Life After Computer Science Education Week

Computer Science Education Week is officially over. And what an incredible week it was!

We teamed up with Girl Scouts of Greater New York to create the tools for Girl Scout troops and classrooms around the United States (and world!) to run their own CS Tech Jam and Hour of Code events, introducing thousands of students to computer science in the process.

 

Between December 7th and 13th, with the help of communities around the world, some amazing things happened, including

  • Introducing over 3,500 students to Computer Science in 41 countries and 42 states.
  • Providing tools to help organize over 300 in-person Tech Jams.
  • Us receiving 686 requests for Hour of Code patches from Girl Scouts around the country.
  • In NYC alone, 651 Girl Scouts participating in Tech Jams and Hour of Code with Vidcode and GSGNY.

But it's important to remember that all these students getting introduced to computer science and technology during CS Ed Week is so much more than just a list of numbers. All across the country, classrooms participating in Tech Jams have been sending us stories about their experience, and telling us why their events are special.

One school in New York told us, "Many of the girls in this troop of 4th and 5th graders have never coded before or thought about computer science as a future career option. This first exposure will hopefully get them interested in this field - and continue their love of learning about technology!"

Another classroom in Dallas Texas shared with us that, "This event will be special for my students and I because it will be, for many of us, our first time being exposed to coding/programming. As we learn the programs of Adobe CS6 this will be a great compliment to help us take graphic designing to a whole new level." In Northern California, "The Hamlin School is working with the girls and encouraging them to use code to 'build their dreams' at both the middle and lower school." Check out the interactive coding map and read all the stories on the Tech Jam home page.

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One of the most exciting events of the week occurred when over 120 Girl Scouts gathered in the Girl Scouts of Greater New York offices in Lower Manhattan to learn the basics of computer Science. Older Girl Scouts helped girls as young as 5 code video greeting cards and program robots to do simple tasks, like picking up water bottles.

 

Girls of all ages learned and celebrated computer science through creativity and problem solving. There were two rooms, one full of computers for Hour of Code activities, and another for Unplugged Activities. These included girls 'programming' their friends to draw certain images, or do dance moves in a particular order.

 

After spending the day at the CS Tech Jam, Girl Scout Anyia Smith said "When I think of girls, I think of almost anything." Watch the NY1 News video to see the CS Tech Jam in action.

Screen Shot 2015-12-05 at 7.33.17 PM.png

In the spirit of creative coding, all the Hour of Code and Tech Jam participants had a place to share their finished projects and code with each other.

That place is the Hall of Fame, where everyone who chose to make their projects public could publish their final video greeting cards for every other Tech Jam coder to see! All the projects are still live to check out (and to sneak a peek at the code that made them happen). 

 

So, Life After CS Ed Week

Wondering what to do next? Learning to code doesn't have to end when CS Ed Week does! We offer many free projects online, as well as 40+ hours of curriculum and lesson plans, all centered around creating video art with code.

Keep exploring! The CS Ed Week website has an entire section dedicated to learning beyond Hour of Code, with resources that include learning to code by building robots, creating websites, or drawing animals.

Happy coding!

Computer Science Education Week with Girl Scouts of Greater New York and Vidcode

Computer Science Education Week takes place this December 7th to the 13th. It's a week to build and learn with code - anyone can do it. Only 5% of schools nation-wide offer students the opportunity to take a rigorous CS course. CS Education Week is meant to provide a time for schools, teachers, and communities to set aside a small amount of time devoted to exposing students to a greater realm of CS opportunities.

For this year's Computer Science Education Week we've built a special Tech Jam and Hour of Code in partnership with the Girl Scouts of Greater New York

Our partnership is centered around a shared commitment to give teen girls leadership and STEM opportunities.

 

 

Take part in Computer Science Education Week by giving your students access to Hour of Code, or go beyond Hour of Code by running a Tech Jam with your community, Girl Scout troop, or classroom. There's no previous experience required, you can run an Hour of Code activity, or an entire Tech Jam, even if you've never coded before!

A Tech Jam is a model event for a community or school to celebrate computer science. The Tech Jam that Vidcode and Girl Scouts of Greater New York have created includes an Hour of Code, discussion questions, off the computer activities, and badges and certificates to win and share! It's free, and doesn't require signup OR prior experience.

By the end of the Tech Jam participants will have an understanding of the fundamentals of programming with JavaScript, and they'll have created a Bestie Video Greeting Card (like the one below) to share with their family and friends.

 

How to run a Tech Jam

Find information on running a successful Tech Jam in the Volunteer Guide, or print out the Participation Guide Booklet for you and the other volunteers.

You can mix and match Tech Jam steps to fit your needs, staff and schedule. For example, if you don’t have a volunteer or teacher to lead the event, the “Bestie Video Greeting Card” Hour of Code is a self-guided activity for students.

Other activities include Unplugged Activities to teach Computer Science Fundamentals without computers or even internet connection, volunteer led discussions before and after the Hour of Code, and a 'Hall of Fame' where participants can view their videos and code, and the projects of other participants! See a more detailed activity list and schedule.

To get started now, register your troop or class to get your event added to our events map. We'll also send you tips and resources as Computer Science Education Week gets closer!

 

How can you help 

You can help by spreading the word and getting your community involved! Tell teachers and Girl Scout Troop Leaders who might be interested in Hour of Code, or in running an entire Tech Jam!

Visit our Spread the Word page for resources to share your event. There are descriptions of the event, social media messages, graphics and banners for you to use to share to get your local community excited about Tech Jam, Hour of Code and Computer Science Education Week!

 

 

Get Ready for Computer Science Education Week

Computer Science Education Week starts December 7th and ends the 13th. Get students excited by telling them about the certificates, Hall of Fame award and Hour of Code patches they could receive!

Still have questions about running your Tech Jam event or using Vidcode? We'd love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected]

We can't wait to see what you and your students create!

Hour of Code for teen girls



Empowering Students to Talk About Climate Through Art and Technology

Vidcode is excited to announce the Girls Code 4 Climate @EDU Contest created along with Millennium@EDU Sustainable Education, as a Contribution to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The contest encourages students to use the skills (or as we call them, superpowers) they learn in computer science, art and media classes in new ways. 

To participate in this contest, students choose a topic related to climate, research that topic and then record a video sharing their research. Topics include:

  1. Climate changes and its effects
  2. Public responses to climate change
  3. How climate changes impact your everyday life
  4. What actions participants can take to make a difference

Once they've recorded their video, students add effects and graphics with JavaScript. They can use the graphics that Vidcode provides in creative and relevant ways, or they can create and upload their own. One student, Anna, created and coded a video using a yellow lawn in the background as an example of the drought she refers to and added graphics and effects in the scene to emphasize the lack of water.

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We created a guide to help participants get started choosing and researching topics. It includes more information on the topics they can choose from, important climate terms and examples of how other artists are responding to climate change in their work.

Empowering students to show their point of view through art and technology is powerful. Art is a way to connect people with ideas that they would otherwise not be exposed to and gives artists a voice to say something they might not otherwise have been able to say. Alongside art, technology offers new media to create artworks, like creative coding, and new channels for messages to spread and be shared.

And this is important, historically art and technology combined have made a real impact. For example, Judy Collins took recordings of humpback whale songs and included them in her 1970 album Whales and Nightingales, which exposed millions of people to the beautiful and complex songs that whales use to communicate. These whale songs inspired the 'Save the Whales' movement, and in 1982, hunting whales became banned internationally.

We hope that this contest is a starting point for students to have conversations, and to research and create their own projects about climate and climate change, even after the contest ends. The top 5 winners of the contest will get full access to the Vidcode platform, offering them more tools to create projects with code and videos. And the overall winner will receive, in addition to full Vidcode access, a computer device designed for education and a science lab complete with sensors and software, so they can continue their research of the world around them.

Learn more about the contest and submit your own video, or use our Teacher Guide to bring coding, art and science into your classroom. The contest runs until November 15, 2015.

Coding and art for climate change

Creating Art in the Virtual (Reality) World

This year, Vidcode went to the Intel Developer Forum and had a blast seeing all the amazing things that makers and artists were creating with new technology!

Of course we also made sure to check out all the new technology we could, and were so excited when we stumbled on virtual reality that let us draw all around us, creating beautiful glowing art out of nothing in an empty virtual room.

Source: www.tiltbrush.com

Source: www.tiltbrush.com

We were using the HTC Vive headset, which comes with controllers and sensors that let you move around freely in virtual space, and draw anything you want around and above you. One of the Vidcoders wrote her name all around her, another drew a room full of rainbows and falling leaves. 

HTC Vive virtual reality art drawing

 

The Future of Storytelling created a video showing Glen Keane, the former Disney animator behind 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Aladdin', using this same virtual reality technology to make his 2-dimensional characters come to life around him.

 

Disney drawing with virtual reality HTC Vive

“When I animate there’s a frustration I have, wishing that the flatness of the paper would go away and that I could actually dive in,” says Keane. “Today all the rules have changed. By putting tools in your hand that can create in virtual reality, I can put goggles on and I just step into the paper, and now I’m drawing in it.”

In the video below, produced by The Future of Story Telling, Keane tries out this new way to create art and tell stories through technology — and what he creates is out of this world.

Getting Started with Vidcode for Educators (without a Computer Science background)

Starting a "learn to code" class or after school program can be overwhelming, especially if you don't have a computer science background.

But with the right tools and support, you can keep your students engaged and excited about making with code.

Starting a learn to code program in school

Starting off a coding club with Vidcode introduces JavaScript in a familiar way. Students already used to editing photos and videos see that code relates to something they're already familiar with. 

Students learn more advanced concepts as they make more complicated projects, learning about arrays, functions and if-else statements.

 

Don't worry! As you get into these more advanced lessons and concepts, there's additional curriculum, lessons, off-the-computer activities, worksheets and presentations that go along with the lessons Vidcode has available online. 

Vidcode provides advanced computer science curriculum, teacher training and technical support to help get your club or class set up and running smoothly.

students learning advanced computer science concepts through art

Vidcode also helps make coding a fun and social experience, students can share their code and videos with their class and see what all their classmates are working on. Each class and coding club is part of its own Vidcode group and gallery, where students can show off projects they're working on and share things they've learned with the rest of the group.

Are you thinking about starting an after-school coding club, but aren't sure where to start? Check out our Vidcode classroom roadmap! And learn more about the classroom support and curriculum Vidcode offers on our groups page or get started now at app.vidcode.io!

What the Vidcode staff is up to: ITP Camp

Sometimes we'll be writing updates about what the people behind Vidcode are doing outside of work!

During June Leandra, the Vidcode designer, spent the month learning, tinkering and building at ITP Camp. Read about her experience, and what she's bringing back to Vidcode from what she learned.

 

ITP Camp was an absolutely incredible experience. I attended workshops on creating audio visualizations with P5, user testing, creating bowls out of mycelia and making hanging plants, and ran sessions on using sketch and animating svgs with css!

Taken at the end of the 'Using Sketch' workshop, when everyone illustrated blue unicorn logos! I was frowning to match the unicorn.

Taken at the end of the 'Using Sketch' workshop, when everyone illustrated blue unicorn logos! I was frowning to match the unicorn.

Camp was a playground, with so many toys that I didn't even get to half of them. I spent a lot of my time playing with the laser cutter, I was absolutely blown away seeing things I made in Photoshop and Illustrator enter the physical world.

laser cut jewelry
laser cut illustration

 

What I was able to bring back to my work at Vidcode from the experience, was an understanding of the world of creative coding and the communities around creative coding that exist. Processing has been around since 2001! I had been working with Vidcode with the goal of getting people excited about learning to code through creative projects, but I definitely didn't understand the amazing ecosystem that that work is a part of. 

One of many Processing sketches I made while at camp

One of many Processing sketches I made while at camp

I'm already working on creating new Vidcode lessons around the creative coding technologies I was exposed to during my month of camp, be on the lookout for new lessons in the fall!

We Spent a Week With Hoboken Vidcoders!

Vidcode spent the week of June 15-18 at Stevens Coop School. Sixteen students spent four days learning the fundamentals of coding with JavaScript, and making some amazing videos!

Elise, our amazing instructor, spent the first day going over the elements of JavaScript, as students used them hands-on in the Vidcode editor.

They used objects, properties and numbers to add effects to their videos, and strings to change the color of the videos they'd shot.

They learned about and created variables to hold their number and string values!

 They worked with some very original variable names.

 

They worked with some very original variable names.

The next day, the class moved onto learning about how to create and manipulate arrays.

They used this knowledge to put photos they took into arrays, and iterated through them to create stop motions videos. 

Once they learned how to create simple stop motion videos, they went out with clay and paper to create more elaborate videos, including this one below titled 'The Big Blob Attack'. Check out the code that was used to put it together!

Stop motion with JavaScript arrays

Later in the week, students moved on to some more advanced lessons, and used functions and variables to make their videos change over time. Sam used these coding skills to make a video of a plane look like an old movie!

HTML5 canvas effects
video effects with code at summer camp

The last day was spent on everyone's final projects, and getting ready for final presentations! Students spent the day making new stop motions, music videos, and other creative projects, and then adding their final effects in Vidcode using everything they had learned about JavaScript that week.

Final presentations were great! Students showed off their final videos, and talked about the coding concepts that they had used in their final edits.

learn to code summer camp for middle school students

You can see all the videos the students made this week in our gallery!

Interested in having your own Vidcode workshop in your summer camp or school? Find out more about our group programs!

Maker Faire Vidcode Station (and a Blue Ribbon!)

Maker Faire Bay Area blue ribbon booth

We spent the weekend of May 15 to 17 in San Mateo at the Bay Area Maker Faire! We set up a stop motion station and a Vidcode coding station, and we're so excited about all the vidcodes that people of all ages came up and made! They're all on display in our Maker Gallery.

Maker faire video with code

Like this vidcode, by our awesome volunteer Cynthia!

Maker faire dragon video

Or this adorable dragon by Morgan!

stop motion video with code

And (our absolute favorite!) this Vidcode heart by Lilaine

Blue ribbon Maker Faire Bay Area

We are also SUPER excited to announce that we received a blue ribbon! We had so much fun meeting everyone at the Maker Faire, and can't wait for the next one.

 

Girls learning to code

Mapping the sneakernet

"Mapping the sneakernet" is an article by AN XIAO MINA for The New Inquiry

There are 4.3 billion people who are said to be unconnected to the internet.  What type of communities are popping up sharing connections with family members and communities at large?  'Shared access', sharing devices and telecom accounts, is common in places like rural Lazon in the Philippines where one community member will have a facebook account and the community shares it for updates/ discussions.

Read more here

BETAGirls

BETAGirls came to our office this week!  We had a blast coding with them and building stop motion animation projects on Vidcode.  We were blown away by the amount of talent, intelligence, and ambition that was in that room thanks to the girls!  

They are gearing up for the technovation challenge where they will be building a business plan and an app.  

They are already so ahead of the game!  Can't wait to see what they bring to the world.

 


Growth Mindset

As we start off the new year it's fun to think about how malleable our brains are and the great potential for learning that we all share.  

Code is something anyone can learn, play, and create with.  It's important for kids to know code is not just for certain types of students - it's for all types of students.  We are big fans of Carol Dweck's research here at Vidcode.  Go growth mindset!

Mindshift:  Students benefit from learning that intelligence is not fixed


Monday Dev meetings

Another reason to code!  You get to work with your girlfriends and make cool projects!!  During our Monday developer meetings we go over new additions to the website by looking over our code "home" base (the area where we store all of our collective code that makes up the Vidcode website). It's a team process and super collaborative.

On the left you can see our Github, this is where we store all of our code.  We'll teach you more about that later!

On the left you can see our Github, this is where we store all of our code.  We'll teach you more about that later!

Be the first!

Murial Siebert was the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.  Read her inspiring story here:  NYTimes

Both code and finance are powerful forces in our world.  We need more female voices in both!  Also, there are many programmers who work at trading desks for investments firms, like one of our co-founders Melissa!!  She wrote algorithms at a hedge fund trading desk before she started Vidcode.