[Edu-sig] Learning software for 10-13 year olds

[Guido van Rossum]

Excuse the slightly off-topic post.

My neighbor has asked me for some suggestions for educational software
for her two boys, 10 and 13.  She'd like them to get better computer
skills.  Quoting from her email:

> My older son just turned 13, and the younger is 10.  I find my own
> computer skills so inadequate for my needs, because of this I want
> my kids to come be very computer literate.
> 
> As I continued my search yesterday, I came across one program that
> seemed excellent but perhaps a little to young for my kids called
> Toon Talk.  I then stumbled onto a program that seemed perfect for
> me, called Macromedia Authorware. If they had a kid-oriented
> interface on it would be perfect. (One where you made a rocket blast
> off instead of a cloud move, as I learned to do yesterday.
> 
> I want my kids to learn some basic programming, programming language
> and website creation skills.  If any of your colleagues are familiar
> anything that can lead them through the process with interactive
> tutorials, that would be great.  It doesn't have to look like a
> video game or have talking animals, but it can't be filled with huge
> blocks of text to read either, because they won't bother. When I
> find what I'm looking for, I'll probably use it myself as well.  I
> desparately need to develop some of my own skills [...]

The restriction on huge blocks of text pretty much rules out any
Python tutorials I am aware of -- but maybe there are some that I'm
not aware of?

I vaguely recall thinking that Toon Talk was pretty good -- opinions?

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)