if i could teach the world to code.

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I know I promised a techie post in the near future and one is still on it's way, but every time I try to
record my screencast something goes technologically wrong.  I am beginning to fear that my laptop doesn't have much time left in this realm.

In lieu of a techie post, I am going to share my first Kiwi teaching experience.  I was teaching students how to code, so it still counts, right?

Last week I taught a four day course in web and app design to students ages 10 - 13.

The first day was a bit hectic.  The company I was working for doesn't have it's own space, so they rent out rooms at colleges across New Zealand during the school holidays.  It's a great use of existing structures, but an be difficult because you never know what you are going to get.  My room in particular was missing a projector remote and had a whiteboard squirrelled away where I couldn't see it in a side room.  As you can imagine, teaching 10 - 13 year olds to code without a projector or a whiteboard is a difficult task.  Armed with a ream of blank paper and a pen I spent the first half of the day walking around to each individual child, showing them what the code should look like.  It was rough, but I prevailed.  After lunch break, the grounds keeper finally bestowed me with a projector remote and there was much rejoicing.

From that point on, it was fairly smooth sailing.  Because I was flustered in the beginning I got off to a bit of a bad start with the kids.  They weren't terribly unruly, but they did have a habit of running ahead of me anytime we left the room, which is always a huge no-no for me.  After the first time they did it I reminded them that I did not appreciate it and that we were always to stick together as a group.  For the rest of the day the habit persisted, but on the second day when it came time to go up to our classroom after sign-in every single one of them waited patiently for me with no prompting.  It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.  The rest of the day there was a smile on my face, for I was Super Teacher.

Throughout the week we powered through creating our own websites using HTML and CSS and we also created two apps using the Processing programming language which is based off of Java.  The students were also given the opportunity to create their own sprites in GIMP and they came up with some really great drawings.


In the end we weren't quite able to finish up the last project and the students were asking about adding some extra code to their games anyway, so I added a page to the class website so they could continue their learning at home.  You can check it out at cyanidecupcake.com/class/code

Teaching Kiwi kids wasn't all that different than teaching American children, though I was shocked to discover that Kiwi children are allowed to use minor swears and no one bats an eyelash "Language!" I exclaimed the first time a child cussed.  All of them looked at me with confusion in their eyes.  "Those aren't swears here, not really" one of them calmly explained.  Now, if we were in the States, I would not have believed this for a second.  You can always tell when a kid swears to try it out, to see what he or she can get away with.  Kiwi kids don't swear like that, it's just a part of their conversation, not like they are trying to be "mature" or "cool".  Later in the week I asked some adults, and yes, they were telling the truth!   None of the swears were never directed at another classmate or used in a derogatory manner, so I let it persist.

I also was surprised to learn that period are called "full-stops".  I finally figured it out after the third student who hesitated when I told them to add a period to their code.  Parenthesis and brackets are also a bit confusing here, as these ( ) are what Kiwi's refer to as brackets, and these [ ] are considered parenthesis.

It was a great week, and one in which I think I learned just as much as the students.  They were so inquisitive and rather mature for their ages.  They were clearly in my class because they wanted to learn, not because their parents signed them up as an alternative to babysitting. 

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