Ninja's lead the way!

At Techno Ninjas we try to keep abreast of what is happening in the realms of Education and see what's going on in the world of technology and other STEM subjects. There seems to be a lot of discussion about student led learning and peer-to-peer learning of late. It seems that our Saturday Clubs have evolved into this quite naturally and we're delighted. 

Every week we have something fresh for the Ninjas to get their teeth into. Each project incorporates something they've not done before, so building skill sets and learning trickier concepts - as well as having something completely different to do. Not everyone wants to do the new ones, sometimes they just want to improve on something they've already done and this is actively encouraged. However, nearly every week at least one Ninja will ask for help to do a particular thing in a game. This might be something that's covered already in a previous project which they can refer to and assist them and sometimes it's something they've not covered before. If it's the latter, we will go off and devise a new project for them that will incorporate the particular skill they want to learn. Now, we don't know about you, but when we were at school and whenever we've done any sort of training, it's never been like that! It's always been prescriptive and pre-prepared and one size fits all - sound familiar? So, without even thinking about it, we are allowing our Ninjas to form the learning, we are taking their request for 'features' and turning them into learning materials. 

We've recently taken this a step further. One of our slightly older Ninjas has always wanted to design and publish his own website. Now, we all know that it's very easy these days to do exactly that. There are tools and hosting sites that, at the touch of a button, will give you your very own website. However, he doesn't want to do that, so next week we will be helping him build his own website, using the basics of web development (HTML and CSS) and then we will also provide him with some web space so that he can publish it!

Then there's the peer-to-peer learning that takes place every session. This, in our opinion, is invaluable! We have handouts, we have helpers and of course, we're there too to lend a hand and give assistance where necessary. Nevertheless, every week we witness the Ninjas helping one another out. This might be with a bit of code, or it might be inspiration or a short-cut they have discovered. I believe the value of this interaction is priceless. The ninjas are naturally fostering a camaraderie and forging friendships and alliances. They speak each other's language and can understand the need for a particular script or tool. 

We aren't trying to incorporate the latest educational buzz-words, it's happening organically without any effort and it would be amazing to see this happening in mainstream education. How wonderful would it be, to be able to choose the lessons you wish to attend? Within those lessons, learn what to you would find useful and interesting? How much more do you think children would learn, when they hold the key to their learning, instead of being given a list of things that tick a box?

Karen is often heard saying that she learns by doing and there are many other people who are the same. She also is often heard saying that unless she knows WHY something is useful, it doesn't go in.  Karen has a love of the English language and is a big reader. However she failed her English Literature because she felt that what she was learning about was irrelevant. In her opinion, learning to pick apart a poem or a book and understand why the author wrote what they did, completely spoiled the reading of the book. When reading, you want to immerse yourself in the world the author has created. Not read it and try to second guess why he or she wrote what they did!

So, with that in mind, perhaps lessons in maths for example, should include why you would need to use it? Maths is essential, we all know that. However it's also one of the subjects that is hard to grasp unless you know why you're learning it. Karen overhears College students lamenting all the time "what's the point of maths, I'm never going to use it?". As 'grown ups' we know that's simply not true and that maths is everywhere and absolutely essential. Why not embed practical scenarios and - dare we say it - only teach students the bits they actually need...? 

Contentious indeed...we would love to hear your thoughts on the matter!

Get with the Program! I'm a Digital Native...get over it!

The Zombie Apocolypse is here...we've all seen them, stuck to their devices, barely a grunt passing their lips because they're not engaging with the world outside their phone, tablet or other device. However, these are a different breed of zombie, they're not brain eating but if the digital immigrants (that's us by the way) would have you believe, this breed of zombie have had their brains eaten by computers, the internet and mobile access. These zombies have a fear of disconnection from the internet, from their devices and from each other. Sounds a bit like the Star Trek Cyborgs to us!

We've all heard the stories of babies under the age of one 'swiping' books with a look of confusion because they don't understand what a book is, they're used to an iPad. Or watched fascinated as a toddler 'just knows' how to disconnect the cables from the DVD player to reconnect the Playstation. The age of the internet and the computer is upon us, most things carry some sort of technology, even if it's just a hidden barcode. "Where will it all end" seems to be the lament of the older generations, "when I were a lad, I had a hoop and a stick and I were grateful"...yes, but try to wrestle the iPad from Grandpa's surprisingly tight grip is these days quite a challenge!

Should we assimilate...?

We, as leaders of Techno Ninjas, are of the generation born and raised before the invention of the internet and the world wide web, so we are digital immigrants. According to the many definitions in Google-dom, we struggle with the terminology, we shy away from and in many cases, shun using technology. We prefer paper and pen and good old fashioned talking to each other. And yes, we do agree with some of this...we do like to talk, we do feel that there isn't enough interaction between people these days as they're hooked on their devices, but...we also realise that in order not to be left behind we need to 'get with the program' and just do it. Karen, especially, has taken this to the nth degree and Lynt is often telling her to get off her phone and join the real world! It can be quite anti-social, but increasingly this is how it will be and in order to connect with our own children, who really haven't known anything else, we do need to reach out and join with them, in whatever capacity we can. This can be a proper 'geek out' like one ninja parent who is building a robot with his son, to playing games with your kids and connecting with them on their level. Do you really want to get to the stage where they're shaking their heads and tutting at us because we just don't get it? We don't, and so we have vowed to keep up with the technology and try and stay one step ahead of the game where we can.

Douglas Adams (author of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "How to stop worrying and learn to love the Internet" sums it up in his latter book:

"1) everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you've turned thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it - until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."

So are we (by that we mean those born before 1994) really Digital Immigrants? Or can we learn to love those things that are invented after we are 30? We like to think so and believe that now is the time to jump on board and get involved. In these exponential times we're living in, perhaps there will only be a short window of opportunity for us to do this, before it all gets too much  for our old, grey matter! Let's try to meet our Digital Natives somewhere along the way, who knows, we might actually enjoy the ride and learn something valuable at the same time!

Girls and coding do mix!

When we first started Techno Ninjas, we were unsurprised that the majority of those signing up were boys. It seems to be an accepted stereotype that boys like computers and technology and girls prefer, well more girly things! Of course, having Karen as our Techno lead, we fly in the face of stereotypes and we hope this shows we are leading by example.

We would like to report on some of our gender observations and see if you can guess which gender we are referring to:

1. Focused on the project
2. Prone to getting easily distracted
3. Rushes to finish, the end result is the main goal rather than quality of work
4. Will spend more time on how it looks than how it works
5. Will spend ages staring at the screen before asking for help
6. Asks for help immediately, but wants you to do it for them
7. When they ask for help, they don't want it really, but want to tell you they know how to do it!

Do any of these sound familiar...? Of course they do, because none of these are gender specific :) It was a trick question - both boys and girls have all the above traits, there are NO differences. There are also no differences in ability. Girls are just as good as boys, girls can be focused, but can also be easily distracted and vice versa.

We're delighted that we seem be reaching more girls, the ratios are getting more towards 60:40 which is fantastic. We do have a particular pair of ninjas, boy and girl that have become like a tag team (we will mention no names). The boy is a bit older and has quite a lot of experience of coding, the girl is fairly new to it (started at our Summer Camp). They work really well together, it's great to see. They compliment each other's skills whereby one of them has a tendency to over complicate, the other one will simplify. They bounce ideas off each other and come up with some amazing creations and ideas. 

What we've witnessed is that our ninjas don't conform to typical gender stereotypes, they share a love of the subject and that is enough in each others eyes. So will we see more girls entering into the largely male domain of IT in the coming years? We certainly hope so and we will be doing our bit to level that particular playing field.

Coding <= Confidence

Techno Ninjas was launched in May 2014 with a pilot Summer Camp held in the last week of July and first week of August. We opened our doors to children aged between 9 and 14 who were interested in technology, computers and programming. We didn't really know what to expect, so it was all a bit nerve wracking! However, we loved it, the children loved it and the parents loved that the kids loved it :) Overall, it was a tremendous success.

We got the idea after Karen helped run an after school Raspberry Pi club with two of our own children and some of their friends from school. Karen quickly realised that she really enjoyed running the club and could see the potential and how much the kids loved coming. The only slight issue was that the RPi units were somewhat temperamental and prone to crashing. This could be disastrous to a 10 year old who has just spend the last 30 minutes inputting code or using Scratch to make a game, to have it disappear because he hasn't saved it! Yes, of course they were reminded to save...

So we hacked out a plan. We would concentrate on Scratch (which could be done online), forget Python (for now) as the kids were not that engaged with it and also to look for other activities we could do with them during a whole day and in some cases whole week of coming to a camp with us.

Techno Ninjas was born!

During the two weeks we saw kids learning to program, get excited about making their creations come to life. They worked together in teams to create stop-frame animated movies. They created their own game controllers, piano staircase, tennis racquet guitar and pizza box operation game using a MaKey MaKey. They even made a giant jumping game controller out of a gymnastics spring board, a box and some foil to play Super Mario brothers!

However, the one thing that has surprised us the most out of all the skills they learned and continue to learn when they attend our Saturday clubs, is confidence. Most of them worry about doing it wrong, they worry that if they don't do it right then there might be a problem. Their hands shoot up every five minutes asking for help, when we get there we realise that most of the time they don't actually need our help, they just want reassurance that they're doing it right. Gradually though, they realise that they can't break it. If their code isn't right, all that will happen is that it won't work - or won't work as they expect. They start to look at the code and work out why it's not working as it should...all on their own! When this happens it's amazing to watch. They get so much out of that autonomy, they are so proud of what they've done ALL ON THEIR OWN!

We've had children with Aspergers, Dyslexia and other learning issues and they have all loved it and got so much out of it. They can show their parents what they have done, show their siblings and know that they did it!

What they all find is that the best way to learn is through trial and error, that failing isn't failing, but it's all part of the learning process. You don't need to get something right straight away, learn by doing and most of all trying.

We love what we do, they love what we're showing them and all that leads to CONFIDENCE! Programming can be fun, we have proved this beyond a doubt.