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Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

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Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#161

Post by imhoguy »

alok-g wrote: post #24

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…

Exactly, start with basic but overlooked concepts.

Give them magnifying glass and ask to watch subpixels while playing with MS Paint color fill.

As 5th grader I learned electricity with some old book from my father's shelf which explained it with hydraulic analogy[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_analogy

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#162

Post by Moru »

the_watcher wrote: post #86
garrettr_ wrote: post #66

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…

This is such a good idea. Messing with a website is absolutely something I'd have done instead of the typing practice I was supposed to be doing in my (small town public) middle school "Computers" class.

Make sure they didn't do this in school already before you do, my 5'th grader was trying to show this to me yesterday :-)

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#163

Post by leksak »

I'd find Bret Victor's stuff interesting at that age and maybe the coding made by jtnimoy for Tron Legacy too. Anything from Siggraph. Cool dataviz. Or I don't know. Wireshark. But the comments in here that are question/answer driven are great depending on the group of kids.

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#164

Post by alanning »

bredren wrote: post #68
garrettr_ wrote: post #66

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…

The inspect element tool is actually a meme on TikTok, where the content creator changes some high priced luxury item (ie yeezyees) to a low price and improbably buys them. I’ve seen others where they change their “grade” in a class. I think this would go over well also.

I did this for a 4th grade class. We changed the teacher's profile pic on their class page to one of the kid's. Also displayed random emoji's next to the kids' names. They absolutely loved the emoji part and kept wanting me to refresh to see who got the poop emoji.

Demoing how to remix and change Scratch games also went over well.

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#165

Post by m23khan »

showcase a simple HTML page and explain some tags (real simple tags). Show how you can save / update and view results in the web browser.

This is really old school but effective way of showcasing both coding and providing a bit of 'wow' factor to the kids.

Avoid using HTML frameworks or advanced concepts such as nested divs, complex CSS etc. But a real simple 'hello world' javascript popup would be awesome!

Goal should be to explain to kids of whom 75% are probably not technically inclined to begin with.

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#166

Post by tetha »

ballenf wrote: post #28

Given their financial constraints, demonstrating to them how they could use a Raspberry Pi-level device to create a website or business accessible to people around the world might inspire. There's an unspoken dogma that without a $1000 phone and pricey Mac, you can't be a creator. Alternatively, demonstrate a very cheap Youtube or podcast production setup and show them how they could do a channel inexpensively. Commo…

>There's an unspoken dogma that without a $1000 phone and pricey Mac, you can't be a creator.

You just made me realize an interesting cultural shift. I distinctly recall how an old 386 or 486 wasn't good enough to run the cool games anymore. But it was good enough for QBASIC and turbo pascal. So I spent time tinkering on that system.

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#168

Post by cartercole »

garrettr_ wrote: post #66

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…

this is almost identical to how my dad got me writing HTML... i loved it

Re: Ask HN: I need ideas to impress fifth graders with technology

#170

Post by Corrado »

garrettr_ wrote: post #66

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…

My wife teaches 8th grade and I did something similar with her classes a couple of years ago. My example was pulling up a NASA twitter post and changing it to read "Mrs. BLAH is the best teacher in the universe!" (or something like that). They thought it was incredible and couldn't believe you could "hack" computers like that.

This type of thing is also a really good teaching moment; you can't always believe everything you see on the Internet or a screenshot.

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