First, let's talk about the challenges faced by children. I believe that recently, everyone has had the opportunity to use ChatGPT. What do you think about it? Haha. Rather than saying it's the challenges faced by children, I believe that parents, including myself, are starting to worry about our own jobs. In just six months since its birth in November 2022, ChatGPT has made great strides and has become unstoppable. The wave of generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to sweep the technology industry, and the competition in the arms race surrounding large language models is getting more intense and escalating.
Quoting a passage from an online media source: "With the further development of AIGC technology, the mediocre mental labor of most of us becomes worthless and can only lead to unemployment... With the integration of ChatGPT, AI, and robots, the value of most of our physical labor will be lost... With the deep integration of AI and highly humanoid robots, the emotional value of each of us... will also be lost, and we will gradually become a useless class."
This is the environment in which our children are currently growing up. Children need to adapt to the rapidly changing technological environment, which requires them to have the ability to continuously learn and update themselves. Facing an increasingly automated future, children need to learn how to find their own value and meaning in a world where they coexist with machines. Our responsibility is to help children understand this new world, provide them with necessary knowledge and skills, and enable them to benefit from it rather than being troubled by it.
Dear parents, you must still remember the learning environment we had when we were young. I can still recall the scene of chasing after the teacher for questions after class in junior high school. I remember the moment when I got my first computer in college. It was a desktop with a CRT monitor. Now, the children of today have iPads, MacBooks, various online learning platforms, and with the addition of ChatGPT, they have an unprecedented learning experience. Children can communicate directly with people from anywhere in the world through remote education. Children can use programming and machine learning tools to create their own small programs or games, realizing their imagination and innovation. AI has also brought convenience to children's lives. For example, AI assistants can help children organize their daily lives and learning tasks, and AI translation tools can help them better understand and learn foreign languages. Don't our children call out to Alexa every day to answer various questions? Our task is to help them understand and master these technologies to fully utilize these opportunities.
When children acquire programming skills, they often experience a significant boost in self-confidence. Here are a few aspects to consider:
Bringing Ideas to Life: Programming skills empower children to turn their ideas into reality. They can build applications, games, websites, and more by writing code. When children see their ideas transform into tangible products, they feel proud and satisfied, which helps enhance their confidence in their abilities.
Problem-Solving Abilities: Programming requires children to learn how to analyze problems, seek solutions, and implement them. When they successfully solve a programming challenge or debug an error, they feel capable of overcoming difficulties. This process of repeated practice and achievement can strengthen their self-confidence and cultivate a positive attitude when facing challenges.
Independent Thinking and Creativity: Programming encourages children to think independently and explore new solutions. When they can independently design and implement a project, they realize they possess creativity and innovation abilities. This experience of autonomy helps them believe in their ideas and capabilities and have a higher self-assessment of their skills.
Community Recognition and Teamwork: Learning programming is an active community that provides children with opportunities to communicate and collaborate with other children. When children participate in programming teams, competitions, or showcase their projects, they receive recognition and appreciation from others. This affirmation and encouragement can boost their self-confidence and make them realize their value in the field of programming.
Pursuit of Self-Improvement: Programming is a field of continuous learning and progress. When children realize they can constantly improve themselves by learning new programming languages, frameworks, or technologies, they take pride in their growth and progress. This experience of continuous learning and self-improvement helps cultivate children's self-confidence and inspires their desire for growth and progress in other areas.
For example, even though a kid has just scratched the surface of programming, he has gone from finding websites interesting to saying, "I want to build a website like this." His self-confidence is overflowing.
Bringing all parents back to ChatGPT, we know that the CEO of ChatGPT, Sam Altman, reportedly started learning programming at the age of 8. Bill Gates began learning programming at 13. Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, also started learning programming in middle school and started his first company at the age of 16. These examples from successful individuals once again prove the significance of learning programming for children's future career development and personal growth. These individuals achieved their dreams and goals through programming skills and have set examples for our children.
Another important reason why we need to act quickly is well known to us: children often have a natural aptitude for language learning. They have the ability to rapidly absorb knowledge in language learning. They can quickly grasp new words, grammar rules, and ways of expression. Similarly, they can also quickly understand the basic concepts, syntax structures, and programming logic of computer languages. Children demonstrate strong logical and reasoning abilities in language learning. They can comprehend the logical structure, relationships, and contextual meanings within language. This ability can also be applied to learning computer languages, helping them understand the logic and algorithms in programming and solve programming problems.Of course, as children grow older, their sensitivity to language gradually diminishes.
According to Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000-Hour Rule" mentioned in his book "Outliers: The Story of Success," it generally takes about ten years of practice and continuous improvement in a particular field to achieve success and reach a high level. Therefore, if our children start learning programming at the age of eight and continue to learn and improve over the next ten years, they will reach a professional level at around 18 years old. That's when they are just entering their freshman year of college. And then, like many other children from different families, they can drop off from college and start their own businesses.
Let's discuss why starting with website development is a good idea. In fact, for most of us, the most common use of computers every day is browsing websites. The same goes for children, from school assignments to online classes at home, everything is done through websites. However, most people are not very familiar with the technical aspects of websites. It's like being familiar with a stranger. So starting with the web pages that children use every day is a great starting point.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the foundational language for building web pages. It is relatively simple and easy to learn, making it very suitable for beginners, including children. By learning HTML, children can learn how to create web pages and showcase their ideas and creativity. They can use HTML tags to define the structure, content, and style of the web page, such as headings, paragraphs, images, links, and more. Through their learning and practice, they will be able to build simple and interesting web pages, such as personal introduction pages, small game pages, or pages showcasing their portfolios.
Another aspect that surprises children is that they can share the web pages they create with their friends and share them with people around the world through the internet. They can upload the web pages to servers on the web or use online platforms so that others can access and view their creations. This opportunity to share globally will inspire children's creativity and boost their confidence.
Children can progress from learning HTML and CSS for simple static websites to dynamic websites that require more knowledge of JavaScript and databases. They can then gradually explore more advanced technical frameworks and different programming languages such as PHP, Python, and Java. Through the progressive learning of website development, children will grasp a complete knowledge system. After all, most of the businesses in major companies are based on websites.
Why was this club established? First, let me explain why I wanted to teach children myself. It all started when I enrolled my kids in several programming interest classes. Perhaps he didn't have the opportunity to join classes taught by renowned teachers, but after a week of learning Roblox game programming, I realized that what he learned was not only limited but also made him lose interest in it. So I started trying to teach my kids on my own, and then I started teaching the children of my friends as well. The results were very good—the children became much more proactive in their learning. My child even promoted it vigorously at school, and many parents came to me asking about the next course schedule.
However, I don't just want to teach children how to code or create websites. I want to build a platform to help children grow into future leaders who are creative, problem solvers, fast learners, and team players, rather than just becoming excellent workers. That's why I, along with a few partners, established the Unicoder STEAM KIDS Club, an educational club aimed at fostering creativity and exploration abilities in children. The Kids Club will be a membership-based organization, providing children with a sense of belonging. In addition to teaching programming, website development, and robotics competitions, the club also emphasizes developing children's practical skills, problem-solving abilities, and teamwork spirit.
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