Kids Learning to Program Part 3
The new Kids Programming Language (KPL) looks pretty interesting to me. My son, who is ten, sat down with me to take a look at it and he thought it was "awesome." The IDE is freeware and along with the IDE download come a bunch of examples. All of the examples that I've seen provided include some graphics based component. With a few simple lines of code a beginner can make things happen rather simply on their computer screen. There is also a guide where the target audience is "Teachers" and it explains the intent of KPL very well.
What is Kid's Programming Language (KPL)?
- was created for teaching beginners how to program
- is a simplified but modern programming language and development environment
- offers lots of sample educational KPL programs and games
- emphasizes graphics, sprites, sounds and game development
- is designed to help a beginner 'graduate' to Visual Studio or eclipse
- can even generate C# or VB.NET code
The last bullet mentioned is probably the reason why "Microsoft has signed on to promote a new programming language intended to replace BASIC." KPL uses the Microsoft's CodeDOM namespace and programs written in it can be converted to VB.Net or C#. Also, since KPL is based on the .Net framework and can only run on a Windows platform, which makes an obvious why Microsoft chose it. It looks as though Microsoft's intention is not to replace C# or VB.Net with KPL but simple use it as a launch pad for young people who have never programmed before. Once a programmer wants to do more, with their newly found skills, they could easily progress to Microsoft's core development languages or move on to something else like Java 
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January 7th, 2007 at 9:57 am
A time ago I have came across with Baltie ( http://www.baltie.com ). He’s a small magican for teaching programming not by writing text-code but using images as commands. We have started using it in our school 3 years ago and we have a huge response – (see what my son has done http://www.sgp.cz/cz/video/4BaltiesMsg.wmv ).
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I say we should give kids lots of examples of how games are written that are sound and audio and visually interesting to them, so they’ll stay interested. Learning is best when learning is fun, that’s our most important reason for the game and sound approach.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Scratch, Alice, and Greenfoot is a good way to start
This article compares them
http://www.kidslike.info/computer_programming_educational_programming_languages
September 17th, 2009 at 4:22 am
From my previous ages, I have been trying to learn programming and finally i learned HTML, css, php from internet tutorials, it’s a bit difficult to learn programming from internet tutorials but, i finally did it.
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:57 am
our most important reason for the game and sound approach.
July 14th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Now this is a kind of tutorial that I was looking for. Though I am not a kid but I am fairly a new born to java. Thanks for these tutorials, its really very helpful and kind of you.
July 14th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
on thing i missed there is can you just give us some examples….of programs???
http://www.watchfreemoviesonlinedaily.com