CC BY
53COMPUTER SCIENCE
INVESTIGATING SOME PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES FOR CHILDREN TO 8 YEARS
Dr. Kraleva Radoslava Dr. Kralev Velin Dr. Kostadinova Dafina
Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad, South-West University "Neofit Rilski"
Abstract. The formation of creative and logical thinking in children is an important process that should begin in early childhood. However, the traditional approaches to learning and to the classical curricula cannot be always relied on for this purpose. This article considers some of the existing traditional programming languages and the possibility of their use by children up to 8 years of age.
Keywords: Child-computer interaction, Computer uses in education, Early childhood education, Primary Education, Thinking skills.
1. Introduction
Today's children grow up in a world of computer and mobile technology, the Internet and robotics. From early childhood they know how to use a tablet, smartphone or laptop, and these skills are often acquired before they have started to speak or read. The studies show that children adapt to new technologies much easier and faster than adults [1]. What is more, from early childhood children are highly interested in them [2].
Taking into consideration this fact, more education systems focus on early childhood teaching the basic concepts of computer devices and computer programming [3]. This allows the children to understand the main goal of modern technologies related to improving human life and work. Furthermore, children are acquainted with the ways of prevention and safe behaviour in the global network.
England was the first country in the world to do this in 2014 [4]. Now the same task stands before the teachers, the parents and the children in Bulgaria. [5].
Therefore, this article has set the goal to deal with some important issues related to programming for children to 8 years, namely:
• Exploring some of the traditional programming languages suitable for children;
• Comparing their advantages and disadvantages, and the possibility to be used by the pupils in Bulgaria;
• Analysing the existing teaching resources to support the education in computer programming for children;
• Summarizing the results of the investigation.
2. Programming for children
Modern research on the Child-computer interaction is an integral part of the development of visual programming environments and visual programming languages. They enable children to create their own desired application and share it with their friends. Thus, children succeed to develop step by step simple algorithms and to get logical thinking skills. The new concept that is the core of visual programming is based on the fact that the creation of an application, computer game or animation is not different from writing a poem or story.
Nowadays pupils know how to turn on and off the computer, how to search information on the Internet or play computer games long before they have started school. They are interested in robots and how to make them move or understand their language. Therefore, the use of visual programming for children is a natural extension of their intellectual and cognitive development [6].
Examples of visual programming languages suitable for children are Scratch, Kodu, Alice, Hackety Hack et al. However, they are not the object of study in this article.
3. Traditional programming languages for children
Some of the traditional programming languages and the possibilities for their use by children are:
• C/C++: A classical object-oriented programming language from which many modern programming languages originate. It is characterized by the complicated syntax of source code and
complicated organization of the programs. There are limited resources for children to learn C++.
• Java: This is an object-oriented programming language. The code in Java is a flexible and highly portable, as it is not compiled to machine code at a low level and so Java applications do not depend on the operating system. There are some web platforms such as [7], [8] and some books: [9] that children can use in the learning process. The basic concepts and syntax of Java are difficult to understand for children and it is more suitable for children aged 13+.
C #: C # is a relatively new programming language based on common concepts in the languages C++, Java and Delphi. It is distributed by Microsoft and is integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio. There are platforms for teaching children to program with C #, as [10], and books [11], [12]. C # is an object and event oriented language and is suitable for children aged 13+.
• Visual Basic: Visual Basic is created by Microsoft Corporation and is part of Visual Studio. There are some books suitable for teaching this language to children, [13], [14] et al. Visual Basic is an event oriented language; it is suitable for children aged 13+.
• Ruby: This is an open dynamic programming language [15]. Books appropriate for teaching children to work with Ruby, are [16], [17] etc. There are also free courses for learning, such as [18]. Applications suitable for children over 13 + years are Kids Ruby [19], Hackety Hack [20] and Try Ruby [21]. The interface of these three applications consists of a text editor. The tutorial section is integrated into the text editor and allows a quick reference to relevant instructions.
• Python is object-oriented and dynamic programming language [22]. It is a widely used programming language. Python programs are compact and easily readable. It is integrated into environments such as Django, Pyramid, etc. There are many books for children such as [23], [24], [25] and others.
PHP is a programming language for developing dynamic web content. An example of teaching resources is "PHP for children" [26].
• HTML, CSS and JavaScript are programming languages for formatting and presentation of content to the web. There are many educational materials suitable for children, e.g., [27], [28], [29] among others.
The above presented and discussed traditional programming languages do not provide an easy way for teaching children at the age from 8 or 9 years. According to [30] most children are terrified of using and creating of algorithm and they begin to realize the idea of abstract thinking after the age of 12-13 years. In addition, "the teenagers perceive computing to be boring, antisocial, and irrelevant to their lives" [31] although most of them use the Internet and share information on social networks.
4. Conclusion
Using programming languages is the first step that children can make in the field of computer programming. In this paper some of the traditional programming languages were investigated and the possibility to be used by children under 8 years of age was analysed.
As a conclusion, it can be pointed out that they do not constitute a good approach to training young pupils despite the availability of teaching materials. Therefore, some of the visual programming languages like Scratch, Alice, Code Studio and others should be explored and analysed as well as the possibility for their implementation and use in Computer modelling classes in the Bulgarian primary education.
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