<p>LOL–why is the new technology so much easier for kids to learn? I’d like an app that is easier for “mature” adults to learn. Something that takes wisdom…but I’m not holding my breath!</p>
<p>btm- </p>
<p>When my D was around your S’s age she actually did what I suggested to you. She developed a web site for a charitable organization and maintained it for them until several years later she trained the charity person how to maintain it since my D at that point was about to go off to college. She also developed several other websites for others. Some of them (not the charitable one) even paid her to develop the sites. In the process she also became an expert on handling digital photos (since they were on the sites), learned not only the technical side but also from her interactions with these people, saw the good that can come of charitable orgs, and was able to indicate on apps her successes and community service involved in it. </p>
<p>I mostly just turned her loose with various apps and she figured it out just as she did with Word, powerpoint, and others (like your S). I’d help her every now and then if she had questions but she really didn’t need much (I’m in the software development business). </p>
<p>She’s now a Computer Science major at a university.</p>
<p>This isn’t exactly related to web-page design, or computer games, but if your son learns the basics of a programming language (he’d need to know Pascal, C, C++, or Java), there’s a whole contest called the USACO, USA Computing Olympiad that he might want to try. They have a whole bunch of contests throughout the year, and they have 4 levels, so there’s something for everyone. They don’t have any more contests for this school year though, but there’s still the training pages, which help A LOT in doing the contests.</p>
<p>But anyways, I’ve always thought of all this stuff as a lot of fun. All the information about it is at <a href=“http://www.usaco.org%5B/url%5D”>www.usaco.org</a></p>