I’m Phyllis Wheeler, the Computer Lady from MotherboardBooks.com.
I am a veteran homeschooling mom who has helped many kids build a solid foundation of computer knowledge. I can help yours too.
Here’s the MotherboardBooks.com story:
I had been in the same position as you, worried that my kids would fall behind in computer skills. I was homeschooling and teaching in a homeschool co-op.
But I had something to offer in this field! I am a mechanical engineer who has taken a number of programming courses over the years. I worked as a programmer one summer in college. I decided to offer a computer course at our co-op, since I had the skills. (I am also a writer, and that helps too.)
The first thing I did was look for a computer curriculum to use. But there wasn’t one. I would have to invent one! Since I had to go to all the trouble to figure out what to teach, I decided to record what we were doing and share it with others who might also be stuck looking for the same thing.
But where to start? I chose to start with the Logo computer language, because my daughter had worked with it in school and had loved it. Logo programming isn’t dry mathematical code. It’s personalized instruction to the turtle.
I discovered that the key is creating fun projects for the kids to work on. This is something that’s very easy with the Logo computer language, created at MIT to teach reasoning to kids.