JavaScript: The Gateway Language, or Why You Should Teach Your Kids JavaScript

When we talk about JavaScript, we're not *really* talking about JavaScript: we're talking about JavaScript and its various libraries, frameworks, and compilers. JavaScript is a gateway language for new technologists, providing a large amount of functionality spread across numerous libraries, growing in complexity with the students' skill. In this talk, I'll cover why and how to prepare your children for Skynet by teaching them JavaScript.

Presented at Mountain West JavaScript on March 17, 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Transcript

1. JavaScript: A Gateway Language or, Why You Should Teach Your Kids JavaScript Liz Abinante @feministy Tuesday, March 18, 14
2. What we’ll cover Defining JavaScript Why teach kids programming? Why JavaScript is great for wee ones How to prepare children for SkyNet Tuesday, March 18, 14
3. Defining JavaScript Tuesday, March 18, 14
4. JavaScript has many flavors! Tuesday, March 18, 14
5. All of this variation is what makes JavaScript so great. You pick your flavors. Tuesday, March 18, 14
6. Vanilla JavaScript Design patterns, libraries, frameworks, functional, object-oriented. Tuesday, March 18, 14
7. function sum(array) { return array.reduce(function(a, b) { return a + b; }); } Tuesday, March 18, 14
8. Why teach kids programming? Tuesday, March 18, 14
9. Technology is constantly changing. Learning to program gives kids skills for now and maybe the future. Tuesday, March 18, 14
10. The earlier you learn, the more you can learn in a lifetime. Tuesday, March 18, 14
11. Adults are terrible programmers. Tuesday, March 18, 14
12. As adults, we are inhibited by our own fears. We're afraid of failure, being mocked, being wrong, breaking the entire app, taking too long to ship, or just plain not being smart enough. Tuesday, March 18, 14
13. Adults lack the pure imagination of childhood. Tuesday, March 18, 14
14. Imagination “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein, as quoted in Transformation: Arts, Communication, Environment (1950) by Harry Holtzman Tuesday, March 18, 14
15. Why teach kids JavaScript? Tuesday, March 18, 14
16. Ruby and Python require: complex system set up more expensive hardware Why not Ruby? Or Python? Tuesday, March 18, 14
17. Ruby and Python require: complex system set up more expensive hardware not as visual as JavaScript Why not Ruby? Or Python? Tuesday, March 18, 14
18. Ruby and Python require: complex system set up more expensive hardware not as visual as JavaScript a little syntax is good for the soul Why not Ruby? Or Python? Tuesday, March 18, 14
19. JavaScript introduces kids to the web and core programming concepts at the same time Why JavaScript? Tuesday, March 18, 14
20. JavaScript introduces kids to the web and core programming concepts at the same time without getting too complicated too quickly. Why JavaScript? Tuesday, March 18, 14
21. You start with a small scope and minimal tools Why JavaScript? Tuesday, March 18, 14
22. You start with a small scope and minimal tools increasing in complexity as each child learns. Why JavaScript? Tuesday, March 18, 14
23. Preparing for SkyNet: How to teach kids Tuesday, March 18, 14
24. Bring programming principles into daily life. Conditionals, arrays, data structures, loops. Tuesday, March 18, 14
25. Start small. Just vanilla JavaScript. Tuesday, March 18, 14
26. Age Factors Ability to type (accurately-ish). Patience! Spatial and logical reasoning. Tuesday, March 18, 14
27. Plan, plan, plan! Tuesday, March 18, 14
28. Set goals for your plans Tuesday, March 18, 14
29. Keep lessons short Tuesday, March 18, 14
30. Resources for teaching kids feministy.github.io/kids-js Liz Abinante @feministy eabinante@gmail.com Tuesday, March 18, 14