Teaching Computing with... Computers?(bogost.com)
bogost.com
Teaching Computing with... Computers?
http://www.bogost.com/blog/teaching_computing_with_comput.shtml
3 comments
this sounds like the "new math"... why not start young children with actual programming? programming is _easier_ and more intuitive than thinking abstractly about algorithms and compression
I wish he had explored his alternative ideas further (although the comments do pick up where he left off). Computer games can definitely be used to teach basic concepts, and indeed some very good games have used programming-type puzzles as part of the gameplay.
A kid-friendly programming interface, to me, could just be a skin on a full programming environment. As you would complete basic programming tasks, you could then unlock higher level features.