Swift Playgrounds is an app developed by Apple for iPad and Mac that makes learning Swift programming language and fun. It requires no coding knowledge, so it is perfect for kids just starting out.
With Scratch kids can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations. Then they can share their creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps kids learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. All of these are essential skills for life in the 21st century.
Alice is an innovative block based programming environment that makes it easy to create animations, build interactive narratives, or program basic games in 3D. Alice motivates kids to learn through creative exploration.
Blockly is one of Google’s projects. It is a way to visually program using interlocking blocks. It is being used by hundreds of projects and most of them are educational.
Small Basic is the only programming language created specially to help students transition from block based coding to text based coding. Small Basic can be used by kids to build applications for Kinect, Lego Mindstorm, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Oculus Rift.
Lua is a powerful, efficient, lightweight, embeddable scripting language. Lua is one of the the simplest programming languages to learn and can be learned in a fun way through games. It is suited for kids and beginners.
Python is great for beginners and is one of the easiest coding languages to learn. It uses simplified syntax, and requires fewer lines of code to get up and running. Even beginners can start creating pretty quickly.
We mentioned Java because it is used by most large businesses. It is also one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. We must also note that it is not the easiest to learn, especially for beginners. However, it is great for older kids that want to take their coding skills to the next level.