A basic foundation in programming is important for students, coding has now become an essential skill for students in today’s digital age. Learn basics of programming and popular programming languages.
The key to mastering programming lies in practice and experimentation. You must encourage the student to explore different projects, share their creations, and collaborate with their peers.
Program and Programming Language
A computer follows stepwise instructions to complete any task, which is known as program. Also known as software, a program tells the computer what to do.
Everything that a computer does, from starting up to shutting down is done by a program. Any game that you play on your phone or computer is nothing but a program. Even the viruses written for the computer are programs.
The language used to write programs is called a programming language and the person who writes these programs is known as a programmer.
Types of Software:
System software is defined as a collection of program that controls the overall operations and internal working of a computer system. Examples of System software: Operating system, Utility software, Language processor.
Application Software: These programs perform specific jobs like making documents, doing calculations, arranging data in organized manner, making airline or railway reservation, etc.
- General purpose application software: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Paint
- Specific purpose application software (customized software): Tally
Related: Computer basics for Students.
Requirements for Computer Programming
You will need the following:
- A computer and Internet access.
- You will require a development environment to compile and run your programs.
Scratch Programming
Scratch is a beginner-friendly programming language (developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab) that allows students to create interactive stories, animations, and games.
Instead of typing lines of code, you need to drag and snap colorful code blocks together, which makes it easy to understand and experiment with coding concepts.
With its intuitive visual interface and block-based coding system, Scratch makes coding enjoyable for students of all ages.
To begin coding with Scratch, one can access the Scratch website (scratch.mit.edu) or download the offline version called Scratch Desktop. The platform provides an extensive library of sprites (characters) and sounds that students can use in their projects. They can also create their own sprites or import images and sounds.
In Scratch, coding is done by stacking blocks together to create scripts. Students can control the behavior of their projects using event blocks. They can trigger actions when certain events occur, such as when a sprite is clicked, a key is pressed, or a timer reaches a specific value. These event blocks provide a dynamic and interactive experience. Loops, such as the “repeat” block, allow students to repeat a set of actions multiple times, making it useful for creating patterns or iterating through lists.
Java
Java is a popular and high-level object-oriented computer programming language to teach the fundamentals of computer programming including how to write, compile and execute programs.
It teaches you the principles of object-oriented design and programming, and fundamentals of sorting data and data structures.
Python Programming
Introduction to Python Programming: Installing Python and setting up the development environment. Variables, data types, and basic operations. Input and output statements. Writing and executing simple Python programs.
Control Flow and Loops: Conditional statements (if, elif, else), Looping with for and while loops, Nested loops and loop control statements (break and continue), Using logical operators (and, or, not).
Functions and Modules: Introduction to functions and their purpose, creating and calling functions, function parameters and return values, exploring built-in functions, importing and using modules.
Data Structures: Lists, Tuples, Dictionaries, Sets, Working with strings and string manipulation.
File Handling: Reading from and writing to files, Understanding file modes (read, write, append), File operations (open, close, etc.), Handling exceptions and errors.
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Basics.
Advanced Concepts: Error handling, Working with libraries and APIs. Final Project.
OOP(Object Oriented Programming) Concepts
Object Orientation is a term used to describe the object – oriented(OO) method of building software. The ‘object’ forms the basis around which the following properties revolve: 1. Encapsulation 2. Abstraction, Implementation Hiding 3. Inheritance, dynamic binding, polymorphism 4. Overriding and overloading
Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the set of notations, models and diagrams used when developing object-oriented (OO) systems.
HTML and CSS
Knowledge of HTML and CSS will let you manage your website, and also manage the overall look and layout of your pages.
This is a good site to get started with HTML basics. Spend about 10 min a day, going through one HTML tutorial at a time, and in a month’s time, you should be well-versed with the all the useful HTML tags.
CSS stands for cascading style sheets. CSS describes how HTML elements are to be displayed. It allows you to separate visual design elements (layout, fonts, colors, margins, and so on) from the contents of a Web page. It allows faster downloads, streamlined site maintenance, and global control of design attributes across multiple pages. Instead of having to change the style of every page, you can make a change to one file, your style sheet, and reference that wherever you want the changes to show up.
Scripting Language
A script or scripting language is a computer language with a series of commands within a file that is capable of being executed without being compiled.
Good examples of server side scripting languages include Perl, PHP, and Python. The best example of a client side scripting language is JavaScript.
One of major strengths of JavaScript is that it does not require expensive development tools. You can start with a simple text editor such as Notepad. Since it is an interpreted language inside the context of a web browser, you don’t even need to buy a compiler.
Java Script
JavaScript is the most popular scripting language on the internet, and works in all major browsers. It is embedded within HTML. It was designed to add interactivity to HTML pages.
Mobile Application (Apps) Development
There are several mobile apps software and courses that teach how to creating Mobile Apps for Android / iPhone.
Helpful resources to complement your learning:
- Android Developer website at https://developer.android.com
- Apple Developer website at https://developer.apple.com/
Best Online Resources to Learn Coding
Code.org
This site is maintained by a nonprofit foundation and is a great starting point for coding novices. There is lot of useful online resources, apps, and even local schools that teach coding.
I recently got a call from a representative working for a startup that focusses on teaching programming to children. They even conducted a free coding session for my child, where a tutor conducted an interactive video session on the internet.
During the introductory class, she taught my 8-year old son how to create a basic app (changing the background colour on the clock of a button). She used Code.org to enter the code for the app and to test it.
Roblox is a very popular gaming platform among kids. Roblox also provides a game development platform (for free) that students can use to learn game development and to develop their own games. You will need to download Roblox Studio to start creating games, which you can later also upload on Roblox.
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