I recently watched Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" (http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/) where he promoted Alice (http://www.alice.org/) as a tool for teaching kids to code. I downloaded it and played with it, and it looked pretty good. Like logo, it makes programming more fun by giving you immediate visual feedback. Like the "If this, then that" thing the article liked, it promotes the idea that programming is a lot like storytelling; the entities do what you say they do, nothing more, nothing less.
I found in it the potential for excitement that I found when I recently looked at the demo programmer live coding at http://iquilezles.org/live/index.htm
The live OpenGL editor he uses for immediate feedback made me figure out how to get an OpenGL triangle rendered on my laptop right quick. I can imagine that having storytelling control over 3d characters could do the same for kids.
I found in it the potential for excitement that I found when I recently looked at the demo programmer live coding at http://iquilezles.org/live/index.htm
The live OpenGL editor he uses for immediate feedback made me figure out how to get an OpenGL triangle rendered on my laptop right quick. I can imagine that having storytelling control over 3d characters could do the same for kids.