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Education Programming Apple

Apple's Hour of Code Plans Include 'Coding Labs' For 3-Year-Olds 65

Posted by BeauHD from the fun-for-the-whole-family dept.
theodp writes: This week, Apple unveiled its Hour of Code and Computer Science Education Week plans which, predictably, call for the nation's kids to learn coding the Apple way (vs. the Google, Microsoft or Amazon way!). "The new [Swift-focused] Everyone Can Code curriculum," explains the Apple Newsroom, "integrates Apple's Everyone Can Create project guides to help students express what they learn through drawing, music, video and photos." And it appears that Tim Cook may no longer be content with waiting until kids are in 4th grade before requiring them to start coding. From the press release: "Preschool-age kids can try creative pre-coding activities in the new Coding Lab with the Helpsters, a team of vibrant monsters who love to solve problems and are featured in the new live-action preschool series, available now on Apple TV+, from the makers of Sesame Street." Today at Apple adds: "Kids aged 3 to 5 will get hands-on with iPad and Apple Pencil to learn fun precoding activities that teach them how to solve everyday problems like finding a shoe or helping their parents."
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Apple's Hour of Code Plans Include 'Coding Labs' For 3-Year-Olds More

Apple's Hour of Code Plans Include 'Coding Labs' For 3-Year-Olds

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  • Newspeak (Score:3)

    by coofercat ( 719737 ) on Friday November 22, 2019 @08:07AM (#59442394) Homepage Journal

    ...and so "coding" becomes "any sort of logic problem".

    FWIW, my kids have a board game called "Cosmic Coding", wherein, you take cards which say "if you're on a blue square, move forward one place, else if you're on a green square, take a step backwards". Hardly "coding" in the sense you or I would know it, but a logic problem dressed up as "coding". Quite a fun game to play, should you be in the market for such things at Christmas, by the way.

    • Re:Newspeak (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday November 22, 2019 @08:16AM (#59442416) Homepage Journal

      I started coding when I was 3.

      At playschool we got a Bigtrax toy. It's a kind of tank-like vehicle with a keypad on top. You enter simple instructions like "forward 1m, turn right, backwards 3m" and press "GO". I was the first kid to try it and I credit it with getting me in to coding, because at that moment I understood how I could control machines and started thinking of all sorts of things I could do with them.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You instructed the toy. Someone else had coded it.

        If you call what you did at three coding, why then the aspersions you have cast against Arduino as being 'not real programming'?
        • I wouldn't call it coding but you could easily teach the basic principles of it with a tangible object, which is much easier for kids to grasp if they don't fully understand abstract thinking. Hell, you could even teach memory limits by showing what happens if you move five feet on a 4' wide table.

          • I wouldn't call it coding but you could easily teach the basic principles of it with a tangible object, which is much easier for kids to grasp if they don't fully understand abstract thinking. Hell, you could even teach memory limits by showing what happens if you move five feet on a 4' wide table.

            That's why its cool that Swift Playgrounds integrates with a lot of Hardware-thingies.

            It literally teaches kids to become Embedded Designers.

            I mean, how is this not cool as fuck?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

            And then, when they want to move onto more substantive programming, Swift has the power to write "real" Applications, as well:

            https://github.com/uraimo/Awes... [github.com]

            So now what?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          You instructed the toy. Someone else had coded it.

          Coders use abstractions to avoid writing the entire computer from the ground up just to implement a simple application. What you say is like saying "That Javascript you wrote was just instructions for the web browser: someone else coded it."

          That Notepad program you made in C# wasn't coding -- you just came up with instructions for the System.Windows.Forms API and the C# compiler: all the code was written by someone else.

      • Yep, same thing here when I was 4. Dad's Commodore 64 and the programmer's guide. Those manuals were fantastic.

        Kids learn very, very fast. It only goes downhill from there.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re 'in to coding"
        Lots of nations spent a lot on placing new computers in all kinds of different schools.
        Their poor ares, middle class, wealthy areas.
        Generations of people saw and used a computer for many years.
        The result after all that spending, work, support, charity, study over decades?
        The nations IQ and skills stay on average the same.
        Adding more and more computers did not get the nation wide results expected.
        Adding more computers again over generations and decades won't get different results.
        Peo

    • ...and so "coding" becomes "any sort of logic problem".

      FWIW, my kids have a board game called "Cosmic Coding", wherein, you take cards which say "if you're on a blue square, move forward one place, else if you're on a green square, take a step backwards". Hardly "coding" in the sense you or I would know it, but a logic problem dressed up as "coding". Quite a fun game to play, should you be in the market for such things at Christmas, by the way.

      Well, at root coding is just encoded logic.

      I remember one job where we used to write (OK, clone and tweak) a little program every month to send marketing emails to customers.

      At some point Marketing became enamored of some cloudy service for sending out these emails. So we programed a big integration of our customer data with this service and then left it to them.

      So after that, Marketing "programmed" the emails every month, using a clunky non standard interface with no debugging. Which took a great deal o

      • I don't think you understand how the Marketing department runs. "Good marketing ideas" is not one of their functional requirements.

      • Well, at root coding is just encoded logic.

        IMHO, it is a sad commentary on the down-slide of the average Slashdot reader that you feel you even have to point that out.

        C'mon Tim! Save the next generation from being just mindless tech consumers!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      Newspeak...and so "coding" becomes "any sort of logic problem". FWIW, my kids have a board game called "Cosmic Coding", wherein, you take cards which say "if you're on a blue square, move forward one place, else if you're on a green square, take a step backwards". Hardly "coding" in the sense you or I would know it, but a logic problem dressed up as "coding". Quite a fun game to play, should you be in the market for such things at Christmas, by the way.

      I'd call that coding. I used to teach computing to 7th-10th graders. I had to come up with the curriculum so I decided to use LOGO ("turtle graphics") - it'd teach them good functional style, and it was tangible. We did exercises on paper too to get to grips with it.

      I started the same with my 2 year old kids. One of us is blindfolded, and the other says "step forwards" or "turn right" or "turn left", to navigate through doorways. As they got older we got into while loops too - "step forwards until you bump

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. If that were true, Mathematicians would be excellent coders. In general they are not. (With apologies to those that are and I know there are a few.)

      Engineering (and coding is engineering) is not about finding any solution, it is about finding a solution that is clear, well-structured, reliable, efficient, maintainable, safe and secure. And that is a whole different proposition than getting it to work somehow.

  • Sure (Score:2)

    by rlp ( 11898 )

    Tower of Hanoi for 3 year olds using real disks

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • "Kids aged 3 to 5 will get hands-on with iPad and Apple Pencil to get them hooked on Apple products as early as humanly possible !

      • "Kids aged 3 to 5 will get hands-on with iPad and Apple Pencil to get them hooked on Apple products as early as humanly possible !

        And the endless sea of Apple IIx products that filled elementary-grade computer labs all across America thirty-five years ago?

        Hardly a new tactic for Apple.

      • Empirical evidence suggests that they're probably already hooked by 3.

    • Give him 15 discs and he'll be busy for a lifetime.

  • "Kids aged 3 to 5 will get hands-on with iPad and Apple Pencil to learn fun precoding activities that teach them how to solve everyday problems like finding a shoe or helping their parents."

    I can't grasp on to how finding a shoe or helping their parents translates into programming. (I can't stand that words coding.) Do they honestly think that 3 to 5 year olds will understand how going through room by room, under the furniture, etc. is an algorithmic process to find a shoe? Kids at that age might not even be able to tie their shoes.

    I am not advocating that children shouldn't be exposed to programming at early ages. What I am saying is that this is entirely a marketing gimmick that completely m

    • I am not advocating that children shouldn't be exposed to programming at early ages. What I am saying is that this is entirely a marketing gimmick that completely misses the point of how to derive interests of children for their personal growth. Shoving an iPad in front of a kid isn't going to make them any more interested in programming than dropping an abacus on the table and expecting them to be interested in mathematics.

      Bullshit. No abacus ever did this:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      And Swift programming is something they will never "simply outgrow":

      https://github.com/uraimo/Awes... [github.com]

    • Not everyone is going to be a coder, same as not everyone is destined to be an artist or a musician. I don't think it's a bad idea to getkids thinking logically but the world needs rebels, that smelly, rude kid in your class who always got told off, he had a seriously good talent for drawing portraits. He never got the chance 'cos people forced him to learn coding, so he rebelled and refused now he's out of school, nothing to do, bored and does petty crime for kicks.

      Interact with kids, learn what they feel

  • Are they teaching the kids to program, or are they programming the kids to work?

  • I'd rather kids be given Tinker-Toys or Gears or K'Nex to learn how to solve problems. Very similar reasoning and no screen time. Greater choking hazard, but that's easily solved by making the pieces bigger; Lego figured that out with Duplos.

    • I'd rather kids be given Tinker-Toys or Gears or K'Nex to learn how to solve problems. Very similar reasoning and no screen time. Greater choking hazard, but that's easily solved by making the pieces bigger; Lego figured that out with Duplos.

      I don't think you understand that there are different Classes of "Screen Time". "Screen Time" in something like Swift Playgrounds obviously builds mental-muscles; it does not make them atrophy.

      I'm not saying that Tinker-Toys, Gears, K'Nex or (in my youth) Erector Sets are Bad Things, far from it; just that time moves on, and there is certainly room in a child's life for both Tinker Toys and Swift Playgrounds.

      • I agree that Swift Playground is better than passive viewing, but the sensory mechanism is very different than that of manipulating real objects. Their cognitive functions might not be impaired, but it could affect their ability to process sensory information.

  • Explains their shitty code I guess (Score:3)

    by Zero__Kelvin ( 151819 ) on Friday November 22, 2019 @10:08AM (#59442820) Homepage
    I guess it is no wonder that Apples iOS keeps getting worse and worse. Anyone can code in the same way that anyone can design a bridge if you give them some lincoln logs when they are three years old. Sure, it will LOOK like one, but these idiots who keep spreading the "anyone can code" meme can be the first to drive across it.

  • In other words, just give them an "experience-rich" environment to play in.

    A sandbox - the literal kind with actual sand not the programming kind - with a few toys and another kid or two to interact with is as much as most 3 year olds need to get those brain cells going.

  • Given the quality of the average app on the Apple store I thought three year olds programming for their devices is already reality.

    (before you get your panties in a knot, dear Apple devotees, it ain't any better in the Google store)

    • Given the quality of the average app on the Apple store I thought three year olds programming for their devices is already reality.

      (before you get your panties in a knot, dear Apple devotees, it ain't any better in the Google store)

      Then why not leave Apple out of your comment?

      e.g.

      "Given the quality of the average mobile app, I thought three year olds programming for those devices is already reality."

      See how easy that was?

  • How certain are we that it wont make most kids hate coding and think it is boring/annoying?

    A better approach may be to inspire them with the possibilities and create an appreciation for it.

    • How certain are we that it wont make most kids hate coding and think it is boring/annoying?

      A better approach may be to inspire them with the possibilities and create an appreciation for it.

      That's why it is called "Swift Playgrounds". Add some real-world hardware to control, and you have just created a new Embedded Developer.

  • I'm getting the sense that all these coding schemes for youngsters is just a way to get them locked into a particular company's software/hardware ecosystem from a young age. Teaching kids to code is just the cover story.

    • I'm getting the sense that all these coding schemes for youngsters is just a way to get them locked into a particular company's software/hardware ecosystem from a young age. Teaching kids to code is just the cover story.

      Of course. Everything is just one, big, evil Conspiracy.

  • As usual, when it comes to Apple-oriented articles on Slashdot, no one can resist a sideways jab at anything Apple does, to wit:

    "And it appears that Tim Cook may no longer be content with waiting until kids are in 4th grade before requiring them to start coding." [Emphasis mine].

    Really? Could that sentence be any more negatively-worded? Yes, I'm sure it could; but "Not content" and "Requiring" are dripping gratuitous Anti-Apple snark, IMHO.

  • "Kids aged 3 to 5 will get hands-on with iPad and Apple Pencil to learn fun precoding activities that teach them how to solve everyday problems like finding a shoe or helping their parents."

    Did I hear that 'screen time' for children that young will screw up their brain development?
    Chidren that young shouldn't be sitting in front of screens, they should be learning how to move their bodies properly, learning coordination, and playing with other kids so they're properly socialized, not being taught to stare at screens all the time!

  • For those that remember, the Apple II was put in schools as a learning tool in an early marketing effort. Another recent article on slashdot was an Apple exec that was bemoaning the use of Chromebooks over Apple's competing product, mainly as a cost issue. This must be the response. Get that captive audience before pre-school. The entire farce is over nothing new. Let's be honest. There hasn't been many killer apps developed in the last 20 years, which is why there is such a hard push to move toward
  • Thats not worked for decades and with the billions nations and experts have used to try.
    Extra books, extra computers, the internet, ebooks, robot kits, new software, a CoC does not bring up IQ.
    If it did every wealthy school would be extra amazing.
    Every poor region would be very advanced given decades and generations of education spending.
    The IQ levels on average stay the same with some people doing really well and an lot of very average and below average people..
    Sort for your very best students and sup

  • Well, that bunch of wilfully ignorant executives at Apple Inc. decided that they know better than an entire field of educational developmental psychologists who could've told them that coding for 3 year-olds is a really stupid idea & a waste of everyone's, including the 3 year-olds', time.

    Any why haven't the journalists reporting on this news called any educational developmental psychologists? Wouldn't that be a bigger headline & attract more views?

    We need journalists to call out bullshit from EdTec

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