I am not a teacher. But I am a mom and I am super passionate about technology. My title at my job has changed over the years from web content assistant, web developer, software developer to business analyst. In every position I've always coded. I'm not a hard core software engineer, but I love to tinker. I love to solve problems. And I love to add a little creativity into the mix. Now I want to pass some of this knowledge, maybe passion, and interest onto my 5 year old daughter. She is not yet in kindergarten, but I know there are basic concepts of computing, logic and problem solving that she can grasp. Do I want her to grow up to be a programmer? Not necessarily. But I think the skills that she can acquire during this process will help her in the future and possibly spark something in her developing mind. I think it will be important for her to understand the concepts of computer science when she becomes an adult in a much more highly automated tomorrow.
I do want to teach my daughter to code but I don't want to fall victim to the code mania that's going on. However, I do think these skills are very practical and very tangible for kids at a young age to grasp, and so that's where we are going to start. My first test with her was giving her the Light-Bot Hour of Code app and she is blowing me away with her enthusiasm and her grasp of the concepts.
I'm going to put together an offline version of the light-bot for her preschool class to introduce them to the idea of computer science and procedural coding.
