Kids can Program

As an Information Technology (IT) Coach, and IEEE PES Day WiP Ambassador, I thought of ways to create an impact on the community, especially, during COVID-19 lockdown. So, I decided to engage parents to train their children to program codes while enhancing their knowledge of computers. I initiated the journey by launching "Kids can Program" ~ using Scratch as their first programming language.

Why Scratch? Young age starting from 5 years is encouraged, as Scratch provides user-friendly graphical programming making it easier to learn. Thanks to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for providing kids a free programming website. 

What is programming? A parent might ask

Programming is the ability to feed a computer with a set of instructions to perform a certain task. This means that your children will learn how to input a set of instructions to a computer and the computer will respond with an output.

The online coding lessons is to show parents that they do not need to be a Computer scientist to teach their children how to code especially while our children are at home. All they need is the willingness to help their children to learn the computer.

What does it take for parents to participate fully in this online computer lesson?

The following are what will be needed:

•    No prior knowledge is required from parents or their children.
•    A computer (Desktop or Laptop or Tablet)
•    An internet connection
•    Subscription to Chinelo Okafor tutorials on YouTube channel following the link Kids can Program
•    Make sure your subscription alert is on so that you can receive the latest video and engage your children.
•    Log on to the Scratch website: https://scratch.mit.edu/ which is the platform for practical learning.

What will your children learn from the coding lessons?

They will learn the following:

•   How to Program with Scratch
•    How to use a computer to do work
•    How to create fun stuff like Game| Animation (Cartoons) | Stories
•    How to put their mathematics skills to work
•    How to use Google Search to learn the meaning of words
•    How to put their creativity to work.