Welcome to kidOYO Demo Day 2018!
@ Stony Brook University,
Department of Computer Science
Long Island, New York
300+ kids, ages 8-17
Week 5 (July 30th - 3rd)
This week we launched 3 new learning apps, including our competitive hackathon social game, Code Conquest, the project-based territory capture & defense strategy experience. During 3 hours of game play, 5 teams created, submitted and defended against over 250 project-based attacks of creativity!
Learning to code requires practice. Skimming over the surface of programming languages can only teach anyone so much. To develop real skills, young developers must build projects. Project review (reading), concept development, code writing, debugging, code reviews, code editing, procedural improvements, code refinement, failing forward and starting again... all are part of skill building. Before computer science matters, young people need to play with logic, design, art, concept maps, game theory, languages and tools of creativity. Learning technical standards, protocols, structures, terminology... these come in due time, but before they come to be important, skills are required. Like learning to play a piano, or any instrument, practice is required. Simply learning the song "Mary Had A Little Lamb" does not mean you "know how to play the piano", anymore than learning to create a Maze Game in the Scratch programming language means you know Scratch, its capabilities, or "know how to code". Good coders require project practice.
This week we ran learning sessions covering the following subjects; Scratch 1, Scratch Advanced, Python 1, Python 2, Javascript 1, Javascript 2, Java 1, Java 2, Unity 1, Unity 2, Hardware prototyping 1, Hardware prototyping 2, html 5 game development, html for personal website, CSS for personal website, Sprite character art development, basic computer & network functions & structures, some math & ELA too!
Additionally, all students received access to the kidOYO Summer 2018 Learning Community + a suite of dev tools including access to 20 apps for creative development and skill building. Mentors from kidOYO have issued and checked challenge solutions for students, and badges (micro-credentials) were issued with evidence for all skills demonstrated, which will be shown in student portfolios, in use by many Long Island schools. Each student also received their own web domain name (sub-domain), and tools for hosting their own website using the OYO website app.
