Learn Programming On An Xbox

Lots of kids will gladly spend hours on their Xboxes, my own child included. He loves the environments of 3D games, and has expressed the desire to create his own. But existing PC-based 2D game creation environments do not hold his interest, he demands results that match the immersiveness of his favorite titles, and that can be played on his game console.

Brady Forrest from O'Reilly Radar posts about Kodu (nee Boku), a project from Microsoft Research that has been around for a couple of years, but appears to be almost ready for action. It looks like it is a very exciting, and innovative way for kids to create their own games using a visual "programming language" on their Xbox. They can also exchange games with each other.

Kodu looks very exciting, and we will definitely be getting it once it is available.

Teach Kids Programming And Save The World?

Startup blogger and uber-nerd Eric Ries has a heartfelt, and articulate plea to the Obama administration called "Teach Kids Programming, Mr. President".

It is a long post, but very well worth the reading. Here are a few excerpts, that may whet your appetite for the rest:

1. The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs.

2. We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. They are in school, right now, all across this country.

3. They are nerds.

There's more good stuff... lots more:

There are three threats that are limiting the opportunity to unlock these kids' creativity:

1. Inequity of access. Too many kids today don't have access to computers, cell phones, video games or other programmable devices.

2. DRM and other restrictions. Increasingly, today's computers and video games are not programmable, they are locked to their users.

3. School hostility to phones, nerds, and other things they don't understand. An awful lot of kids have cell phones, and schools are busy banning them from classrooms. What a lost opportunity! Kids are voluntarily bringing a portable networked supercomputer to class, and we want to restrict them to pencil and paper?

This is an important time for us to use this time of launching grand new initiatives, to invest in our most important resource: our kids. Eric has some interesting thoughts, they are worth a look.

The Fundamental Little Hackers' Summit

I just read about a really great looking micro-conference called Art and Code that will be taking place in Pittsburgh on March 7th to 9th. One of the confirmed presenters will be the always entertaining why the lucky stiff. Too bad it is on the other side of the country... otherwise I would go for sure!

It appears that it will be a really cool event, created for "artists, young people, and the rest of us" to learn about programming. Some of the projects that will be featured, include Processing, Scratch, Alice, and one of my personal favorites Hackety Hack. In the upcoming months, I will be playing around with each of these with my 10-year-old son, and I will blog about our experiences.

Young Hackers, unite! You have nothing to lose, cause you're kids, remember? Have some fun...