code.org

Any other members of the CR4 community have kids who use this site? Are you familiar with other help-kids-to-code programs? Here's another innovative approach, not as easily deployed as a web site, but potentially more appealing to some youngsters.

Any of you who live in Atlanta or Chicago -- send in a review if you go to the exhibit. Supposed to open in Atlanta "early next year" -- I looked for a start date and didn't find one.

It seems like it could generally be more effective to teach a (technical) topic to pre-college-age students in a fun and entertaining way of ''if-you-do-this,-it-will-do-that'' kind of demonstration, without first telling them it's part of computer programming, calculus, etc.

It will seem less geeky to a greater number of students...

And then, more of them will start to ask such questions as, ''How did you do that?'' or ''But what is this really for?''

Then they can then be answered in a way that may not ''turn so many of them off'' right afterwards...

That way, you're answering their questions, and they're not just trying to endure your lecture...