2 Week Teacher Bootcamp by Junior DevLeague Hawaii — Do it!
The Short: I knew nothing before and now I feel much more confident. I know I can start something at my school.
The Long: WOW! I can’t believe I made it! I started class 9 days ago (just 1 more to go). and I am sad to see it end. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew I was going to learn how to teach coding but I wasn’t really sure what coding really was.
This has been a really positive experience. KIND of MIND BENDING and CHALLENGING but REWARDING when you “get it.” The Jr. DevLeague Instructors are encouraging and eternally optimistic. They have an everyone can learn this if that have the right attitude. They work hard to cultivate that attitude. They promote the idea of seeking your own answers, trying things out, collaborating and communication. They gave valuable insights to the profession that emphasizes products and skills over university degrees.
My fellow teachers have been inspiring, encouraging and great collaborators. I hope we’ll continue our network of learners in the future.
On Day 2 of camp, my fellow teachers had a discussion. This was truly like learning a new language. Punctuation mattered. What you wrote and in what order mattered. When to capitalize (and when to NOT) all mattered. We were learning about keyboard keys previously unused. I thought of an analogy that learning Coding and being expected to teach it this school year was like learning. What have we gotten into! Doubts creeped in! “Don’t worry you’ll get a lot of practice.” they said. “ You don’t need to take notes… you’ll practice until you know what to do.” they promised. They were right. Some 16 projects later, I feel much more confident. I certainly don’t know everything BUT I certainly know what to do to find answers. I have a definite and solid foundation in which to build. In addition to the HTML, CSS and Java Script introduced and concepts like the DOM. The Bootcamp gave us practical experience with: collaboration and communication tools; experience using code to interact with our personal computer (as opposed to the mouse); practice writing code; placed to research and expand our knowledge; and to use GIT HUB to store our codes and to find code that we can use like professionals do.
Last night, I spent time looking for lesson ideas. I found myself discarding, websites or web activities because I feel I can be more ambitious. I want the kids to experience what I have at this Bootcamp. The kids should actually create software. They same type of language that runs Facebook, Google and Amazon. I want them to dive into the strange and foreign language. To start with nothing and to build great things one one keystroke, one line and one keyword search at a time.
The most important lesson hasn’t been the language. 2 weeks isn’t going to be anything more then the promised introduction. It has been that we are all going to be students together and it’s going to be fun to learn.