My kid taught himself to make apps from YouTube videos by various profs, esp. a guy at NYU I believe it was. You can watch these over and over until you get it. For very specific questions for particular coding languages or app issues he went to online forums for the several different programming codes he had to use.

(Apparently those user forums were quite an adventure for a 12-year-old, and we didn't know he was on them until after the fact, but oh well. It started with the people correcting his spelling and went downhill from there, but he did get answers to his questions and has apps at the Apple Store.)

I think you can also get programs that let you make apps out of the box, as it were. But my guy is into the coding.

This week is computer science education week, and there are TONS of resources at http://www.code.org/learn

Kahn academy's videos on programming are a pretty intense for 8y.o. I would stick with the other above suggestions for more "fun" learning.

Anonymous wrote:Apps: tynker, tinkerbox, cargo bot, codea

and Codeacademy

I bet Kahn Academy would have videos as well as YouTube.

Apps: tynker, tinkerbox, cargo bot, codea

Thanks for the ideas!

My son does a lot of Scratch and also has been on Code Academy. Today at school they signed up for Code Combat and he loved it--I haven't looked at it yet though. I think you earn badges or something as you progress.

code.org has links to tons of resources for all ages.

I did scratch.mit.edu with my elementary students. The kids that were into that stuff loved it.

Code.org should have a lot of resources for different levels.

DS is interested in learning to code, I think because he likes Minecraft and wants to explore mod creation. Can anyone recommend websites or iPad apps they have found useful for their kids? Thanks!