Camille McCue

Coding, or computer programming, is your way of communicating with technology. It’s the new literacy you need to master to be successful in the coming decades. Like any form of communication, coding takes place through language. Just as there are many human languages (English, French, Mandarin, Spanish, and so on), there are many coding languages!

When coding, it’s important to teach kids the basics of setting and finding position. Setting the position of an object means assigning it coordinates to put it in a specific place onscreen. Finding the position of an object means identifying its coordinates to know where it’s located. Using pseudocode While each programming language uses its own structure for setting and finding coordinates, a typical pseudocode expression you may write to set the position of an object looks like this: setx x-coordinate sety y-coordinate Or setposition (x-coordinate, y-coordinate) To find the current position of an object, you can write pseudocode for each separate coordinate: x-position for the x-coordinate of the object, and y-position for the y-coordinate of the object.

Coding is fast becoming a skill that every child needs to be educated for in the 21st Century. But coding is taught at only a small fraction of schools, and often only at the high school level. Helping kids learn how to code also means you’re assisting them in developing a skill that is highly marketable and sets them apart from peers at school and later, in their careers.

After you and your young coder finish making your app, you can share it with anyone who has an Android device. Just go to your list of Projects (Projects  →   My Projects), check the box next to the app you want to publish, and click Publish to Gallery. The view from the Projects list to publish your app to the Gallery.

If your young coder wants to try apps, give the MIT App Inventor a try. To get started with MIT App Inventor, you need a Google account. Then follow these steps to set up your programming environment: Go to MIT App Inventor and click Create Apps in the top-right corner of the webpage. Sign in with your Google account.

It’s easy for kids to make semantic errors when they’re first learning to code. Unlike syntax errors, semantic errors are often more difficult to capture. This is because semantic errors are typically errors in the programming logic, rather than something that you typed incorrectly. Here, you find a couple of examples of semantic errors that you and your young coder might encounter in a few different programming languages.

When you and your young coder are trying to debug, sometimes no error messages give you insight into the problem. Here, you find a list of strategies for debugging programs where you don’t get an error message, or the error message doesn’t give you enough information. Turning sections on and off One of the best ways to debug is to disable sections of code so that you have small sections to test.