Surprising common points of ``children who are good at programming'' Children's thinking ability grows with the effort of parents to know

From April this year, programming education became compulsory at elementary schools. Programming classes are now ranked among the most popular lessons, and many parents are wondering what to do with their children. I am one of them.

In order to find hints for this, we interviewed children and their parents who were finalists in the Tech Kids Grand Prix, a programming competition for elementary school students held in Shibuya, Tokyo in early December. I see it.

An app I made to see my grandmother in the hospital

A voluntary basketball training app, a game to get rid of mosquitoes. Out of 2,189 submissions, the 10 finalists who won the preliminaries stand out for their desire to make things that feel inconvenient in life fun through programming. The total number of entries this year is 1.5 times that of last year. We can see the high level of interest.

Miyazaki Prefecture's Haruna Hirakawa (6th grade) was unable to visit her 83-year-old grandmother who was hospitalized due to the coronavirus. He wanted to somehow see and talk to her grandmother, so he created a communication app for tablets. For grandmothers who can't use smartphones, video calls can be connected simply by entering a simple password.

The app has a chat function. There is also a stamp function that expresses feelings so that even children who cannot read can use it. Mr. Hirakawa had infants and elderly people actually use it, and he listened to their requests and made improvements. Creating code for chatting is difficult, and it took 5 hours on weekdays and 10 hours on weekends.

Mr. Hirakawa, who announced on Zoom from Miyazaki Prefecture, said, ``My grandmother was able to attend my cousin's wedding using this app. I want you to use it,” and the audience applauded.

This competition, which is organized by CA Tech Kids, a CyberAgent group company, targets applications and games created by programming, and evaluates them based on their technical ability and vision. The prize money is set at 500,000 yen for 1st place and 300,000 yen for 2nd place.

Some people may think that the children who go to the finals are all children who have received a special education with money. However, this is not necessarily the case.

The winner, Akari Kawaguchi (4th grade) from Aichi Prefecture, encountered programming when she was 7 years old and fell in love with the world where her thoughts take shape. When I asked her father, Tetsuji (37), she said, "I have never spent money to go to a programming class. I watched NHK Educational TV's 'Why!? Programming' and went to CoderDojo. '' came the surprising answer. CoderDojo is a free programming school located all over Japan.