Teaching Kids Programming – Extending SmallBasic

I’ve been pair programming with Llewellyn Falco and wanted to share a bit of what we’ve been working on.  We’ve written and published some extensions to SmallBasic on CodePlex and would love your feedback.

To use these extensions, you’ll need

1) Small Basic – download it here
2) Small Basic Extensions – download here and then upzip
3) Create a folder named ‘lib’ in the Small Basic directory and copy the two unzipped filed into in ‘SmallBasicFun.dll’ and ‘SmallBasicFun.xml’

We’re also continuing with our new ‘recipe’ method of teaching. To use it, just click the link(s) on the wiki page, then import the requirement and then start coding!

Take a look at our wiki page and try out some recipes with the built-in objects, such as the Turtle, and then the object we’ve added, such as the ‘Tortoise’

 

We’ll start conducting formal testing with kids (boys or girls, ages 12 to 17) on the dates / times / locations below.  If you’d like your child to be a tester, email me via this blog. You do NOT have to bring anything, we’ll have laptops set up, you CAN bring your own laptop if set up per instructions above.  It is important to BE ON TIME for the session, if late, you can join the next session.  Each session is only two hours.  Parents are responsible for transportation and parking.  Parents are welcome to stay with their children.

1) Monday, Dec 14 – Microsoft office San Diego pick any one of three 2-hour sessions (starting at 9am, noon or 3pm)

2) Monday, Dec 21 – Microsoft office Irvine, same time slots as above

We intend to use this courseware / extensions at DigiGirlz events and at TeachCamps in California in 2010.  We’ll also be making our work broadly available, including screencasts to train-the-teachers in 2010.  If you’d like to work with us on this project (or on other kid’s courseware, including Kodu, XNA, Robotics and more, please contact me via this blog).

Happy coding!