
Ask HN: Best way to introduce a young girl to computers? - dstorrs
My sweetheart's daughter is 7 years old and very precocious.  I'd love to give her the chance to get interested in computers at such a young age -- and not just playing games on them, but using them.  What would people recommend as the best approach?
======
andrewce
Put simply, you can give her the chance by giving her the chance.

What types of things is she interested in? Art? Music? Video? Programming?
Something else entirely?

All of these things domains have relatively inexpensive tools available which
would be accessible enough for her to use. (I'll admit that I am not the best
resource for what those tools are).

The larger philosophical approach: show her that computers are tools that she
can use to pursue her own interests and to create things. Provide support when
necessary, but mostly let her figure things out on her own (and show her where
to look when she wants to learn more; I learned a lot about how to use
Photoshop from Photoshop tutorial sites, for example). If it's something
you're pretty good with, "Hey, wanna see something cool?" works better than
almost anything else.

It's okay if that's the extent to which she is interested in computers. It's
also okay if she begins trying to create her own tools, as there are resources
for that, too.

Finally, keep in mind that 7 year olds are constantly growing and changing,
and that interests can change rapidly. It's okay if she spends 2 weeks
straight working on GIMP, only to drop all of that the third week. The
introduction of extrinsic motivators tends to diminish intrinsic motivation
(Kohn, Pink), and she's still young enough that her sense of curiousity and
adventure has hopefully not been fully squashed.

Good luck.

~~~
probably
Yes. Since the question was regarding introduction to computers and not
programming necessarily, I think this response is relevant. I can't locate the
article but I recall reading that girls were much more interested in using
computer tools to generate content, while it was the boys (or adult males)
that were more often providing (writing) the tools. Not to generalize to all
individuals, but empowering her with the tools to create content (e.g., GIMP
or Google Sites) may be a strategic move.

~~~
Mz
_...girls were much more interested in using computer tools to generate
content, while it was the boys (or adult males) that were more often providing
(writing) the tools._

Sample of one, agreeing with your comment:

I'm female. I learned a little (x)html and css exactly for this reason. A
friend liked something I had written and posted to an email list. She asked if
she could publish it on her website. I said "sure". She later let me post more
stuff there. Then she couldn't keep up and gifted me all the code. I knew
absolutely nothing about code or running a website. I didn't even know what
FTP meant. I started playing with the code by copying and pasting new
background colors into the code. As my site grew, I had to figure out better
navigation techniques...etc.

My sons are dragging me slowly into playing a wider variety of games by de-
emphasizing all the "macho" stuff I hate (like the fighting) and emphasizing
how much each game is "like" something I do like: Simcity. They didn't get me
into playing stereotypical guy games by telling me it was wrong to be so girly
or to have the objections I had. They sold me on it by showing me what was in
it for me that fit with my "girly" interests.

~~~
dstorrs
Thank you for this, it's much appreciated.

It is my belief that geek culture is relatively gender blind but it is
definitely true that there seem to be fewer girl geeks than guy geeks. I wish
more women had engaged with computers so positively as you obviously have; the
field would be richer for it.

------
kls
If you want to start teaching her how software works, Alice is a good start:

<http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/>

As well MIT scratch is a little more gender neutral:

<http://scratch.mit.edu/>

If you want to go less with the programming route and more of an artistic
route, buying Photoshop or Pixelmator and working some tutorials will usually
set the spark. I have found with my girls the art stuff took just a little
spark and they ran with it. My 10 year old is now teaching my 3 year old
design. The programming still takes active involvement on my part to help her
through some of the tasks.

~~~
eccp
I second Scratch, it comes with a lot of examples which she can tweak, so she
can explore changing settings. It's very intuitive, my daughter liked it a
lot. It's available on Win, Mac and Linux too (on Ubuntu you need to install
the squeak package first).

~~~
EdwardMSmith
My (now 8 yo, but 7 at the time) daughter found Scratch to be mildly
interesting, but not really compelling. She'd use it every now and again. But,
she's pretty addicted to Kodu. I think the 3d aspect of it, as well as a more
narrow topic (game/world creation and interaction) made things a lot more
understandable for her, and allowed her to focus. She's still learning the
same concepts, I believe, in the end, and that's what I'm after. I think of it
as really a 3d Logo.

She's into 3 and 4 page programs now, with multiple actors, and fairly deep
storylines.

<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/>

------
steveklabnik
I fully believe that you should let your daughter do what _she_ wants to do,
rather than forcing computers on her...

With that said, if she has a genuine interest, my project Hackety Hack[1] is
designed to be the new BASIC for learning programming. It's built on Ruby, but
starts you off with Turtle graphics, then some basic Ruby, and even GUI
development. It comes with a bunch of sample programs that show you how to
make all kinds of interesting things...

1: <http://hackety-hack.com/>

~~~
zedshaw
I'll put in my vote for hackety-hack as well. I'd also say that, if you want
her to be awesome at programming, then force her to take piano lessons (or any
instrument). There's a _very_ strong correlation between music skills and
coding, and music is something kids can grasp really easily.

~~~
aperiodic
> There's a very strong correlation between music skills and coding

Really? That's the first time I've heard about it. Do you mind going into more
detail, or sharing links? It's not at all obvious to me why the two skills
would be correlated (perhaps because my only musical skill is completely
average ability to play the guitar).

------
pamelafox
My input as a girl that was introduced to computers at a young age:

I was introduced to programming as a way of creating things, and as someone
who likes creating things, it really excited me.

The first things that I made were webpages (inc. perl scripts, like for Mad
Libs) and java applets (inc. an applet that let you dress up my friend in cool
outfits, and another applet that was "illustrated Mad Libs," with photos of my
friends and actions).

I later went on to major in Comp Sci at college, and we had to do all these
boring* assignments in my first year (book inventories + pointers, woohoo),
but thankfully I was already aware of how much cool stuff I could create and I
stuck with it.

So, if she likes creation, then I recommend web programming (because it is
creating plus instant sharing), and also programming languages that lend
themselves towards graphical output (Processing is a particularly good one for
newbies, and you can now teach her either traditional Java-based Processing or
JS Processing).

*boring to me, atleast relatively.

~~~
dstorrs
Thanks Pamela. That plays well with my own skills, since I'm a web developer
myself, so I'm glad to hear a qualified person so that it's a reasonable
strategy.

~~~
pamelafox
In that case, here are my teaching materials for an HTML & CSS class -
exercises and slides included: <http://www.teaching-materials.org/htmlcss/>

Web programming is actually harder to teach than other programming, I would
say, because it involves so many different languages meshing together in this
funny environment. But I think the practicality of it may outweigh the
complexity of it.

------
ScottBurson
By all means set her up with a good Logo implementation. Logo is a great way
for kids to learn to program. Wikipedia seems to be a good starting point:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29>

------
laughinghan
I imagine most kids find visually engaging things immediately interesting. The
initial hook I used to get my sister interested in programming was the Raphael
Playground: <http://raphaeljs.com/playground.html>

I walked her through how to use the reference to do more and was surprised how
little hand-holding she needed. She's 11, not 7, though, so this could be
beyond your kid's level.

What is your expertise in? My sister asked a lot of 'Why?'s and I imagine your
kid will too, my area of expertise happens to be JavaScript (hence why I favor
Raphael) so this worked well for me, but you would want to be prepared to have
satisfactory answers.

------
kaichanvong
You might find things like <http://www.officelabs.com/ribbonhero> interesting.
It's a game to teach Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). I'm not a
huge Windows fan.. but it would sure give anyone young the 1 up in terms of
learning something which will be productive in the future in a fun way!

------
bigB
You can start by showing her that there is more to a computer than games, the
internet and facebook. Once you show people the variety of things you can do
with a computer, then its up to them to follow the path to what interests them
most.

