It's absolutely still worth teaching programming because someone needs to build those AI systems (or for that matter, build websites, make video games, create software). This book is about teaching kids to think like a programmer, showing them dozens of ways the same computer programming concepts (loops, conditionals, arrays, variables, etc) can be applied. In fact, the last chapter points out how Scratch translates into coding in other languages, showing a snippet of code from Scratch and the same code from JavaScript. I think the book is worth it because it explains. It's the difference between handing a math app to your child or having a teacher in front of the room leading the child through math assignments and explaining them along the way.
It sounds like a fun project for both kids to do together -- the older helping the younger one!
Debashish Chakrabarty wrote:Delighted to hear about this book. My elder son is 15 and younger is 7. I actually never tried to teach programming to my elder one (he is in 10th Standard in India and his school curriculum does applied aspects of Computers e.g. how to use MS Office Suite or MS Paint etc. They also covered Scratch but very basic, no projects work given). With my younger son I have now found that there are many web tools available, especially liked Kodable). My question is how will a print book help where online tool kits are now a days available and secondly is it worth teaching programming to kids now (given that AI would probably take away all the IT jobs, as I hear).