programming for kids

KPL or kids programming language looks like it might be something to check out. A way to introduce kids to the concepts involved.

Programming Literacy

Understanding ‘programming’ at least at the level of pseudocode and configuration, seems to be a life skill we’ll all need.  Why?  “I can’t get Outlook to display the date field” “I can’t get rid of that custom-menu feature in Office programs” “I spend all day cutting and pasting the same data back and forth, I wonder if a macro would make this easier”

So where to begin.  At work, programming, by non-IS folk is kind of frowned upon.  Installing languages like PERL or Python is simply not an option for me.  So I do this at home.  But for the novice non-IS programmer it’s nice to have some tools you can use at work. 

A few possibilites include Batch File programming, Microsoft VBA (VisualBasic for Applications, e.g. VBA in Excel), and JavaScript.