"Terence! Terence! Why doesn't this work?

"Help! My bird isn't flapping!"

"What do I press to set this variable?"

I am run off my feet. I dash from workstation to workstation, troubleshooting the problems. In every case, my response is the same.

"Did you follow the instructions on the sheet?" I say.

"YES!" Comes the howl of protestation.

"Even this one where it tells you to click on cat before making the changes?"

"Oh... Oh! That makes sense! Thanks." and off they go.

I'm quite serious. For five lessons, I extolled the virtues of reading the worksheets. Of double-checking one's workings. Of re-reading the instructions and making sure they had been followed.

No impact.

So, I bought out the big guns!

Yeah, that's right. Biro pens!

"Next to every step," I intoned, in my most schoolmasterly voice "is a check box."

I showed them the worksheets created by Code Club. "Once you have completed a step," I continued, "You are to tick the box with your pen. Then, and only then can you proceed to the next step. And woe betide any child who calls me over for help without first having made sure they have completed all the necessary steps..."

I then set them off and braced for the inevitable flurry of hands.

Nothing! Blissful silence as the kids toiled away over their Scratch projects.

I waited and waited. Slowly, a hand raised.

"Terence," the girl's voice wavered, "I've instantiated my variables but I don't know whether they should have global scope or merely be restricted to local scope."

(Ok... ok... She didn't word it quite like that - but that's what she meant.)

A few minutes later a boy stuck up his hand.

"I've found an interesting race condition which occurs when two scripts are initialised simultaneously. Is there any way to guard against this?"

(Again, I've embellished. Look, these are 9 year olds learning Scratch. Their computer science vocabulary is somewhat limited.)

In fact, there were only a couple of questions which could be answered by saying "read the text thoroughly and tell me what you've missed."

The majority were interesting questions about Scratch, how to craft fun games, general computing problems, and the philosophical nature of whether a horse could outrace a bat.

And all because I'd handed each kid a pen and taught them how to use it.

Ticking All The Boxes

By complete coincidence, I have just finished reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Much like Malcolm Gladwell's books, its premise can be summed up in a single sentence. People doing complex tasks often forget basic steps - following a checklist helps prevent errors.

In Atul Gawande's book, he talks about his success at introducing a checklist at hospitals. By reminding surgical teams to make sure they were operating on the correct side of the patient, had appropriately sterilised the equipment, and knew of any likely complications - they were able to prevent thousands of mistakes and save hundreds of lives.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Having a tickbox which says "check patient has suitable anaesthesia" (or whatever) actually works. To quote from a study of the checklist published in the New England Journal of Medicine:

The rate of death was 1.5% before the checklist was introduced and declined to 0.8% afterward (P=0.003). Inpatient complications occurred in 11.0% of patients at baseline and in 7.0% after introduction of the checklist (P<0.001).

You can find links to some peer reviewed articles about the success of the checklist on Gawande's website.

While I recommend buying the book - you can read for free the original article which inspired it in the New Yorker.

It's important to realise that a checklist isn't a universal panacea. The checklist itself has to be well designed and easy to use. But after seeing how it transformed a cluster of kids in a Code Club, I'm a convert. Before, they struggled to reach the end of a worksheet because they spend so much time correcting their mistakes. With the checklist, they were easily able to reach the end and could spend more time playing, coding, designing, and having fun.

More importantly, the kids didn't seem to mind having to occasionally tick a box to move on to the next step. It didn't interrupt their flow or stifle their imagination.

An article in the British Medical Journal about the effectiveness of the checklist in surgical situations concluded with:

The checklist was considered easy to use by 80.2% of respondents, while 19.8% felt that it took a long time to complete, and 78.6% felt that the programme prevented errors.

The real kicker is the final line.

Overall, 93.4% would want the checklist used if they were undergoing operation.

If you're teaching kids or adult - consider seeing what a simple checklist can do for your students.

So, I plugged it into my Raspberry Pi, loaded up the Scratch programming environment, and created a fruit and veg interface. See for yourself!

The scripts themselves are very simple. The MakeyMakey in its default state, acts like a USB keyboard - so it will send up, down, left, right, and the space key. So, it's really easy to use with Scratch's "Key ___ Pressed" sensor.

Download Scratch from MIT (available for Linux, Windows, Mac).

You can grab yourself a Raspberry Pi on Amazon

You can buy a MakeyMakey from Amazon for around £40

You can buy bananas and spring onions from any reputable green-grocer. Be sure to ask if they're electrically conductive.

Thanks to the OpenRightsGroup for sending me the MakeyMakey.

The first lesson was a great success. It was held before the Christmas break - so I was eager to make sure that interest hadn't waned. Far from it - we were over subscribed!

We had 10 PCs and 12 kids - which lead to some sharing of equipment. Everyone involved seemed to enjoy it (including me) - so I thought it would be worthwhile to make some general notes which I hope may be of use to other instructors.

• Girls like coding! Around a third of participants were mini-LadyGeeks. The CodeClub plans are suitable for boys and girls.


• Sharing a PC sucks. I don't know if it's better to exclude kids who turn up late, or make them do "pair programming" - but it's harder to learn if one person is doing the work and one is an onlooker.


• Make sure you have all your handouts ready. Due to a printer mishap, we had to share some worksheets - that's not great when kids are working at different speeds.


• Scatch is very simple. Which means the enterprising child can find half a dozen ways to make it misbehave! With 10 children clamouring for attention, it can be hard to spot where the bug is. Sometimes it's best to say "Delete everything, start again, and follow the instructions really carefully!"


• Some kids finish early and want to be stretched. You can either give them the advanced assignments (add more monsters, change their colours, etc) or you can deputise them into classroom assistants. Guess which option I chose!


• Kids can be really creative - both in terms of the customisations they build and the questions they ask. I'll never forget how a little girl with an Alice band asked me "How can I make the monster drip with blood and then have its head explode when I click on it?"


• Parents can be a hindrance. Remember when you got a train set for your birthday and your dad "helped" you by putting it all together, breaking it, and then claiming it wasn't his fault that you weren't enjoying it? Any kids who can use a mouse can probably get by without parental help.


• That said, having parents view the child's work at the end of the lesson is really encouraging. It lets the parent know what their kid has been doing and it gives the kid a chance to show off.


• Have a memory stick for each participant to save their work on. Thanks to Telefonica (my employer, I'm not speaking for them, may contain nuts, etc.) I was able to give a flash drive to each kid. I put on a copy of Scratch for Linux, Mac, and Windows - along with some other programming resources. Not every kid will have a computer at home, but Scratch will quite happily run from a memory stick on a school or library machine.


• Use headphones if the program needs sound. It stops the kids from getting distracted by hearing the noises eminating from their friends' PCs. In a library setting, it stops you getting glared at.


• Have helpers. I'm enormously grateful to the staff of Woking Library who have been helping me. Dealing with ten excitable children is slightly more complex than I imagined!

...and all that's just from two sessions! Wonder what the next will bring?

If you want to help young people learn how to program computers, you can download Scratch for free - and register with CodeClub to get their lesson plans.

I think it's time for all of us in the technology industry to encourage young people to explore the fascinating world of computers. Our lives are dominated by computers - and knowing how to program them is as essential as knowing how to start a fire was to our ancestors.

Computers aren't televisions. They are not passive entertainment devices. They are not appliances which can only perform the functions set by their creators. They are the very embodiment of our age - electronic servants which, with the right coaxing, will do our bidding and help us change the world.

That's why I'm investing my time in helping kickstart kids on their journey to hackerdom.

Here are the two projects with which I am involved.

Apps For Good

I've spent the last year working with the CDI AppsForGood team. They run programs in secondary schools which get kids to design and build Android apps which will be useful to them and their peers.

Sadly, I was rather dismissive of the idea when I first heard about it - but I have since seen the error of my ways.

So, I've spent the last year Skyping into schools and - Dragons' Den style - hearing pitches from teenagers, and giving them feedback.

It has been immensely fun! Some of the app ideas have been really inventive - apps to help prevent anorexia and bullying, apps to help you with your bad hair day, apps to help you with dyslexia, and apps to help you find books your friends like - I've taken great delight in explaining how do do a basic customer survey, how to create a minimum-viable-product, what common pitfalls to avoid. The kids seem to really enjoy having an industry expert take their questions.

You should become an AppsForGood Expert. Seriously, whether you're a coder, a designer, a product manager, CEO, StartUp Founder, or UI expert - you'll find it incredibly rewarding.

It's really simple to participate - Skype sessions are 45 minutes and really easy to fit around your day. Become an AppsForGood Expert today!

Code Club

As I mentioned a few days ago - I've helped start a CodeClub at my local library. I signed up with CodeClub, downloaded their excellent lesson plans and, yesterday, taught my first class.

I was really nervous. I taught kids at drama lessons many years ago, but this was my first time in years facing a hostile audience of savage youths! We had eight kids turn up - including two girls (no doubt future LadyGeeks).

After a quick intro from me, the kids tore through the worksheets - while I ran around answering their questions and fixing their problems. I was ably assisted by librarians from Woking Library.

What surprised me most was how willing the kids were to diverge from the worksheets and go off on their own flights of fancy.

I thought the class went really well - and hopefully we'll run some more in the new year - but I'll leave the final verdict up to the kids.

Your Move

So, what are you doing to spark wonder and delight in young people?

Adam Cohen-Rose

@adamcohenrose

hey @edent Surrey Library Service in Woking is looking for a @CodeClub volunteer… know anyone? codeclub.org.uk/getting-starte…

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So, after a few months of negotiations, demonstrations, CRB checks, and consultations - I'm now ready to run a pilot programme at Woking Library.

Although I've written a few short stories about learning Python, this class will be entirely taught using Scratch.

It's been quite fun learning a new programming language. I really appreciate how simple the drag-and-drop interface is. It's also great that the language runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. More importantly, it can be run from a USB stick - so the locked down machines of the library will have no problems running it.

I've written a demo game, learned most of what Scratch can do, and loaded up a dozen USB sticks with Scratch and other resources. Now all I need is for some kids to come along so I can fill their brains with a love of coding!

If you're interested in running a club at your school, or want to volunteer, visit www.codeclub.org.uk

I've been left slightly dissatisfied with the unstructured nature of the Scratch teaching materials. While it's quite fun to teach a cat to dance - it doesn't seem to be building up to anything.

I'm also working with AppsForGood - it's a project run in secondary schools which aims to get students to research, design, and build a mobile application which will be useful to them or their community.

One of the things I love about it is the students are often trying to solve their own real-world issues. There's a definite sense that they have identified a problem and are working towards a goal.

That's when I remembered The Byte Brothers! In the mid-eighties I somehow chanced upon the mysterious sounding The Byte Brothers Go To A Getaway by Lois & Floyd McCoy.

"The Byte Brothers" were a series of "solve it yourself" adventures. You read the story, and had to attempt to solve the mystery using BASIC. A typical puzzle involved working out average speed, learning how to use loops to generate "I must not cheat in class" lines for detention, and decoding Morse code.

They stepped through the code as they went - explaining how it all worked and what you could do to change the program. You coded as you went along, until you completed the task.

I loved them. I was a sucker for adventure books, and I adored the thrill of being able to solve a crime using my trusty BBC Micro.

The books, sadly, seem out of print. There is virtually no information on the web about the Byte Brothers, nor Lois McCoy. Even Wikipedia is silent on the subject.

I think it's time to resurrect the spirit of the Byte Brothers! Is it possible to create a series of mystery short stories which can solved using, say, Python?

I think so! I'll try to write a few solve-it-yourself adventure stories and publish them on here. If you want to write a story - go ahead. If we get enough momentum behind this, I think it could really engage kids (and adults) into learning to code.

So, stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting story "The Python Pals Program A Problem"!