Programming language for teenagers

Question

I have been asked to give an introductory programming course for kids between 14-15 years old. Scratch seems like a good option for young children, maybe up to 12 years old. Python, is also a good language for beginners.

I need help from educators to choose between the two options for the mentioned age group. I'm afraid that Scratch might be too childish for them, while Python might be too complicated.

Update

Basically, the course will meet once a week. However, I have relative liberty in deciding how long the session is and how many weeks the course will be. Actually feedback in this regard is also appreciated. I want the session to be long enough to be productive, but not boring long. My initial thought is meeting for 1.5 hours each week for 6 weeks, and then deciding whether follow up course is a good idea.

I can't say much about the background of the kids. This is part of an extra-curricular school that meets every weekend, and I volunteered to give a programming course to the children to make them more interested in technology.

Update2

The age range was a bit different from expected. The kids were between 10-15 years old.

I started the course with Python and used Turtle library to have a visual output. The kids had some progress, but I felt it was slow and it was a bit hard for some of them to grasp some basic concepts.

After five or six weeks, I decided to switch to Scratch. The progress rate improved significantly. However, a few of the kids who were good with Python complained that Scratch is a language for little children that you can't do 'real' things with. It's definitely hard to please everyone.

Answer 1

I highly recommend checking out a language called Processing. Processing is designed for novices, and makes it easy to create visual and interactive programs without a ton of boilerplate.

Here's an example Processing sketch:

void draw() {
  ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, 25, 25);
}

This is a full program that draws a circle wherever the mouse is, 60 times per second.

Related:

• Using Processing as an entry point in an Introductory Course
• Programming languages specifically designed for beginners
• The order of subjects in beginner's curriculum
• Order to Teach Topics in an Intro Programming Class
• Make it easier, and quicker to get to the start

Shameless self-promotion: I wrote a series of tutorials for Processing available here. I'd love to talk more about using these in a curriculum.

Answer 2

Tl;dr: use python. (Preferably python 3.)

Well, I’m a teenager in your age group, so hopefully I’m some level of qualified to respond.

I have to say as a bit of a disclaimer that python is my favorite language but it is in that position for a reason. Scratch is, for me, annoying to write because I can touch type so python is just faster. Further, I actually have always found scratch a bit non intuitive while on the other hand I have always found python incredibly intuitive but also very powerful - it grows in capability along with you.

When I first started programming I used khan academy’s introduction to JavaScript, and then at some point I transitioned to python and have used it since. I have never felt either overwhelmed by or limited by python. My next thought would be that as 14/15 year olds, you’re going to have kids with a wider range of abilities and python can handle that better than scratch.

There are as has been mentioned many resources for teaching python out there. I’d recommend codecademy for learning and repl.it for personal projects - they can then access their work when the camp is over and it provides autocomplete and other useful features. Another thought - since python has so many packages, maybe let them split up by what they are interested in? Python can do websites, games, scientific programming (math fans can work on the Euler problems), or mod Minecraft. (Scratch, I might point out, is limited to games.)

Hope this helps, and I’d be glad to talk with you more about resources, etc.

Answer 3

Here's an unlikely answer: Teach them C.

You're correct, Scratch will be a turn-off to an average 14 year old.

Mid-teens dislike things that seem fake and/or useless, and have a strong aversions to things seemingly geared toward younger children.

Python is probably an OK option... but I believe Python is a little too high level, using concepts that may seem very abstract to a beginner. A small line of python can contain a lot of abstract concepts that aren't easily met by the early-teen brain.

Don't get me wrong, I love Python.
But I already know what a pointer is, I know what variables are, arrays, classes, etc.
If I did not, I would appreciate a language that didn't gloss over everything.

When teaching fundamentals, the number of lines of code is secondary to the ability to understand and illustrate concepts core to your curriculum.

C is one of the most fundamental languages, and learning C will give you a solid understanding of the basics.

I prefer to begin with something real, but simple. Not simple in the sense that we are constructing programs with colorful shapes, stacks of cards, or a friendly caterpillar, but simple in the sense that on the surface we have 32 keywords, and everything is built on that.

When teaching a young teen, here are some key factors I found helpful: 1. Teach them something that is real, clearly not just a toy.
2. Keep concepts granular.
3. Allow them to stretch and delve deeper than the standard lesson (often giving a student the ability to leap a distance ahead will keep them engaged while other students maintain standard progress)
4. Give them a simple, light-weight, environment to work in. Easy to set up, and easy to get going.

Back in the stone age, when I was learning programming. I took my floppy disk with QBasic everywhere I went. Portability was a big reason I stayed plugged in. QBasic allowed me to get going quickly, learning at a pace that my appetite set.

Today, I would recommend something like Code::Blocks. Lightweight, easy to get started and installed, and you can start with C.
Don't want to install anything? Try Learn-C.org.

C is a great language to start learning with.
You can begin with simple concepts, simple operators, simple variables, types.
Then dive into arrays, and you'll quickly find that the topic of arrays is a big concept for a 14 year old mind.
Loops and functions, function recursion, etc.

C is an excellent first language for teens, and perfect for an introductory programming course.

Answer 4

I think it largely depends on the kids. If you are proficient in both you might even want to give them a choice (as a class, not individually). Show them a bit of each in the first session and let them discuss the options. It might make them more connected to the course, in fact.

Either is appropriate in general, but the background of the students might also be relevant. Is it a random selection or self-selected interested kids or a captive audience? Knowing that might push you toward the more or less "sophisticated" option.

Even Java with a tool like Greenfoot might work for you since it is very visual and has quite a lot of support through greenroom.greenfoot.org. The greenfoot folks are working on a scratch-like environment at this time, but its introduction may be a ways off. It does, however, include a language simpler than Java (Stride) with nearly the capabilities of Java (and translations between it and the full language).

Note that there are quite a number of books for teaching Python to kids. A search at Amazon, for "Python for Kids" will turn up several, including a book with that title. I don't find that particular book especially inspiring, however.

If you choose Python, I'd suggest also finding a suitable environment (i.e. something richer than idle) to provide support, with code management, code completion and the like. Scratch will provide much of that, but you might not want to have the choice Scratch v. "Naked Python".

Answer 5

If your kids are into making things they can see or hear, why not give SonicPi a try?

It will give immediate audible results and teach a fresh beginner the basics of assigning variables, looping, writing functions to group like events/actions, and teach a general sense of sequence (this before that) as well as simple troubleshooting (it doesn't sound right, but where is the mistake?)

One of the things that I did as part of an undergrad research (that unfortunately didn't get very far due to time) was to gather information on how to create a curriculum that would bridge the gap between computer science and music, as part of a joint collaborative of both departments at my university. Things I found while looking into Sonic Pi is that it is actually a very good "first" language and a good environment to break into the shell of programmable music. It is also a good way, likewise, for a programmer to learn a bit about music and how it all works.

Much of today's music is synthesized, and is in a standard popular song format, meaning that there are sections that loop. If the end result is to create a standard 3-minute length song, for example, things that need to be learned first are a few key things about music theory (which, for the basis of "song-making" and not necessarily serious composition, are fairly simple and can be picked up along the way), but as for the technical/programming side of things, a newcomer would also have to pick up a few essential skills.

Day one would be preparing the environment. Installing the OS and the packages required to run the environment on which it runs.

Day two would be the first few standard expressions. Subsequently, learning about MIDI inputs and what each number represents (pitch, velocity, etc.). You assign an instrument to a variable and call the variable when you want to output the sound.

From then on begin the real fireworks. Programming variable instruments to play on a timebase. Looping sections of timed variable instruments (standard loops, such as do-while) to create riffs.

After that, creating functions that will group a section of riffs to make an audible passage. Passing parameters onto these functions to apply effects, volume/loudness, etc. Learning about constructors, getters and setters. Working with libraries (such as randomizers).

The end result is something that's engaging, fun to play with and discover, and imparts an essential understanding of underlying concepts, so that when they jump into a formal language, much of the foundation is already there and the daunt of the challenge of learning something that might as well be "in another language" is lessened.

Answer 6

Another possibility (if you have the money) would be something like Lego Mindstorms.

The advantage is:

1. Unlike straight Python, your program actually "does" something. You can make your robot throw objects into a basket, or follow a line (self-driving car), or respond to light sensors.
2. You can start with a GUI programming language (NXT-g) and when they get the basics, move them to a "real" language (such as C, Java, or even Python).

You can probably do much of the same with a Raspberry Pi, but you'll have to take care of the wiring, motors, and sensors yourself. You may also not find a good block programming language for the RasPi.

Answer 7

Anything object oriented I would say. Such as java, C#, or Alice!. The reason is the high level concepts are hard to grasp such as threading, loopers, and ect. For example in Java create a object class called animal what can an animal do? eat and sleep, fight ect. Then grow it from there. Once you establish real world applications for the kids concepts such as inheritance(ex. lion inherits from animal because a lion is an animal) and polymorphism(ex. not all animals have the same growl such as a cow says mooo and an lion says rooaar, so like have a method called growl they have to override) are easy to grasp.