Harpeth Hall Python Minecraft camp for girls

One of the challenges of increasing diversity in coding is recruiting young women to learn these skills.  This week Ellie Fitzpatrick and I ran a camp on how to program in Python. This is an all girls camp and we taught them the way we learn best, by incorporating creative coding opportunities.  We utilized both Processing 3 and webbing Minecraft to Python.

Ellie has lead a lunchtime coding club at her school, Harpeth Hall, for 3 years.  As a seasoned Python tutor she learned to use innovative coding examples that engage girl's imaginations and make them think critically.  This week we covered the basics and much more. Our curriculum included:data types, lists, dictionaries, loops, functions, objects, and attributes by creating 'fish stores', 'big fluffy dog functions', and auto building in Minecraft.

 By Friday, these young women had designed their own project.  All are solving problems with their programs and creating unique code to perform their selected tasks.  This programming class has morphed into an coding art creation event.  Our youngest coder is working on the variables so she can move the doors and windows populating into her world from Python.  She has spent the entire day on this project.  Girls who learn to code in this manner learn persistence.

Our young women who took our class told us that there were some things that helped them. These requests set them apart from mixed gender groups.  Handwriting notes was one of the things they requested to do often.  Although I would not let them entirely write because working in the IDE and getting error feed back is important, note taking was calming for them and helped them with retention. They also reported sublime text was beneficial because Bella told us that 'the colors help her see different parts of the code'.  All agreed the colors helped them know if they had saved their file as a .py  and it was pretty.

We were all so involved in the coding projects on Friday we were an hour late to lunch.  Not one person was waiting time checking email or playing video games.  They were serious about learning and making their code function.  Highly successful camp for our girls.  I learned as much about teaching girls to code as they learned about code.  Thank you to Harpeth Hall for providing the space and to WITT for sponsoring our work.

We used this reference to help build our camp:
https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Program-Minecraft-Transform-Python/dp/1593276702?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=1593276702&linkCode=w00&linkId=9da2bb0112980892453add16ef058ffa&ref_=as_sl_pc_tf_til&tag=teachersandco-20

Ellie's favorite reference book to learn Python is:
https://www.amazon.com/Hello-World-Computer-Programming-Beginners/dp/1617290920?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=1617290920&linkCode=w00&linkId=c9e511f0f876c9bc8405abd2503136ce&ref_=as_sl_pc_tf_til&tag=teachersandco-20

Win-Win Rocks!

Connections make it happen

There is a grass roots movement occurring to build pathways to Tech Education for Middle Tennessee's children.  I have been involved with the tech community for 4 years and there has always been a wish to see ways opened to help students, especially poverty students, move into these lucrative jobs.  There were various camps held by different user groups which were funded by volunteers.  Each of the camps would serve 20 or so children.  They wanted to make a difference but the work was just a drop in the bucket compared to the 90.000 students in MNPS alone and many more in other counties, private schools and home school groups.

Lately I have noticed this trend gaining momentum.  Part of the change is due to the grants given by government to bolster Tech Ed.  There are groups like the Nashville Technology Council that are identifying the resources and needs in the area of tech education.  There are some innovative programs that have been adopted  by governmental entities such as the Nashville Public Library and Rutherford County Schools.

I was delighted last week to hear about the work Kandy Powers put into implementing a coding program in in ESP, the Rutherford County after care program.  Her programs requires a team of people working in tandem to create needed resources.  She partnered with the Nashville Technology Council, the local branch of United Way, TCAT Murfreesboro, Beth Duffield from the Rutherford County Chamber, and others to bring her programs to life.  She is a fantastic connector and deserves to be celebrated.

I am including an interview from WGNS last week with Bryan Barrett, Representative Mike Sparks,  Beth Duffield,  Kandy Powers and me so you can hear directly from these change agents about the programs they are implementing in their county.  Follow the link below to reach the page for a recording of this broadcast.

  http://wgnsradio.com/news.php?viewStory=27625

Two of the candidates for mayor would like to create similar programs in Nashville.  I have spoken to  Bill Freeman and Charles Robert Bone.  Both men have a plan to implement a program similar to the one Ms. Powers runs in Rutherford County.  I am excited to see these pathways open here.  The next step would see these pathways open in our regular public schools so children can learn about coding early in their education instead of waiting until upper middle school.  We also need to make the opportunities more widely available.  Currently only a few schools offer coding and the entire public school population is not served in after school programs.

So today I am celebrating progress and waiting for more.  There are so many tech jobs opening here in Nashville.  We have the potential to become a video gaming hub.  Talk about a dream job!  We need to get kids ready so they can create the next great game, social media experiment, and/or app.  When we do help them gain these skills the course of their lives and the affluence of our community will improve.  I love win win opportunities.  Don't you?



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593274076?creativeASIN=1593274076&linkCode=w00&linkId=ONR7LDLXZTIFDHIF&ref_=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til&tag=teachersandco-20