Comment Re: want kids to learn the basics first (Score 1) 281
I do not know about you, but one of my main grumps while in school was the dry non-interactive way everything was taught.
Doing something where you use what you've learned in other classes to have something 'do' something was fun for me at least.
Middle-school in Norway has "Technology and Design" as a class. One thing they did was design a miniature house (think doll-house sized open-sided) where they built furniture and various 'innards'. As part of this design process they put in electric wiring and switches and designed lamps using LEDs. Soldering was part of this.
Another task was building a simple 'water spill sensor' which is a simple sensor using a transistor to switch a LED or buzzer on wire getting wet (wires woven into a piece of paper or cloth)
Students love that shit... It sounds fairly simple stuff but it is such a big break from just sitting at a desk staring at a wall trying to absorb a lesson and not succumb to boredom.
Lego NXTs are also part of this and simple programming gives quite a lot of understanding that can be used later in life.