[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

[Miles Fidelman]

Lloyd R. Prentice wrote:
> Hi Torben,
>
> +1 for for teaching Erlang to kids.
>
> Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was founding editor/publisher 
> of Classroom Computer News, the first magazine in the U.S. devoted 
> exclusively to instructional computer applications in K-12 classrooms. 
> Subsequently I founded a company largely devoted to development of 
> educational and consumer software for major publishers. We developed 
> over 100 products ranging from Pockets the Learn and Do Kangaroo for 
> pre-school youngsters to Algebra I for the high school set to The 
> Scarsdale Medical Diet for obese adults for publishers ranging from 
> Bantam to World Book.
>
> I bore you with this to make several points:
>
> 1) Don't underestimate what properly motivated kids can learn--- 
> they're hard-wired to learn
> 2) Don't underestimate intrinsic curiosity as a motivator--- at least 
> until it's squelched by repressive pedagogy
> 3) Create exploration environments to leverage intrinsic curiosity
> 4) Break the learning tasks into single key concepts that rest 100 
> percent on what the youngster already knows so concepts build one upon 
> another
> 5) Keep it playful and fun
> 6) Tie the concepts into real-world (the child's world) issues and 
> concerns
> 7) Challenge the youngster, but make success attainable
> 8) Reward success
> 9) Empower the youngster with demonstrable knowledge and skills that 
> matter from the kid's perspective
>

Good points all.

Re. motivation: Robotics is big right now - particularly in the context 
of Lego Mindstorms and then the FIRST Robotics competitions.  Erlang, as 
a language for robot behaviors (subsumption architecture) and 
cooperating robots, might be really cool.

Miles Fidelman



-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra