Savings Goals: Caddle team member Brian

Learning about technology

If you’re a technology enthusiast or programmer, you likely have a list of gadgets and goodies on your wishlist. From games to hardware, there are always exciting new developments to discover.

Brian Cline, our chief technology officer at Caddle as well as a software developer and technologist, has always been interested in tinkering with the latest and greatest in electronics, including educational toys for his young children.

“As a father to four, I’m very interested in educational toys that would assist me in teaching my sons or daughters how to program computers,” he said.

I believe that programming computers will be a required skill for the next generations. There (are) a variety of toys and books available for teaching kids to code which vary from small board games all the way to small computers and websites.

Games to learn Code

Specifically, Kodable, a software as a service platform that offers more than 160 levels of easy-to-follow lessons that help educators teach their students to code.

The company makes “some really good games for teaching children about programming logic and (how to think) like a computer.”

Kodable uses a slightly modified version of JavaScript (ECMAScript).

“Games are really easy for somebody that has programming experience, have absolutely no violence and aren’t scary at all. The educational value is just plain fantastic,” said Brian.  He’s been looking into buying several Raspberry Pis (a credit-card sized computer that allows people of all ages to explore computing and to learn how to use programming languages like Scratch and Python), which cost about $100 each – ideal for Brian’s sons, who are avid fans of Minecraft.

He also hopes to invest in programmable Lego Mindstorms robots, which are “very expensive, so I better get back to redeeming more offers!”

Tip: If you’ve got a kid in your life who’s interested in programming, are many free and affordable toys, resources and websites for you to discover together. For starters, see 10 resources to teach your kid to code and Coding for kids: free and cheap websites that teach kids programming.