2019-07-09 01:42:09

I have a 10 year old blind sibling who's expressed interest in code, but knowing nothing about code I have no idea how to present it or what resources there might be for children to learn the very basics.
Does anyone know of anything? This is a 10 year old, so I don't expect that a 50 page manual will go very far, but I really would like to encourage the interest.

2019-07-09 03:34:06

I really don't know, but I'd start out with something simple like maybe php, which isn't a game, but it's a small bit of code at least.

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"There is beauty in simplicity."

2019-07-09 03:46:49 (edited by magurp244 2019-07-09 03:50:41)

Most schools and early learning seem to focus on things like coding games such as light bot that teach the fundamentals of programming logic, in combination with more simplified languages like Scratch, Swift, or Blocky. Unfortunately, most of those aren't accessible. The good news though is that a close second on that list is Python, which comes standard with Raspberry Pi's and childrens learning kits. The bad news is that many childrens learning guides may focus more on the visual and gaming aspects of python, which may not be entirely accessible either.

There are a number of free books available, but it may be best to avoid some of the more complex ones and keep things simple and engaging, at least at first.

Some free books include:

[Snake Wrangling For Kids] - written for children 8 or older
[Dive Into Python]
[The Python Practice Book]

There's also a selection of other books you can read online [here].

Be warned that some of these books, such as Snake Wrangling for Kids do have chapters later on that focus on graphics programming using Turtle and other libraries. You may want to skip some or all of those chapters or focus on a more geometry based approach to working with them. Also none of these books focus on the more audio based forms of development commonly used in audio games.

Starting off they should focus on the fundamentals of the language with some of the beginner books, loops, variables, if/else, math operations, functions, and classes. After that they can start moving towards libraries like Pyglet or Pygame for creating windows, basic audio, key and mouse input, etc. A few key resources you may want to introduce them to would be Tolk for screen reader support, and some OpenAL Examples I have available for more advanced audio. Tolk has been experiencing some issues with its main download, but I have a backup copy [here] with a working example of it in use [here], and you can find my OpenAL Python examples [here], which include 3D positional audio, Effects, Filters, HRTF, and Recording.

If they have any questions or problems, feel free to drop a question here and we'll try and help out as best we can.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2019-07-09 14:31:04

Totally blind, or just mostly blind? There was this thing called Toontalk in the 90s / early 0s, designed to teach children coding, with some low vision features like high contrast graphics and TTS, but it's not really accessible without some usable vision.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2019-07-09 19:02:31

Try HTML at first, it's not a game, and not dynamic, so it's easy to learn.

2019-07-09 19:09:36

HTML can be dynamic but I get where your going. Teach basic HTML, then move onto JS. JS makes HTML awesome. smile

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-07-09 19:21:53

I really liked Frontpage 2000 for learning HTML, since I could just make something, then switch to the HTML view to see how it's coded, then make changes and see the results in the webview, etc. Dunno how that works these days, since the code that MS office generates has grown increasingly complicated since then.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2019-07-14 22:48:46

He's completely blind, and is mostly interested because the school is doing a program building project, but using a very visual tool, the kind where you drag and drop.
I know nothing about programming, so legitimately have no idea where to start with any of this, but I'll see if I can muddle my way through. All the help is appreciated.

2019-07-14 22:52:16

Omg I hate "visual programming". It (IMO) takes the hole fun out of it and eliminates all the other epic things that come along with it.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-07-15 09:25:40

LOL, here is what you are looking for:
Quorum Hour of Code for Children. Quorum is an inclusive programming language that was built with novice screen reader user coders in mind, but has full graphics support for building games and apps. They have a web coding environment, so you don't need to install anything to start.

Swift Playground for IPad has games built for kids that teach programming skills. The app is completely accessible with Voice Over, and is built for both sighted and blind kids to use.

If the teacher is running a programming class in the U.S. and it is in a public K-12 institution, then they are required by law to make the content accessible to the child. The best way for them to do that, is to use either of the above two resources, which have the advantage of being accessible, but are also built for sighted kids to have lots of fun.

2019-07-16 23:59:51

Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, this isn't a US class, and the teacher has no such obligation so doesn't bother, but that's a story for another time.