Meanwhile i suggested little miss Haana do a few tutorials to acclimatize herself with the platform. So we did a few tutorials over the weeks leading up to the appathon week.
It took me some time to realize that my little miss Haana is only 8 years old. And the way the coding concepts were taught when i learnt them, which was at age 18, will not work for a child as young as her. Of course it took several fights for that realization to dawn upon me! But when it did, i was humbled. So we deviced our own lingo. We likened cloud storage to a reference book in a library, and variables to a cheatsheet, data structure like a list to a book with pages. And thus we learnt along; using every day things to explain the coding constructs. Anything that required exploring and picking up new things and tools, little miss Haana was way ahead of me.
Finally the big week arrived. We had been waiting for it for a while now! Except i messed up on the timezones a little bit, and didn't realize the 'clock had started' till the next morning, about 14 hours later. But no worries, we have time, right?
On day 1, we brainstormed a little bit and came up with some ideas.. On day 2, little miss Haana was ready to go, but i wanted her to spend more time brainstorming and then creating mind-map and then getting more detailed in what the app screens will do. Obviously we faught over whether she should be more prescriptive or get moving along.
On day 3 we started some coding for the app. We were building a game for other kids her age. And in the game, the kid has to keep their character at social distance from other kids running around in the play ground. In our brainstorming we reasoned this is the best way to teach kids about good choices. We talked about how we could extend it to different scenes - social distancing at playground, within a classroom, at recess etc. Then we talked about how we could extend that even outside of covid. We could teach kids make good choices against bullying, against discrimination etc. In our mind it had some real potential. And we were getting excited now!!
On day 4, things were getting a bit sticky.. For me, things were hitting against a wall, again. I had been telling little miss Haana to work at it, and expecting she would just sit by herself and work things out by herself. And that was not happening, she was actively not working on it, even though i was reminding her that time was running out. It was soo frustrating. Why was she throwing all this time away? Its only 3 more days and then she can do whatever she wants.. Several times in frustration, i told her lets quit it. Free ourselves from this madness and go about our way. But repeatedly little miss Haana said no. She was determined not to quit. And she wasn't letting me either.
But in spite of that, she wouldn't sit and work it out by herself. What gives? After another fight that Dad needed to break us up from, it somehow dawned on me, as to why these fights never happen with dad. I realized, i need to reset my expectations. I am expecting her to be like a high school or college kid, who figured things out by herself; once explained or told, she'll just work at it by herself. It dawned on me, she's 8!!! She will not be able to work something out by herself, especially something like coding she had never done before, something that's new and more than a bit daunting. It finally dawned on me, how unreasonable my expectations are.
Next, I sat with her, asking her questions along the way. Ensuring she understands what she's doing. And asking her what she needed to do next. Telling her when she couldn't connect the next dot herself.
And now we were making progress! On the app. But even more importantly, progress between us. And perhaps most importantly she was making progress learning and not backing down. There's a ton of information on the appathon and coding. On the slack channels people were asking all kinds of questions. All daunting and scary for someone with no coding background. Indeed i have years of software experience and yet i can relate to that fear of what you don't know: how big, complex and uncanny it looks. And little by little, piece by piece she was adding functionality to her game, and she was crushing it! Most important of all, she was a turning into a fighter!
Day 6 she had worked and finished up one game for her app. We were feeling good. We decided we will add another game to the app. And a chat component too. She's already made a chat earlier when we learnt concepts of global storage, so it should not be to hard.
Day 7 we worked ALL day long. We didn't even break for lunch and barely got up from our chairs. Our deadline was 7pm. At 4, she started working on the video, which also had to be submitted with the app. She had started working on the transcript of it the previous day. Now we were refining it. Other last minute glitches and nail biting later, we finally uploaded the app and the video at 654pm!!!! Phew but Yeahhhh!! We high-fived! It was an intense day! But all culminating in this great sensation of achievement. She gave her feedback on the appathon too. It was a great feeling!
I think i learnt a thing or two during the appathon. Tempering my expectations with some reality check. Both little miss Haana and I, together came to a place where she can talk about her feelings without closing and bottling them up, however intensely and powerfully they flood her being. If i could get to be a bigger fan of hers', i just nailed it. She didn't give up, when though i provided several opportunities for her to do so.
I hope in this exercise, she learnt some thing about herself. That she really can and does do whatever she sets her sights at.
You go girl!
What a wonderful and inspiring story. It captures so much of the spirit of App Inventor. I can't wait to see what little miss Haana (and you) build next.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
-Mark