Baic HTML and Javascript: Teaching Computer Programming To Kids: Lesson 2

After dinner, Cate asked if we can continue to learn about computer programming. I told her I would love nothing more.

I told her that I will teach her HTML, Hypertext Markup Language and Javascript. HTML is what designers use to control how a page looks like in Firefox. Javascipt let the programmer add interactivity.

I show her a bit of HTML source code and open and close tags. Some sample tags like <b> and <font> and the tag to start telling the computer that we are about to start writing javascript

So we reviewed the few simple reserved words like

var

To declare a variavble


while

A loop that stops when an expression is false. 0, false or null is false, anything else is true.


for(initiator, conditional; increment)

A loop with an initiator, conditional and increment


new

To create a new object. An object has state and methods or actions.


wondow.alert

To display a message to the programmer or user

We added tonight


int

To declare an integer which is a non-decimal. So 2, 8, 66 are integers while 9.6 is not.


if ... then...

Conditionals that will only do something if an expression is true

We then talked about ++ and += and went throaugh examples like


var x=2
x ++
window.alert(x)


I found a small tutorial on the window object.
we looked at and played with an example

window.alert()
Used to display a simple message

wndow.confirm()
Used to ask for a yes or no type of answer.


Then at night she wanted me to review what we learned. As she was falling asleep, I talked with her about the syntax of the Javascript keywords, talked about how we can build loops using for, and 5 minutes later she was asleep.
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This is a series that documents my daughter’s curiosity to learn about computer programming
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