There is growing interest around the world in increasing the population's general exposure to and and abilities with computer programming. Among its many values, computer programming is the primary means by which the results of the information explosion of the last 30 years are becoming harvested and then elevated to further gain. This page identifies and analyzes some of the many efforts currently underway.
Does this interest in computer programming parallel in some way the social movement that led to teaching text and mathematics literacy to everyone through free public elementary schools in the 1800's in the United States?
Friedman, T. (2012, September 8). New Rules. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-new-rules.html
Finley, K. (2012, September 14). Estonia Reprograms First Graders as Web Coders. Wired.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/09/estonia-reprograms-first-graders-as-web-coders/
Rushkoff, D. & Purvis, L. (2010). Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. OR Books. http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/program/ Video by Rushkoff, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgicuytCkoY
Finley, K. (2012, August 15). Yes, Virginia, Regular Folks Can Be Taught to Code. Wired. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/a-code-literacy-success-story/
Nine-year old whiz-kid writes iPhone application. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/02/05/us-singapore-iphone-child-idUSTRE5140FI20090205
Norvig, P. (2001). Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years. http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Wilson C. & Baker, F. (2012, September 11). All Hands on Deck! Scaling K-12 Computer Science Education. http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/155159-all-hands-on-deck-scaling-k-12-computer-science-education/fulltext
Finley, K. (2012, May 26). Facebook Engineer Turns 5-Year-Olds Into Hackers. Wired. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/facebook-engineer-lauren-ipsum/
Finley, K. (2012, August 14). Coders Get Instant Gratification With Khan Academy Programming
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/khan-academy/
Code Hero, learn programming and gaming. http://primerlabs.com/codehero
Logo Programming. http://mckoss.com/logo/
Lego Mindstorms. http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx
Alice, teaches students computer programming in a 3D environment. http://www.alice.org
Kodu, create games on the PC and XBOX via a simple visual programming language. http://fuse.microsoft.com/page/kodu
MIT App Inventor which seems focused on programming for Android phones but may provide other options, http://appinventor.mit.edu
Scratch, programming language and instruction for all ages. http://scratch.mit.edu
Code Academy, online instant programming and execution of code http://www.codecademy.com/
Teaching Kids Programming teachingkidsprogramming.org/
Web Turtle, Bill Kendrick. http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/webturtle/
Overview of several programming approaches.
Rushkoff, D. & Purvis, L. (2010). Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. OR Books. http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/program/
Lauren Ipsum, a children's book. http://www.laurenipsum.org/sample