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Preface to a collection of modules designed to help beginners of all ages learn how to create the code for computer programs. Information is provided not only for the beginners themselves but also for their parents and teachers where appropriate.

Table of contents

Preface

This module is one in a collection of modules designed to help beginners of all ages (8 and up) learn how to create the code for computer programs. Information is provided not only for the beginnersthemselves but also for parents, teachers, and other helpers where appropriate.

The purpose of this module is simply to introduce the collection.

Background information

In the year 2013, everything from parking meters to cell phones to Mars landing vehicles are controlled by computer code. That code is written byhumans.

Bill Gates , Mark Zuckerberg , Mitch Resnick , and many other respected individuals are telling us that "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think."

If you search the web, you will find a maze of web pages containing information forteaching beginners how to create program code. This collection will attempt to pull much of that information together and to provide explanations that will make it easier forbeginners to navigate that maze and to get involved in computer programming.

As mentioned earlier, the information in this collection is intended not only for the beginnersthemselves, but also for the parents, teachers, and other helpers of those beginners where appropriate.

Discussion

Many paths are available

There are many paths that a beginner can take and many tools that a beginner can use in learning to write computercode -- some good and some not so good. Here is a non-exhaustive list of tools and resources (in no particular order) that I have collected from the web :

  1. Scratch
  2. Codecademy
  3. Udacity - Introduction to Computer Science
  4. Alice
  5. CodeHS
  6. Kodu
  7. Python
  8. Pygame
  9. CS1graphics.org
  10. Sugar on a Stick
  11. Lua
  12. OpenSim
  13. Spritely
  14. Edubuntu
  15. App Inventor
  16. Lego Mindstorms
  17. Greenfoot
  18. BlueJ
  19. Java
  20. Play-i
  21. Marshall Brain: Teaching your kids how to write computer programs
  22. Code.org
  23. Treehouse
  24. W3schools.com
  25. TurtleAcademy
  26. StackOverflow
  27. Programr
  28. Mozilla Thimble
  29. MIT Open Courseware
  30. LearnStreet
  31. LCodeTHW
  32. KidsRuby
  33. JSDares
  34. HTML5 Rocks
  35. Hackety Hack
  36. Tynker
  37. Stencyl
  38. Microsoft Small Basic
  39. Snap! (Build Your Own Blocks)
  40. Blockly
  41. Kodable
  42. Hopscotch
  43. Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) with Java

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Source:  OpenStax, Teaching beginners to code. OpenStax CNX. May 27, 2013 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11498/1.20
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