Like Zach mentioned, Khan's CS is a great tool and they have a great team. Our approach is a bit different. Right from the beginning we start with "Karel the dog," which allows you to focus much more on problem solving than on syntax. The dog only knows four commands: move, turnLeft, putBall, and takeBall, so the world is greatly simplified. In this way we are really giving comments on how you take a big problem and break it down.
We've found that starting right with graphics (even though very fun to tinker with) is too large a barrier for many students, since there are too many new concepts at once.
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Like Zach mentioned, Khan's CS is a great tool and they have a great team. Our approach is a bit different. Right from the beginning we start with "Karel the dog," which allows you to focus much more on problem solving than on syntax. The dog only knows four commands: move, turnLeft, putBall, and takeBall, so the world is greatly simplified. In this way we are really giving comments on how you take a big problem and break it down.
We've found that starting right with graphics (even though very fun to tinker with) is too large a barrier for many students, since there are too many new concepts at once.