41–50 of 246 posts
Google Teachable Machine is fun for kids of that age. You can for example have the kids train Google to learn what pictures of dabbing are. https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/
Teach them about persistent web tracking, clearing cookies, adblocking and the like and to use Firefox rather than chrome.
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
obby means "obstacle course"
Kinda weird how a computer chip is 'just' a rock (molten sand) scared into calculating stuff for us by flashing it with bright lights and nasty chemicals. (OK, glossing over some minor details)
Cloud platforms, microservices, and B2B messaging applications are boring to kids, but kids love robots. So showcase something that can move, interact, and be programmed. It can be built out of Lego, or something premade like a drone or Robosapien that's been hacked to be controlled by a Raspberry Pi using Python or whatever. Set it up so that you can "live-code" and take input from kids as to what to make the robot do.
But if you can, do something with a robot. Robots are more inherently, immediately exciting than just about any other computer application, even video games -- even to adults. I spent four years working at well below market rates at a robotics company just to have the opportunity to mess with and program cool hardware.
I've done an interactive "do you know how many types of engineers there are?" for this age group that's worked really well. Timeframe: 5-15 minutes "Can anyone name a type of engineer?" and for each shoutout, talk a little about what each does. The guessing keeps everyone's attention. Types: software/computer, electrical, mechanical, chemical, environmental, civil, nuclear, aeronautical, etc. Bonus: bring 2-3 props (…
All my explanations would be the "realistic" but kinda sarcastic answers.
Computer Engineer - Copy's pastes code until it works.
Rocket Scientists - Spend 50% of the time designing rockets, and 50% of their time hoping the rocket doesn't explode.
Locomotive Engineer - Whoops this isn't a real engineer! /s /s
Or show them some SpaceX stuff with landings or how MSL/Curiosity landed on Mars, that kind of stuff.
For everyone else(and you), what I just finished writing up is a course designed around taking technology back to basics.
Literally the first lesson is LED's , wires and batteries using cardboard as a breadboard.
My difficulties are slightly different than yours, as I need to keep English as a major goal of this, and I only have 12 weeks for each rotation of the course.
But if you want, I'll drop you my course notes, and respond here to any questions if this interests you (Note it's quite late here in Japan, so there will be a bit of a delay in responses).
Try the thing where you turn your calculator upside down and it says "HELL".