Work and thought about a summer camp for kids from the view of a speaker

I just have had a trip to Hanoi during two middle weeks of this July. A main purpose that drove me to travel to the same place the second time this year was to give a speech at a summer camp for middle students organized by CKP or Creative Kids Project. I delivered a technology-central workshop, through which I hope to ignite my students’ curiosty towards technology and programming particularly.

The main topic was about linear thinking and a programming-favored term for that concept, block diagram. Programming language Scratch was chosen to be the environment for them to practice scripting and making simple projects with a colorful array of characters and backgrounds given. I chose the environment because it offers manifold drag-and-drop code blocks that serve a wide range of purpose in a user-friendly workplace. I built a mini quiz game that allows one to plant a new tree whenever one gives a correct answer as an illustration and tutorial of my teaching. Here you can play with my silly questions first, and feel free to explore the code inside. I did it in a limited time, so it still contains a handful of bugs and inconviences. I am sorry for that, but just have fun.

Above is a brief of my work, from this point is my thought. Sincerely I get a little jealous with the kids there. Not in a negative way, but I wish I could have had an opportunity to partake in such an activity when I was young. Perhaps because in my time, no summer camp focused in things like building up in children an intuition about different fields of the world. But I couldn’t say that my parents would afford the cost for the program even if there was one. So I feel quite happy giving a talk at the camp, at least I contribute to create the learning opportunity for someone, a kind of opportunity I wasn’t lucky to have. Although my workshop wasn’t successful as I desired due to my inexperience in instructing small kids, I think the content, in some way, has made them feel curious and motivated to continue to dig down on themselves.

In the bottom line, I want to send a heartfelt thank to H.S. for your great support during the camp, and during my stay at your house. Wish you have your first wonderful year abroad.