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Career Day for Elementary School Kids?
Chris Curtin writes "My daughters' school is having a Career Education Day next month and I'd like to do a presentation. My kids are in Kindergarten and Third Grade, but I could present to Fifth Graders, as well. How do I explain what a programmer does to the kids? I was thinking about building a web page for the little ones, maybe show the older ones some visual logic with VB, where I change a basic program and run it from my laptop, showing keyboard and mouse inputs, music, and so forth. I have VB6, Java, HTML and Windows 2k on the laptop I'll be bringing. Any thoughts on how to 'wow' the little ones and make the older ones want to learn more about programming?" If you were going to make a computer presentation to a class full of children, what kind of things would you talk about?
My three year old daughter and I wrote a VB program together as a present for mom. It was exceedingly simple, just a few graphics like pictures of doors to click on which would pop up "Happy Birthday, Mom" types of message boxes, and several "Yes" or "No" question and answer radio buttons.
It was easy enough and basic enough and most importantly, pretty enough, for my then-3-year old to figure it out. She's now seven and still loves programming. I mean, really, think about it - doesn't VB lend itself more to an audience of elementary school students than your other examples (e.g. Java)?
But, anyway, I think the idea of some quick GUI development (using VB, ProjectBuilder, Qt Designer, whatever...) is an excellent one. People who started with computers after 1984 have absolutely no idea of how software works. (That's why media explanations of "open-source" are so labored.) Show them that windows and buttons and output happen because someone put them there.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Have a simple program started that can do a bit of output, then ask for them to input what the program will say. Maybe the teacher's name, some of their names, what they're studying, etc. Just demonstrate how YOU can control the computer in ways they may have not thought of.
From there, go into something like, "Well, how does the computer know to make Mario jump when I press this button? How does it know when the bad guy gets jumped on and is squished? It follows instructions, and it's my job to give computers those instructions." Explain that you have to figure out what people want to do, then tell the computer how to follow instructions other people give it. Keep it very simple, and make it as visual and interactive as possible. Remember that the kids have an attention span of maybe five minutes, even with all the pretty visual aids you can conjure, so keep it short and sweet.
Finally, a web page for the younger kids probably isn't that great an idea. Most probably aren't familiar with the Internet, and a web page is much more static than a game. Add to that the fact that most probably can't read very well, and you have a recipe for failure. Remember to keep things as visually oriented as possible.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
I would relate programming (writing algorithms) to an everyday activity that most of the kids would be familiar with such as cooking.
You could even demonstrate a simple recipe like smores or peanut butter & jelly sandwich or fruit salad (for you Wiggles fans out there) and relate it to a simple program showing how each is just step by step instructions for doing something. One for making something to eat, the other for telling a computer what to do. The kids could get a little treat at the end :)
Logic is not Divine.
...it sounds like you have a great way to get high schoolers to have an understanding and maybe an interest in computer programming. You already know what to present, because it's something you've been doing for years. What you need to figure out is that when it comes to children of the ages you mention it's going to take much less of what you like and much more of what they like.
Judging by what you wrote, you don't have any plan for presenting the material. You have an idea of what to present to each, but no plan on how to present it. I suggest you speak to the teachers of these students about how best to interact with them. Children are the worst critics and the easiest audience to lose. If what you do isn't interesting to children, they're going to make it known by either falling asleep, biting you, or biting their neighbor.
Bottom line is the best person to tell you how to engage these kids is the person who spends eight hours a day in front of them.
On a mildly related note, I don't think you have a chance in hell of getting the kindergarteners to provide even a modicum of interest. "Look kids! See how I'm typing even though none of your hands are big enough to use a keyboard? Look kids! See the words I'm typing that you lack the ability to read? Look kids! See how I'm putting strange characters around the words you can't read to change the syntax into a broken mess? Look kids! See how I'm trying to get you to understand nested functions which is a mathematical concept you won't learn for another four years?"
I could go on forever, but I won't. I just advise you to know your audience. The youngest won't care or be able to follow, the third-graders probably won't care or be able to follow, and the few fifth graders who care and follow will be at the level of an adult user who doesn't understand computers but without all the other worldly knowledge to enable them.
You have a very tough crowd with very low chances of being anything but a total bore. Good luck. And remember: know your audience.
There are several games out there where you program a robot to do things.
Mindrover (which you can download a demo of, for both Linux and Windoze) is one where you have to build a robot. IBM has a program where you can program a Java robot but I suspect that is a bit above them.
Another possibility which is a visual programming language that uses video as a paradigm (I read that and I have not seen it) is Toontalk which you can find at www.toontalk.com. The object of the game is to write a program to control a robot that solves problems. Its aimed at kids. Demo at website too.
There are actually several visual programming languages done by university research projects aimed at kids. Try searching on Google. However, many of these things are mac based.
Also, maybe shoot for something that paints a picture based on a program. One thing that may also work is a dataflowish programming language (think Khoros, there is one on freshmeat as well but the name escapes me) that does image processing on a picture. For instance, you could have a picture of yourself and a flow with a control that changes the color of you hair, or better, even, get a webcam, do this live and squash the face of the teacher. I once did whits with two bored kids of a colleague of mine and it was a great hit with the girls.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
I'd stay at a more physical level than programming. Describe literally what you do. Everyone knows about computers to some degree like everyone knows about airplanes. I'd hit the extents of how computers touch our lives - really quickly. Maybe a book store versus amazon.com via the web. (Everything is information) But not much detail. The whole web poster.
Show them your work. (slideshow) I mean the basics - you work in an office. You probably work in a cubicle. There is a server room and L@@K!! at all those wires and blinkenlights. your desk. slip in a pic of a 60's machine room, maybe quote that IBM guy who said there was maybe a market for 5 or 6 computers in the whole world.
me as a 5th grader would have gone ape over some complicated diagrams - the kernel poster comes to mind.
have fun.
must... stay... awake...