BlackGirlsCODE kicked off our Summer of Code on Saturday June 17th during the 62nd Annual Juneteenth Festival in San Francisco. We hosted the one day game development class in coordination with the Urban Game Suite which also included workshops during the weekend with famed animator Leo Sullivan the Emmy Award winning animator of Fat Albert, The Hulk, Batman, and the Fantastic Four.
During this workshop BGC introduced boys and girls as young as 7 to game development utilizing the Microsoft product KODU. We taught the workshop interactively using the PC interface and incorporated pairs programming, and near peer mentors into the mix. In fact in addition to a wonderful group of talented female software engineers from our BGC volunteer team, we had TAs/and mentors from ages 9 to 17 who jumped right in to teach other students the basics of creating a video game for the xBox.
During this workshop BGC introduced boys and girls as young as 7 to game development utilizing the Microsoft product KODU. We taught the workshop interactively using the PC interface and incorporated pairs programming, and near peer mentors into the mix. In fact in addition to a wonderful group of talented female software engineers from our BGC volunteer team, we had TAs/and mentors from ages 9 to 17 who jumped right in to teach other students the basics of creating a video game for the xBox.
Kodu is a game development tool which works on both a PC and Xbox via a simple visual programming language. The kids quickly picked up the basics and began coding in no time. They were able to create their own interactive video games and share them with the class during the final presentations.
This was one of the first classes BGC has taught with a mixed gender focus and it went smashingly well. In fact we even got the parents (and grandparents to stick around for class and join in the experience of seeing their kids get excited about programming and engineering. The best quote of the day by far was the comment by one of our students at the end of the day. He asked "so is this what an software engineer does? Then I'm interested in being an engineer".
This was one of the first classes BGC has taught with a mixed gender focus and it went smashingly well. In fact we even got the parents (and grandparents to stick around for class and join in the experience of seeing their kids get excited about programming and engineering. The best quote of the day by far was the comment by one of our students at the end of the day. He asked "so is this what an software engineer does? Then I'm interested in being an engineer".
What a rewarding way to end the day and an exciting beginning to our 90 day campaign to introduce more than 200 kids of color to computer programming and technology in 7 cities. Our journey has just begun and we looking forward to every step!
Happy Father's Day and Happy Juneteenth to all of our friends and supporters!
~BlackGirlsCODE
Follow our campaign on Indiegogo:
http://igg.me/p/108824?a=620519
Happy Father's Day and Happy Juneteenth to all of our friends and supporters!
~BlackGirlsCODE
Follow our campaign on Indiegogo:
http://igg.me/p/108824?a=620519
RSS Feed