Lights!

    We held our first Raspberry Pi class afterschool at the library. I was happy to see many who wanted to come and learn on their very own.  I had 60 year olds down to 4th graders.  That made the class really fun.  I paired up some that couldn't type well with others, since we didn't have enough raspberry pi's. It was fun to watch the enthusiasm of all the ages.

     I started at the basics.  Plugging in a pi, adding the sd card, powering it up, shutting it down correctly, adding the periphals. Then, I went through making a blinking light and adding other lights.  I gave them a challenge to code their own name in morse code and handed out a morse code paper with the dashes and dots for the alphabet. 

     All of the class seemed to be engaged and worked hard for two hours straight. They were eager to stay longer.  I like to cutoff when they are having fun so that they will want to come again. So I told them we needed to put the pi's away and that next week we would be learning how to use the camera module.  I heard a lot of moans that class was ending, but I lot of excitement when I told them we would be using the camera module.

     My "60" year old couple worked well.  I noticed the husband knew a little coding and the wife hasn't done much with computers at all.  I know her personally and getting on email has been a challenge.  I smiled that her husband came with her to assist her.  I smiled as they both smiled when they had accomplished the tasks.  My 60 year old who struggles using the computer texted me and asked me for the website I mentioned in class to improve Python skills.  After texting her the website, she texted me back and said she was going to get practicing and learning Python and be better prepared for next week.

     We celebrated FAILure's too.  Every time someone failed and we fixed their failure, I asked, "What did you learn from this FAILure?"  We then would get the attention of the class and stop and explain what the person was trying to do, why it didn't work (why they failed), and then what we did to correct that failure. 

     I posted some pictures of our class on our library's Facebook page and had a mother comment about her son thoroughly enjoying the class.  In fact, he was so excited that he had a friend who did not make it to the first class, but her son wanted me to know he would teach him exactly what we had learned so he was not behind next week when he can come. 

SUCCESS-we already have youth willing to teach others the skills they are learning! 

SUCCESS-I have people who were once intimidated by computers, engaged and wanting to learn more, and willing to work harder during the week to come more prepared for class.

SUCCESS-One boy and his friend had to leave earlier than the rest of the class.  This boy took his friend where he needed to go and came back 15 minutes later.  He said I decided I wanted to be back here so I rearranged my schedule.

SUCCESS-I watched a mother who stayed while her daughter took the class. She smiled when her daughter finally had success and her daughter started to cheer.  I was taking photos of the class and soon I noticed her mom with her phone out taking a picture of her daughter.  She said, "I have to capture this moment, she is just so happy." Parent's who observed recognized learning moments!!!