Ask Slashdot: How Do I Engage 5th-8th Graders In Computing?

An anonymous reader writes: I volunteer at a inner-city community after school program focused K-8th grade. Right now, due to the volunteer demographic, we spend most of our activity time in arts and crafts and homework. The 5th-8th students are getting restless with those activities. I've been asked to spice it up with some electrical wizardry. What I'd like to do is introduce the students to basic jobs skills through computers. My thoughts are that I could conduct some simple hands-on experiments with circuits, and maybe some bread boards. Ultimately, we're going to take apart a computer and put it back together. How successful this project is will dictate whether or not we will go into programming. However, whatever we do, I want the kids to obtain marketable skills. Anyone know of a curriculum I can follow? What experiences have you had with various educational computing projects?

Comments

Re:Simple:

[jakimfett]

Or better yet, use Minecraft to teach them the basics of logic and programming.

A modpack with ComputerCraft, RedLogic, and possibly a couple of "just for fun" mods like Thermal Expansion or RailCraft would be a solid starting point...if you want to put together something more complex, contact me on IRC (esper.net, #minechem channel) or via Twitter and I'd be more than happy to help you out.

Disclosure: I develop the Minechem mod, and help maintain a couple of different modpacks.