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Ask HN: Interactive programming lessons for Kids (Offline)?

8 pointsby gygygyabout 10 years ago
I have a little cousin brother who really loves learning about computers. According to him, he loves computer classes. I found out in &quot;computer class&quot; all they do is teach the poor kids how to use word and excel and how to save files in windows.<p>He is a very smart kid, and I tried to ask their parents to let him spend time online so that he could learn more about computers.<p>The parents are unfortunately scared of the internet, I tried to tell them about parental controls with no success so unfortunately, I don&#x27;t see him using the internet for the next 4-5 years.<p>Is there any interactive programming lessons which I could download, put in a drive and give him so he could follow them without having to use the internet.<p>It honestly breaks my heart to see a very intelligent kid spend all of his free time watching soap operas with his mom.

3 comments

S4Mabout 10 years ago
It&#x27;s not interactive, but there are plenty of videos available on youtube (for example: this series explains how to make games with python and pygame [0]). Since he doesn&#x27;t have internet, you will have to download the videos, most likely with youtube-dl [1]. So my suggestion is for you to decide what programming environment is better for him to take on, get the corresponding videos, and next time you visit his family you install him a text editor (I&#x27;d suggest Notepad++), the programming language, and give him the videos.<p>Good luck!<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7joZ67mC6o&amp;list=PLQVvvaa0QuDcxG_Cajz1JyTH6eAvka93C" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Y7joZ67mC6o&amp;list=PLQVvvaa0Qu...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rg3.github.io&#x2F;youtube-dl&#x2F;</a>
mkirscheabout 10 years ago
I just fiddled a little with Scratch 1.4 (<a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;scratch.mit.edu&#x2F;scratch_1.4&#x2F;</a>) on my Raspberry Pi. It looks like a kid could learn the basics of programming using Scratch (the Offline Editor) just by trial and error.
brudgersabout 10 years ago
How about a book like <i>Realm of Racket</i> or <i>Head First HTML and CSS</i>?<p>But keep in mind that programming is fun for some people and drudgery for others.