<p dir="ltr">On Dec 24, 2015 12:47, "Paul Beaudet" <<a href="mailto:inof8or@gmail.com">inof8or@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Pointing to the training wheel equivalent here alarms me we may be overlooking the key objective, which is inspiration for a young person. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Conversely, if you give a ten-speed racing bike to someone who has not yet learned to crawl, that will be pretty discouraging. I remember seeing such a bike as a very young kid, and not having a clue what all those levers did. Having to learn all that while also learning to get my legs to drive the pedals while also learning how to balance would have been much more difficult for me. I'm glad I started with my single-speed coaster-braked bike.<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">> Codeacademy and Khan start and such a basic level it's hard to see the forest through the trees. Here me right, I think they are great tools, I just personally found them frustrating because of the great amount of time taken mucking through the weeds or things that were already understood. <br></p>
<p dir="ltr">Things like proper syntax, rules of scoping, function definitions, and so on can be weeds for some.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The advantage of things like LOGO, Scratch, and the like, is they get people thinking about decomposing a problem into algorithms, variables, debugging, and so on, without having to know what any of those things are. The visual metaphors tap into basic skills we learn playing with blocks as toddlers. For some people, that can be a huge enabler.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There's no one solution that's right for everyone.</p>
<p dir="ltr">-- Ben<br>
</p>