My 9 year old girl has expressed an interest in learning to program. Of course I want something that will give her short term rewards, but still teach solid skills. I know this question gets asked from time to time on various forums but I wanted to get some opinions from the good people of SN.
Christmas is coming... she's (for now) a Windows user... is there something you'd recommend as a gift?
Thanks for your ideas.
(Score: 4, Informative) by xorsyst on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:02PM
My 9-year old is getting a Kano for Christmas (http://us.kano.me/). It's basically a raspberry pi designed entirely for the kid to use on their own.
He's already been using Scratch for a year or so, and this will give him something really his.
(Score: 2) by jbernardo on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:24PM
I've given my kids a Kano last year (I participated in the kickstarter), and this year upgraded it to the pi2 and have ordered the screen. I am quite happy with it, and my oldest was able to show off her knowledge of scratch at school last month... :)
I fully recommend the Kano, even if I would prefer it had a full keyboard.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:55PM
It's only time / money - for the same approximate cost, you can configure a vanilla Raspberry Pi 2 to do everything the Kano does, with the keyboard of your choice.
Unfortunately, the keyboard I'm typing on costs $90 by itself, if I felt my kids needed this one, then the budget would have to increase a bit - but you can certainly get competent keyboards (wired or wireless) for $20 or so - free if your willing to scrounge.
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