Adolescent Hackers Alliance

I am an employee of Digital Ops, an Event Organizer for All Hands Active, and like to consider myself a great teacher considering I have no formal training in education. For a few years now, All Hands Active had been working with different local organizations like Bright Futures to teach elementary and middle school students about technology and the philosophy of DIY. We would now like to branch off and start hosting our own workshops and summer camps under our own roof by starting the Adolescent Hackers Alliance.

We already have a rough idea of what we would be teaching and have a few like-minded people who will help me teach our students. The only thing stopping us from starting the classes now is a financial backing for supplies. Our "curriculum" will be finalized after a meeting on Saturday, May 19th, which I can send to you all directly after the meeting if you would like. We're working on 2 classes for now, but hope to have a few other ideas in our back pocket for either next summer or as after-school programs during the school year.

The first class would be one that bridged the gap between video games and being a maker, by focusing on working as a team, communication skills, abstract thinking, and problem solving. Ideally we would then go on to work on super basic game design, teach a little 3D modeling, and instill some basic concepts and teach them how to teach themselves, which I and others find is something lacking in our current education system.

Our second class we have planned is working with micro-controllers, like Arduino and the more advanced Beagle Board, teaching young children the skills to become entrepreneurs by working with new technology.

Each of these classes would be at least 2 weeks long, but could go longer and more in-depth if that's what the community wanted. As I said, the curriculum needs to be ironed out, but will be soon.

I am more than willing to answer any questions before you make your decision. I look forward to hearing from you all!

Грант предоставил Ann Arbor, MI (May 2013)