Software Engineering in School
When should children study programming in school? How to involve them in IT projects? What are the benefits of technical education? The following article answers these and some related questions.
When To Start?
Children start learning early, at age 3 to 5 years. First, they learn a lot of basic stuff: language, letters, numbers, history, geography, etc. Then they are starting to take classes where they have to use fundamental knowledge to learn some derivative or relevant subjects: geometry, physics, chemistry. Finally, they learn how to use these skills in real life.
The best time to start learning programming (or computer science in general) is the middle of the second phase. Children already know standard mathematical operations and how to apply them. Programming is just another way to use them. However, they can try to build something new and immediately see the results — that is the most exciting part!
Many children start using computers for playing games to try to write a simple game as the first exercise. Others may want to automate some typical actions (copy files, send emails), which may be another promising area to test their skills.
Personal Projects
It is one of the best ways to motivate children to write some program or build software. Such a project should demonstrate how to use some technology and solve a problem. And, of course, there should be a proper reward, like passing an exam or something similar.
The teacher has to explain what these projects can give children and how they can use these projects in the future. The teacher also has to offer his support, share experience and best practices to build such projects. If a school already has some long-lasting projects, newcomers may help improve the existing projects instead of developing new ones.
The project has to be small enough to be built in several weeks but simultaneously produce some visible results so that children can demonstrate them. Ideally, the project also should solve some real-life problems, but it is usually optional.
Future Career
Such practical exercises and personal projects can be the first step in a professional career. They can make a separate chapter in the CV and show that the person is interested in what he (or she) is doing.
The next advantage is that a person can learn not only programming basics studied at every university. He (or she) may also try to use design patterns and build a proper architecture, even if it will be just a first experience in that area. Some may also try to involve simplified software development practices like agile to organize the work. That can also be an introduction to project management.
Overall, all these things can be a great pleasure for people interested in programming and software engineering. They can also teach a person many things, give the possibility to improve many skills that may be useful in the future and build an excellent foundation for the future career.