Today 2 of my kids (13/rising 9th grader, 16/rising 11th grader) finished their first week of Operation Spark's 1 month summer code camp for teens in New Orleans: https://www.operationspark.org/programs/highschool
I'm super grateful to Operation Spark and organizations that support them for providing code camps for teens. Even as a software developer myself I've struggled to get my kids involved in coding, all my attempts fizzled out after a day or two because it was a struggle to keep the kids interested.
Apart from code camps, AI helps a lot too - a few weeks ago my son's friend, who was already experimenting with Claude and Netlify to build and host websites, got my son interested in doing the same. They built a few draft websites for local businesses that don't have one, then reached out to the business and asked to meet about building them a website. Only 1 meeting so far, but the business owner was super-friendly and supportive and happy to work with these young high-schoolers.
So now I'm curious to see where they take this. Also, since I wasn't successful on my other attempts, I'm not sure whether to just sit back and watch or (try to) give them a lot of advice. I'd love to hear from other parents and educators of young coders: how best do you foster love for creating/building/collaborating in kids/teens?
Also, any advice about getting them involved in community forums like this one? Are there any that are especially popular or suited to teens? (I assume all the usual caveats and warnings about social media apply, and kids/parents should take all the usual precautions they do on other platforms).
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