[ExI] Open source programs to get more kids to code

[BillK]

This article reviews sites that encourage kids to play and learn to
code at the same time.
<http://opensource.com/education/13/9/how-get-more-kids-code>

Sample quote:
Next up was Alice meant for kids ages 8 and up. This site uses a story
telling type of learning to program. For some reason boys don’t seem
to like Alice very much (they’re not really sure why since the kids
can use aliens and spaceships in their stories). Using Alice you can
drag and drop objects in to your scene/story and when you do it pops
up windows where you enter properties for the items. Once you have
your scene set up you can edit the code by clicking on the object
(your alien for example), but the edit screen is not your standard
'code' view, instead it’s friendly to kids by giving them pull down
menus of actions.

Greenfoot is meant for slightly older kids (12+), but works similarly
to Alice. The code editor in this shows you the Java with a bit of
color coding (unlike the other tools that showed code in easy to use
bubbles). Greenfoot is actually just a visual interface on top of
BlueJ.
and so on..........................


BillK