I just spoke to 80 first graders about programming for career day.

jimmyjacobson.github.io

8 pointsjjacobson5 comments

I should write up my notes from talking to them. I explained that programming was like speaking a language computers understood and used Spanish and English as examples.

I defined code as the words computers understand.

I defined a program as a story made up of code that a computer knows how to read.

A couple of the great questions I got were "Do you like your job?" and "Do you like typing all day?"

Did any of them get the Super Mario reference? Why didn't you go with something more current as your theme?

I wanted to leverage the parallax scrolling background with Reveal and make it fun.

And as soon as I plugged in the projector the entire classroom erupted with shouts of "Mario!!!!"

Being around 7-8 year olds pretty frequently, and having a 5 year old myself, I would have been surprised if they didn't recognize it and get excited.

That's great! I actually didn't expect them to recognize the 8bit graphics.

What really prompted me to ask was the "The princess is in another castle" reference at the end.

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