kaspersky has helped parents and teachers to find the best way to educate children about potential dangers on the internet, how to deal with unpleasant online encounters and how to avoid them in future.
Actors play out different situations
from real and virtual life
to schoolchildren between the ages
of seven and 13.
The campaign was first launched
in Johannesburg and Cape Town,
and has now reached such places
as Dubai, Bahrain, Windhoek,
Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
These performances have been held
in 40 private and public schools
in different countries, attended
by more than 30,000 schoolchildren.
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