Teaching Computer Programming to Underserved Kids

Teaching Computer Programming to Underserved Kids(indiegogo.com)

49 points by esmooov 13 years ago | 13 comments

nicpottier 13 years ago |

Not 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/

Word.

esmooov 13 years ago | |

Haha. 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.

danso 13 years ago |

Related: Black Girls Code http://www.blackgirlscode.com/

aaronharnly 13 years ago |

Neat! 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/

[2] http://www.bootstrapworld.org/

[3] http://www.khanacademy.org/cs

esmooov 13 years ago | |

That'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 13 years ago | |

Mad props for your work...

gloryless 13 years ago |

I 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 13 years ago | |

Haha I read the exact same thing. Damn kids... don't deserve to learn recursion.

EricDeb 13 years ago |

One 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.

wcarss 13 years ago |

I'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 13 years ago |

Anything like this in SF/Bay? I feel like there should be...

shicky 13 years ago |

anything like this in London or Belfast?

tomblomfield 13 years ago | |

www.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.