Summer Camp

[Kim Rose]

Hi -
As far as recruiting more girls, I wouldn't call it 
"programming".....I think the word holds certain connotations for 
girls which are unattractive.
The other thing to think about is this, perhaps -- are the kids 
learning "computer" or are they *using* the computer to learn about a 
variety of areas/subjects, or to construct/create ideas, artifacts, 
etc.??, i.e., how can we use computers as the means and not the end?
  -- Kim



>Awesome!  I will try these ideas.
>
>QUESTION :  How do you get more girls to sign up for a computer
>programming class/camp?  Saturday Academy has a lot of restricted funds
>targetted for 1) getting girls into nursing, 2) getting girls into
>science, engineering and math.
>
>They sure would like to use those funds successfully.
>
>Cheers,
>Edwin
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-squeakland at squeakland.org
>[mailto:owner-squeakland at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of thom
>Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 11:29 PM
>To: squeakland at squeakland.org
>Subject: RE: Summer Camp
>
>
>On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Edwin Pilobello wrote:
>
>>  Of course it's going to be fun!  Sometimes it's hard fun.
>>
>>  The hat trick is inspiring them to create a design document. Double
>>  the difficulty level for OOD.
>
>start out with anything by Scott McCloud. Maybe show them 'ghost World'
>or 'from Hell' and explain storyboards from that perspective. they will
>get it immediately and then you explain that the 'comic' also needs
>notes for all sorts of sounds and interactivity. If they are real young
>maybe start them with 'Miss Spider's Tea Party' which is a great picture
>book and then show them the Cd which was created from the Book. there is
>a great storyboard/design doc example for Ludtke's Bad At The Midway.
>Lots of stuff on Gamasutra.com. Maus, the book, and Maus the Cd is
>pretty good. Show the movie Final Fantasy, the book 'The Making of' and
>then run the game on a PS2.
>
>I have done this with kids from 10 to 50; age almost doesn't matter. I
>have tons of this stuff from my grad students and find that I can take a
>grad design doc and show it to kids 15 and up and they get the idea and
>will create a document as good as the grad level document.
>
>I get them to run ideas by giving them index cards and limiting them to
>50 word ideas with 'no names', very important that no one can be
>identified when running ideas. Shuffle the deck, break them up into
>groups of 4-5 and tell them you want the 1 good idea in the pack. Some
>will come back with 1, some with more than 1 and some with none. You do
>this two days in a row in the morning and by the 3rd day 2-3 of the kids
>will be coming in with bunches of ideas. Figure out if the idea is a
>story or an interactive.
>
>Make them show at the end of the camp to mom & dad and any one you can
>round up.
>
>--Thom


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