Cees;

Though it would require considerable planning to avoid exceeding the 20
minutes available, you might try defining several of the children in turn as
"Objects" (everything is an object, yes?), each with a specific method, and
letting the others "program" with them, perhaps something on the order of
turtle-type actions.  It would probably look roughly similar to the "Simon
Says" game, and would probably be fun.

If each child's Squeak counterpart was on a nearby screen, they might well
make the connection.

Gary


----- Original Message -----
From: "Cees de Groot" <cg at cdegroot.com>
Newsgroups: lists.squeak
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 8:36 AM
Subject: Showing the essence of programming in 20 minutes to schoolkids -
how?


> Sorry for the long title :-).
>
> My kids' school (basisschool/grundschule/6-12 years) has a yearly
> school party/fair, always with some nice theme, and this year's theme is
> "what do you want to become when you grow up?". As part of the theme,
> they are asking parents to chat with the kids about their jobs. The format
is
> groups of ~8 kids, you get around twenty minutes with each group.
>
> My wife has an easy one - as a dentist's assistant she only needs so show
up
> with some scary equipment, hand all the kids a mirror to inspect each
other's
> teeth, and that's it.
>
> But how (with a couple - how many? - computers at hand running Squeak) do
> you explain to kids of, say, 8 years old the essence of a computer
> programmer's job?
>
> --
> Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
>