{"id":168,"date":"2016-10-20T12:11:46","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T12:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/supertart.com\/www.wickedpearprogramming.com\/wordpress\/?p=8"},"modified":"2016-10-20T12:11:46","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T12:11:46","slug":"intro-to-programming-at-loreto-primary-school-in-dalkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecodehub.ie\/news\/2016\/10\/20\/intro-to-programming-at-loreto-primary-school-in-dalkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Intro to Programming at Loreto Primary School in Dalkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I was able to present, along with\u00a0CoderDojo Dalkey<\/a>, to the Loreto Primary School in Dalkey. It was a chance to prepare the girls for next week, during which we’d be running them through the excellent Minecraft Hour of Code<\/a>\u00a0and demystify the coding process a little bit.<\/p>\n

\"Welcome
Welcome to Dalkey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were allowed to direct the girls through a little exercise (originally designed by\u00a0Gary Kacmarcik<\/a>), which I’ve used previously in much smaller groups. Instead of assigning the task of CPU, or display, or memory\/ALU to one particular person, we assigned the CPU tasks to classes.<\/p>\n

We had sixth class girls be the display (for sheer reach at the white board at the front of the hall and their coordinate plane knowledge), fifth class be the CPU, fourth class be the logic unit, and third class be the memory.<\/p>\n

\"Loreto\"
Loreto by the sea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Instead of circuits and wires our connections were all done wirelessly, with shouting across the hall. To minimize injuries, each group would shout their command or request or response to the appropriate component in question with a little guidance from some mentors.<\/p>\n

You can follow along with the slides I’ve prepared, explaining the process (we didn’t use the slides, but they outline what we did do), as well as look at a copy with the presenter’s notes, in case you’d like to try this one at home with your own kids.<\/p>\n