Raising a Programmer: Teaching Saudi Children How to Code.
Maram Meccawy · Journal on Educational Technology · 2017
Teaching computer coding to children from a young age provides with them a competitive advantage for the future in a continually changing workplace. Programming strengthens logical and critical thinking as well as problem solving skills, which lead to creative solutions for today’s problems. The Little Programmer is an application for mobile devices that introduces the basic programming concepts to Arab children aged (8-12) years. It aims to develop a sense of coding and its importance among those children. User trials results showed that the application was helpful and allowed its users to identify the concepts of computer programming with immense curiosity. Moreover, it showed that linking difficult or newer concepts to familiar entities and objects through visualization can facilitate the learner to grasp innovative knowledge.