This Rad App Teaches Kids to Code
Go ahead and let those other kids just play games on their parents tablets and devices, while your kid gets busy creating those games. A new Kickstarter project aims to make your kid the game maker, not just the player. Tickle wants to present your kids with an iPad app that teaches them to code early and easily.
The project promises to make programming as simple as playing with LEGOs by bringing a block-based programming language to the iPad. It relies on the previously developed tools of Scratch, an MIT Media Lab project, which helps young people create interactive games and animations. Tickle brings that technology to an iPad app so kids across the globe can learn to program for free.
Tickle getting backed could mean a new generation of girl programmers making all kinds of exciting products and applications. Tickle isn’t the first method to put coding skills in the hands of kiddies (or adults). But while Google invests $50 million on encouraging girls to code, Tickle has an easier way. The addicting code-learning platform aims to please with a drag-and-drop method that can lead to great things on and off the screen.
In addition to creating code geniuses who can learn to write amazing games and apps, the skills transfer to other intelligence, like flying air drones and controlling smart homes. Toy Fair 2014 revealed play things going in a more technologically advanced direction, so it’s no surprise to see tech-savvy toddlers becoming the norm.
Do your kids know how to code? Is it a skill you wish you would have picked up when you were young?
