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Teaching Computer Programming to Underserved Kids
- danso 14y agoRelated: Black Girls Code http://www.blackgirlscode.com/ http://www.blackgirlscode.com/
- nicpottier 14y agoNot sure if it is by design, but their website starts echoing some underscore.js tidbits if you start hammering on the keyboard: http://scriptednyc.org/ http://scriptednyc.org/ Word.
- esmooov 14y agoHaha. I'm happy someone saw that. I wish I could say that it had something to do with my theory of Social Catamorphism, folding our disparate talents into a better future, or something. Unfortunately, no such theory exists, and I just picked a piece of code that I enjoy and looks attractive.
- aaronharnly 14y agoNeat! I donated. This semester I've been volunteering to teach middle-school students how to "program a game!" with the very wonderful Citizen Schools program[1]. We've been developing a curriculum that takes elements from the Bootstrap curriculum[2], using the Khan Academy CS environment[3]. (Yes, we've been following the back-and-forth with Bret Victor carefully.) It's been challenging, but very rewarding, and I hope other engineers take seriously their obligation to apply some of their good fortune and education for the benefit of others. [1] http://www.citizenschools.org/ http://www.citizenschools.org/ [2] http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ [3] http://www.khanacademy.org/cs http://www.khanacademy.org/cs
- esmooov 14y agoThat's really excellent. It's funny, although not entirely surprising, but we have also been using parts of Khan and Bret Victor. The students seemed to really enjoy the sandbox of Khan as a starter to what is possible with code. Repl.it was a big help as well. The hard/fun part is transitioning between the experimenting and learning with these out-of-the-box tools to experimenting and learning by actually making your own stuff. I - and I'm sure the other ScriptEd folks - would love to hear more about your experience (scriptednyc@gmail.com).
- charleshaanel 14y agoMad props for your work...
- shicky 14y agoanything like this in London or Belfast?
- tomblomfield 14y agowww.codeclub.org.uk I signed up a few weeks ago and visited my local primary school for the first time this afternoon. 9-11 year olds are smaller than I remember.
- gloryless 14y agoI misread the title as teaching CS to "Undeserving Kids." I thought, that's a little strange, but I wanna see how these little shits are getting some CS knowledge. But, the real idea is a good one.
- bjhoops1 14y agoHaha I read the exact same thing. Damn kids... don't deserve to learn recursion.
- wcarss 14y agoI've been working with a group of volunteers from Freshbooks to teach to middle-school kids at the Yonge Street Mission here in Toronto. We're into our second class now - we've made some real life games to introduce concepts and have moved into using MIT's Scratch. I've been thinking a lot about where to go next - great to hear about extra resources and that other people are doing similar stuff!
- wetbrain 14y agoAnything like this in SF/Bay? I feel like there should be...
- EricDeb 14y agoOne thing that does concern me about these types of programs is trying to teach kids who are too young, inadvertently causing them to conclude "programming is too hard" and give up. I consider myself of average intelligence and I struggled with programming in high school. It was only because of my obstinate nature and love of computers in general that I kept pursuing it in college.