I’m going to have a workshop teaching app creating to 12 year olds at a nearby school. I do this for fun and inspiration, and spreading the love of Bubble and a modern way of being an artist :).
Is there anyone out there having done something like this and would like to share som insights and discuss good ways to do it?
My thoughts so far:
I will be a workshop, not a lecture. They should try for themselves, having fun creating something.
The workshop will be for 1 hour. I think thats sufficient to get something done and not so long that they will loose focus.
Their teacher will collect app ideas beforehand. Not so much that I believe we can make any of them, but as a way to pick ideas for the workshop that they can relate to. Also, super interesting to see what apps they think is needed/missing.
They are 21 in the class so I’ll split them into groups of 3.
On the tech side:
I will use one Bubble account for them all, giving each group a separat app.
They all have iPad, but trying myself it doesn’t seem practically possible to do it on an iPad. So, they get to be 3 kids with one PC.
So it’s done. 7 groups of 3 students built a chat app from scratch in 2 hours, understanding design, workflow and database searches. And a lot of animations(!)
Note to self; Each group had a separate page in the same app to work on. Not good, since in preview mode they get to update the page continuously. So, next time create a Bubble account for each group.
How was the experience!? As soon as i finish my first development i want to do workshops to show this awesome tool to other people in my community. Any tips?
Pick a simple app, but one they can relate to. Break it up into clear steps. In each step, let them experiment freely. Explain concepts in every day terms, not using IT gibberish. Let them have fun and explore this modern way of craftsmanship.
Not really. I wanted them to think both on what and how they would do it. So I broke it up in;
Based on their earlier input I choose an app they could relate to and was simple enough to start with - a chat.
Design: together we put ideas on what elements should be in a chat on a whiteboard. I then choose 3 of them so start of with (input field, button and piccy uploader). Then I showed them the element list in Bubble and the properties floating window and set them loose on exploring and creating, me supporting each group individually. This led to a lot more than just the 3 element types I selected, they going wild in colours and even animation.
When they started asking “my button doesn’t work” I got a perfect step into workflows and actions (or as they called it - coding(!). Again I showed how to create an action and told them to experiment with the element actions.
But again, this led to the question “my button doesn’t work”. It just got animated etc, no chat functionality. This lead into to explain that the app must store data, what data is, and how it’s stored (in drawers :). So, I introduced the data actions and set them free to think which one to use. A bit harder (English not being their native language). But they got it. So testing again, nothing happened when clicking the button in preview mode. They were getting a bit frustrated, but thats a good driving force as well :). It took a bit of thinking and discussion for them to see that its was working, they could not just see it. They were getting the hang of the level of detail computers need instructions on.
So, introducing them to the repeating group (described as a list), and showing them how to make the search (comparing to searching on Google), and telling the app to show it (using element text). I did not let them find this on their own since it’s a lot of small detailed clicks that need to go right. But they got it, and quickly asked why the list didn’t show the latest chat entry on top(!)
This was the end of the workshop (2 hours) and their teacher had to drag them away from the computers to lunch. And they all wanted to use what they created.
Generally that is a good starting point. I think that would be a bit above the heads of these 12 year olds. My plan was to pick the cherries by showing that just what they needed to have fun and complete the steps, able to build the chat. My goal being they getting a feeling of success and “I can build apps”, so that they want to take further steps.
I love how you just jumped in and have them start building something without explaining how it all works. Just start with some fields and a button. Bet they could just spend the 2 hours styling the button.
But then with each road block, you introduced new theory, basically allowing them to ‘level up’ on each occasion. A very natural way to learn for this age.
I met with the class teacher for feedback on the workshop. The kids had answered a standardised micro survey they do on other projects, so she had very clear feedback. And it was all positive ;
good step by step approach.
challenging and fun.
good to work on our own.
I take this positive feedback not so much on my behalf, but that they enjoyed feeling empowered being able to build an app almost on their own.
The teacher had some points for improvement;
2 in each group instead of 3 to promote hands on time for all.
Smaller class, max 16 to be able to help everyone (without getting stressed out). Better to split the class in 2 and have two separate occasions.
Check that everyone has managed the current step before taking the next, by walking around.
All in all, super inspiring - will do it again.
And it aligns with; https://code.org/promote/thanks. In my workshop the girls was on par, if not more, on the ball than the boys.
