By: For anyone that has ever been around kids learning to code, you will often notice that they absolutely love it. Whether it is a daily or weekly class, kids will look forward to the next time there is an opportunity to build with technology. So, what is it about technology that kids love so much?
1. Kids love to build their own coding projects
Often you will see kids drawing on a piece of paper or building with blocks. With coding, kids have a digital canvas that enables them to bring to life their own creations. And, unlike a drawing or tower in the living room, kids can often share what they built to a much wider audience and gain feedback in lots of different online communities. The opportunity to build and share with others is one of the most beneficial ways that kids get a sense of how they are progressing on their technology journey.
2. Kids love to express their creativity
From time to time, it can be difficult for kids to showcase their creativity. Once they have a solid foundation in building with technology, they can demonstrate how creative they are within a digital environment. For kids that are digital natives, it is really a great opportunity to show what they know and they love it.
3. Kids love to remake projects
When I was in high school, we used to utilize our graphing calculators to make programs. One of my crowning achievements was making a miniaturized version of Jeopardy. Usually, we would share this with our group. This sharing enabled my friends to take the program to the next level. This generation is no different. While there are a wide variety of platforms that they can use for coding, the desire to take what someone has built and make it your own will never go away.
4. Kids love the challenge of learning to code
While we might think that the current generation doesn’t love challenges, nothing could be further from the truth. Often students will wrestle with a coding issue until they can figure out how to resolve it. They don’t want to be fed the answer. And, they don’t want to have someone else do it for them. Instead, they want to go through the self-discovery process to really understand how to code at a foundational level.
5. Kids love problem solving with technology
Technology has been in and around kids lives since birth. Due to this omnipresence, they often want to show their parents and each other that they have an abundance of modern day knowledge. Since coding is most often used to problem solve, they are happy to show that they understand how best to utilize technology. While there are often varying levels of capabilities, once they grasp this insight, you will often see an elegance in how they implement solutions.
Conclusion
As we can see, there are great reason why kids love coding. While they may get frustrated from time to time in their journey, once they are able to overcome that they usually have increased their appreciation for learning to build with technology.