Shannon said:
Hey all! Wanted to share some of our learnings from Hack Day for others.
In Portland we are dividing Hack Day across a couple of meetings (starting in December) and will be complete in order to start the 12 courses with everyone else. This allows girls who weren't able to attend one single day so close to the holidays to participate.
Also what we discovered is that by printing out the instructions and giving each girl a copy they started to zip through the steps on their own and weren't really paying attention to 'the presentation'. We went with it and it yielded some interesting dynamics. The first is that by working on their own they were experiementing with the tool more and therefore learning more faster. They started showing us capabilities of the tool that weren't documented (these are girls who have never coded a single line before). The girls who were faster started mentoring their peers. It also allowed we mentors to spend time with the girls who were struggling without creating peer pressure on them to 'hurry up'. Everyone was fully engaged. At the end we had show and tell -- some of the girls invented new ways to code or had added capabilities completely on their own. This was the first exercise!
Also when it was time to use a sound file I suggested they go online and find an copyright free audio file of a sound they wanted the Crystal Ball to sound like. That created a whole new learning curve and level of enthusiasm as they started to conceptualize, customize and own their creation. This is also a very real world scenerio of doing discovery online and we were able to teach them advanced search techniques.
What surprised me was the two girls that struggled the most when asked over lunch if they had enjoyed themselves got a bright light in their eye and said something along the lines of "That was fun, can't wait to do more!" The levels of frustration they were experiencing were rewarded with success (everyone completed the app in their own way), and that meant something important to them. I was concerned we were going to lose them until then.
P.S. All the mentors said they had fun too and were looking forward to the next session. That matters as well! :)