Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Computer Programming and YouTuber?

My 9 yo 5th grader has two loves right now: learning computer programming and becoming a 'YouTuber'.

Can anyone give some advice on either: great programs for learning to computer program/code from the basics to in depth programming and/or what you need (minimum in case this is a phase) to become a 'YouTuber'?

Right now all we have to work with for either is a Chromebook and a laptop.

Thanks for any and all helpful advice!!!

TripleB

For programming, I'd suggest Scratch from MIT.

There's also Tynker, Google's Made with Code, and Khan's tutorials.

Commonsense.org has reviews of learning tools, with user and teacher reviews.

I had asked a similar question on programming resources couple of weeks ago and was recommended the youthdigital site. It has great reviews but is expensive at $250. I did find a 40% coupon code but still found it expensive. So I did some research and found codecombat, a free tool that teaches programming using games. Dd7(3rd grade) loves it and spent many hours this weekend on it. I was happy with what and how she was learning. So maybe give that a try.

Thanks for the update! For the benefit of future readers, especially newcomers, I'm adding a link to that thread...

My son also wants to be an Youtuber. If you think how much money these kids make, it is not a bad job if you can get it.

I think mainly you need video cameras. I am assuming there is app that let you record your screen while you play a game and comment on them.

Sorry that I am not more helpful. Just have to comment on this. We have not let DS do anything with this yet.

I would tend to discourage kids posting on YouTube. There is so much exposure and loss of privacy for a person, especially kids. Additionally, very few videos actually "go viral" and attract advertisers to want to place ads there.

Here's an article which discusses the challenges of making money with YouTube, and another which discusses why YouTube may be a lousy place to make money.

Also be aware that there are laws about online privacy for kids younger than 13. Technically they can't even have YouTube accounts.

A parent at my DS school told me that there are ways to put in parental control and make it kids safe on YouTube. I just Googled "Youtube kids account", options came up on how to set up kids safe Youtube account showed up. You may want to check it out before your DS or you setup a Youtube account.

Python is a great first language and there are plenty of free online resources if you search around. One of the cool thing about most modern languages including Python is the number of libraries available publicly.

This gets your kid used to reading man pages and teaching themselves to help themselves.

It is also object orientated from the get go and this is a useful paradigm to internalize from the outset.

It is also hard to beat C as a programming language but I would do it after they have found their 'sea legs' with programming.

If you already have a monitor/keyboard/mouse OR can get them cheaply then a Raspberry Pi is a cheap (but fully functional) entry point to a child having their first Linux based machine.

I can recommend the AoPS beginner's Python class too as our DD took to it like a duck to water once she got over the fact that learning by making mistakes/tinkering is how a lot of stuff gets developed in the real world LOL

Programming helped her with her perfectionistic tendencies for certain.

Once the principles of algorithms, conditional statements and flow of control are mastered the next step is to look into efficiency which really needs at least mastery of exponents and logarithms to fully appreciate, IMO.

Another useful branching out would be getting into microcontroller boards like Arduino to code 'sketches' which can control devices and log data.

I wish that I were a kid again right now :-)

Such an important point!