Children have a great range of diverse potential, and we shouldn’t look at them as products coming out of factories trying to make them all the same kind. At the end of it all, life is the greatest teacher for us all, and most people do figure out things as they move forward in life. As individuals, we all have different journeys and destinations, so we should also allow children the freedom to express and experiment in their own ways.
Off late, coding for kids has been the most talked about aspect in children’s development. This is good and bad. The good part of teaching coding to kids is it inculcates a good base for computational thinking, algorithmic problem-solving, and mathematical acumen. But, it also depends on how it is taught. With the mushrooming of institutions teaching coding, there is also a danger of quality getting compromised heavily.
Learning programming is all about learning to build things from scratch using syntax and pure mathematical logic. Then it is about applying various programming constructs such as data types, loops, file, and data structures. The most important aspect is to think from an end-goal and problem-solving perspective. With this in mind, we brought together some of the best places to learn coding for children in a practical, expressive, and effective way. These are the most effective premiere academies for kids to learn online.
- Khan Academy Kids
- Bitsbox
- Scratch Jr.
- CodeMonkey
- UnicMinds
- Juni Learning
- WhiteHat jr.
- Kodable
- ScratchPad
- Robo Wunderkind
The overlap between technology and our lives has increased manifold. Earlier, it used to be the desktop computing times, which moved to a mobile revolution, and now it is moving onto an AI revolution. AI will impact every industry and will remove most of the redundant decision-making that humans do. The future is going to be far different from what we can imagine, and the only thing we can do is to be prepared and updated to take advantage of the change. Learning mathematics, computer-science, and STEM subjects will definitely place children in the best way possible for the ever-changing world. Fundamentally, mathematics is the most crucial subject that spans across all the other fields. And, therefore, while teaching coding too, the syntax is less important and the ‘why’ and ‘how’ are far more important than the ‘what’.
The fun, creativity, and learning, is tremendous in learning and teaching coding, and it is a shame not to try out. As mentioned earlier, it is all about learning to build just like architecture or mathematics or cooking. The art and skill of building things is something that brings a lot of fulfillment to children as they grow and it is an important aspect of life itself. Coding for kids is thus not just an investment into children’s future, but a well-rounded education to make them a better, more confident, and persevering problem-solver who isn’t afraid to express different ideas, attempt without fear of failure, and think outside the box.
Hope this is useful, thank you.