81–90 of 246 posts
I volunteer for Black Girls Code, specifically the 9-11 year old age group, and the last thing I did that really blew their minds was build an Obby in Roblox. Almost all of them have watched youtubers go through them. Get one working, modify it, have a kid or two modify it on their own. https://www.roblox.com/create
When trying to demystify software engineering to kids, I love taking the approach of convincing kids that they’re smarter than a computer. Computers are dumb. Fast, but dumb. You’ve got to explain to them very carefully how to do anything. Like you’re teaching a 6 year old to bake a cake. Not exactly relevant but hope this sparks something. I wish I could do this sort of stuff more often.
I think rather than wowing them, I'd hope they'd walk away and be able to feel like "this is something I can do.." because unlike being an FBI agent, it's something they could start doing now. They could start using Glitch and be making stuff tonight. That's huge.
Software engineering has to do a lot with your mind space and knowledge of how each tool available can be used to make something in your head do a thing in a black box (to the general public it's a black box executing the code) and sometimes present a result to a user. I say avoid trying to teach them code at all cost and don't try to explain the black box. Also try to bring what you do into physical reality. Maybe a…
I was recently asked by a friend who teaches 5th graders to do something similar for their school's "career month." I tried a few different things, and found the most successful was showing them how to use a web browser's built-in developer tools to inspect the source of and make live modifications to web pages. My reasoning behind this exercise was: - I checked in with their teacher ahead of time and confirmed that…
Another big attraction was the liquid nitrogen we brought for our superconducting maglev demo. That no one cared too much about. Kids just wanted to see what they could destroy through low temperature.
I have held many such sessions for kids. Instead of showing them the latest and the greatest: - I point them to the technology already around them, in their daily use, that they see as too obvious by now. And then share stories of how all that had come about to be. Simple things like soap, door handles, stairs, pencils, clocks, ... - Ask them simple questions that they never asked. How does an eraser erase pencil mar…
Does technology have an answer for this?
Kudos to you and good luck. Please update your post with the final idea and let us know how it went :)
Then talk about how you're helping them by getting them addicted to technology early so that in adulthood they won't remember being sober.