This post was first written by Gauthamraj Elango, a #MozRep living and studying in India, on his blog, Mozraj.
Hello everyone ,
Hope everyone is doing great !
I am finally excited to blog about teaching the web to kids. I planned to blog about it a long time before . Let me start – not all kids will get a chance to see a computer before our sessions.Especially , those kids who study/live in rural places.
So, in those cases we are supposed to make sure that kids understand ” what a computer is” atleast to small extend before introducing WEB to kids.
Will a kid seeing the computer for the first time in their life , understand when we show the computer and tell ” It is an electronic device capable of doing Arithmetic and Logical expressions ” ? I really doubt it. If I was one of those kids surely I won’t understand anything 😉
So, how do we make them understand – what a computer is for ?
This is what I usually do ,
1. To make them understand it works with electricity just switch off the power switch once the desktop is loaded.
2. Ask the kids to say similar devices in their home which will goes off when there is no power – now kids can relate computer with their house hold devices right ?
From next time , when they asked to list out electronic devices. Computer will be there for sure – ( personal experience )
3. Next , how do we make then understand the power of a computer , physically ?
* I used to ask , what is 1 + 1 ? With less than a sec – we hear 2
* Next 10 + 12 ? With more than 2 sec – we hear 22
* Next 1254 + 5637 ? Here , kids will usually goes with pen and paper to calculate. When you hear the answer say you took xx seconds to answer this question.
* Open the calculator in computer and ask kids to calculate the time taken by the computer to give the answer to the same problem – it will be less than a sec right ?
* Now , kids will understand computer as something which does the calculation very very fast iff there is input and electricity 😉 ( personal experience )
* Next , ask kids to draw circle and rectangle in a paper. Pretty sure , it is not going to be a perfect circle and rectangle.
* Show how good a computer can draw a circle with paint app and how fast it can do.
* Now , kids can understand computer can draw , calculate etc…!
4 . Now , it may be the time to introduce INTERNET but with a physical activity.
* Make the kids to sit in a random manner and number them starting with 1 .
* Call the number 1 and say what is the name of number 10 ( say 10th is the last person ) silently into the ear of number 1 and ask 1 to say tp no. 2 silently. 2 to 3 and so on till 10.
* When it reaches 10 , he will tell the answer ( name of his ) to no. 9 silently and it passes to no.8 and so on till it reaches 1 who will convey it to me.
* Then , explain them that Myself ( who raised the question ) is the user who uses the computer.
* No. 1 person who conveyed user question to the no.2 is the FIREFOX browser 😉
* No.2 to N.10 are computers located in different places but they can communicate with each other and share information .
* Now , kids will understand Internet as – group of computers that are interconnected and share information which was required to the user , requested with the FIREFOX browser ( person with no. 1 )
5. Next , how do we make kids understand URL.
* Ask how you introduce yourself to others – definitely they will say with my name
* So , to get any information we need to use the name of it which has certain format like www.name.com
* name together with that format is called URL
6. At this stage , kids will be clear about – ” What a computer is , how powerful it is , what an internet is , how to get information ( using url ) “
7. We made the kids to understand the above things with physical activity not with any session or talks
I will come with another blogpost on how I teach webmaking to kids.
I would like to hear you thoughts about this blogpost. Kindly , share your thoughts with me 🙂
See you again , in my next blogpost 🙂
Thanks ,
Raj
