I am putting a presentation together. I thought about illustrating with websites like Facebook, and MySpace.
Does anyone have children around that age that could tell me what they are into? How to hold their attention? Ways to illustrate what we do? Get them interested?
Your ideas are greatly appreciated, I really want to be able to convey how fun this is :).
I don't have access to a digital projector... which really stinks. I do have access to an old transparency overhead, though.
Sara,
You might want to take a look at this earlier Stack Overflow post: Career Day: how do I make computer programming sound cool to 8 year olds
--Anne
A frame shaped like Microsoft Messenger, with a video conversation open, might be a good illustration of "what they are into" ;)
They keep making faces in front of the webcam, and typing like crazy on the keyboard.
The girls may still be into WebKinz. Hateful little stuffed animals, but extremely popular at that age and younger. The boys will probably have grown out of those by now.
But both groups are probably into gaming, especially consoles like xbox and wii. My son is 7 and his friends (7 & 8) all either have a wii or know someone that does.
You might want to see this question also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20059/suggestions-on-starting-a-child-programming#20071
Find some interesting stories and give high-level descriptions of things. Things like this: http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/compendium/index.html
or anything else that a first-year SE prof would use to terrify their class into actually testing their code. Just give them examples that are interesting and fun.
how about the interface hall of shame? Take their examples, print them onto sheets for the projector, and show them the kinds of screw-ups some programmers make, and then compare to the interface hall of fame.
I'd say you should teach them some simple programming. Age 10 is about when my teacher taught the class Logo. Those were some of the most fun classes I can remember throughout my education. It's also really simple to teach them how to make interesting designs (various tessellations, etc). I haven't looked, but there must be a free Logo interpreter somewhere on the internet. Then you could bring a few computers with you and have them try it out.
I used to volunteer with a group that would go to elementary schools and help the kids build LEGO Mindstorm robots, which they would later use to compete against other schools and groups. The LEGO Mindstorms was a fun introduction to programming because the kids got to build their robot hands-on with LEGOs, and then program the coordination between sensors and movement via a patch-like programming environment.
This might be a fun introduction, if you can get your hands on a set.
When I was in 8th grade, my dad came in to my math class and talked about how computers work (I was already a hardcore assembly programmer at that point). One demonstration that he did which I thought was cool and had the class fairly riveted was that he picked a kid out who looked jockish and gave him a pair of pliers and a transistor and said, "you look pretty strong - see if you can crack this open but not crush it." Then he passed around the broken transistor talking about how many transistors make up memory (you can start with an inverter or a nand gate or a flip flop or even a byte). If you want to bring it home, have 16 kids stand up - that's a byte. How many kids are in the school (ask the office to get the number)? That's kids/16 bytes. Hold up a thumbdrive (or an iPod). How many kids are in this (n bytes * 16)? What's the population of the US?
Basically scale up - one 4G thumbdrive has more transistors than there are kids on the planet.
Then you can try the dreaded PB&J demo (FYI - don't do this if there are any peanut allergies in the class). Break the class into 4 or 5 groups and have them each write a recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Then you follow the recipe. Explain that you're the computer running their programs (recipes). Misinterpret the instructions as spectacularly as possible. If the recipe says "put peanut butter on bread" slam the whole jar down on the loaf of bread. Make sure the whole class knows which group's recipe you're crashing to maximize hilarity. After the carnage, get the class to collaborate on how to rewrite the recipe. You'll find that you can teach them procedural programming because you're going to get tired of writing the instructions for how to get a piece of bread, or opening a jar, or dipping a knife, etc.
Video games got me into programming. That fact that as a programmer you can create tiny worlds inside a computer was really appealing to me as a child.
Maybe have a videogame demonstration where you can edit the code in front of them and then show them the changes it has on the game. That would provide a good visual element so the kids could understand what effect your code changes have on the game world. I think you are wasting you time if you try and explain what you are coding, but if you show him that a blue ball is now red or that a robot can now fly, what you are actually trying to do will make sense to the kids.
It may only work for half the class, but this line would work well with 9-10 year olds:
"Don't you agree that girls are icky? Wouldn't you like a career where you didn't have to see very many of them?"
Of course, by the time they got out of school that balance probably will have shifted, but by then the sales pitch will have lost its appeal to them anyway.
Car assembly lines are a BIG win (especially with boys)
I can testify that WebKinz are BIG with that age range of girls (as someone else also said) And little boys still love Transformers.
Before you go into teaching programming concepts, this is a must read: a a large percentage of them will have trouble no matter how bright they are and might just be frustrated.
See "Why Johnny can't program"(http://www.bricklin.com/wontprogram.htm) Excellent explenation of the psychology involved. (Though as far as our industry goes take some of it with a grain of salt, and read http://news.cnet.com/2010-1007-5700858.html?tag=tb)
As to programming concepts, at that age the easiest things to show are direct manipulation of environment. Show them one of those mechanical arms (the kind used in space) and then explain how they can be programmed to repeat tasks. (thus the car assembly line)
First of all, don't lie. Being a developer isn't all fun and games. What you should focus on is that it can be.
Take as many references as you can. For example, explain the development procedures behind such things as Disney-Pixar movies like Toy Story, talk about the fun that can be had developing games, talk about how easy it is for anyone to set up their own web page for anyone to view across the world. The list is truly endless.
Perhaps some examples of Flash games would be great. There are hundreds of fantastic games that were written by one developer with little real-world experience. Hell, if you're a good developer you could always add the finishing touches to a game you'd written there and then for the class to play.
Check out http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/. This is a research project to teach middle-school girls how to program using the Alice 3D development environment. Alice itself was designed to be a teaching tool for programming, and this researcher adapted it to 13-year-old girls. Maybe the actual programming would be a bit advanced for a 4th-grader, but the idea of creating your own world and making things happen is pretty cool at any age.
I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I tried this recently, only to discover that many children that age, even intelligent ones, have an amazingly short span of focused attention, even under perfect conditions. Consider this specific example: I watched a nine-year-old boy for a full hour. He was navigating iTunes, playing a sample, then selecting a new one. He seldom played the entire 30 second sample! I found this rather critical, thinking surely he must like some of these songs, until I finally figured out the shocking truth: he was playing his favorites! Also, while listening to his short sample, he was often busy looking up the song on google, looking for lyrics, so he was one sharp and quick dude.
If you succeed in keeping them spellbound to your presentation, please post it to the web.
Videogames is a great idea, I started to do programming becouse I was fascinated with them, now I'm in loved with both things
The kids I've presented to responded most strongly to the concept of a fridge full of free soda.