So my son decided that he wanted to learn how to write computer programs.

The short version of his reasons why involve Minecraft.  I introduced him to the game (mostly because of Will Richardson’s anecdote about his son’s learning in Why School) about two years ago, and he’s become a fanatic.  A good friend of his, whose father is a programmer of sorts, has started writing his own “mods,” and my son decided that he wanted to do that too.  He’s ten, by the way.  And he’s already a little competitive with this friend.

So he’s motivated.  He started with Java, and plowed his way through several dozen chapters from fat adult-level manuals.  He retained a few ideas, but it wasn’t an effective way for him to sit down and write a mod.

A few weeks ago, I found a course on Coursera, the big, free, college-level course website that has tons of classes about computers and programming that I’ve been hoping to get through at some point.  I decided that asking my son to try this would help motivate me to finish, and that it could be something we shared and discussed and helped each other with.

My son and I, then, signed up for Programming for Everybody.  I liked how open it was, how it – and the text – were free.  I liked Dr. Charles Severance, a nice mix of brilliance, openness, and a little bit of craziness.  (Just a little.)  I started the course, and before I knew it, I finished the first week.  My son finished the first week before me.  I started the second week, and it became a little competitive.  We’re now in the fourth week, and we’ve had a few conversations about coding.  He installed the Python translator on our computer, and he sometimes spends his carefully-controlled computer time (we give him about an hour a day on the computer, and sometimes about thirty minutes on our tablet, which has the Coursera app) writing programs in Python.  It started simple, with a program that could count.  Then, he started a “game” that asks questions and gives answers based on those responses.  At the time, I had no idea how he did it.  He asked me a question about a bug in his code, and I had to ask him questions to help solve it.

My son likes to play with the code on the computer, and he takes the lessons to his “game” and modifies it when he can.  I, on the other hand, sometimes prefer to go at my own pace.  I found myself trying to double or reinforce the learning through other sites, specifically Codecademy.  They have a series of Python lessons that have helped me strengthen my coding and understand things a bit better.

The problem for me, in the past, is that learning to code is a lot like learning another language.  (I’ve been working on learning Spanish for years.)  You can read the words on the screen, and you can answer some of the questions with the right response, but when you try to explain something to a parent in Spanish, or you want to respond to a student comment in Spanish, you can’t think of the way to say it.  (Or worse – you can only think of it on the car ride home.  Hate that.)  I’m trying to solve the problem of application by learning from multiple sources, hoping that this will strengthen my ability to transfer the skill to new circumstances.  My son, on the other hand, wants to play around with the code.  I think his system might work out better.  He has the advantage of time.  I might have decades of experience with learning, and more refined problem-solving skills, but I think he might beat me on this.  Especially since he’s only getting older and wiser, and I’m getting older and somewhat less wise.

I might have to cheat a bit, and sign up for a “real” class. . .