A few months ago some local tech friends, Jamii Corley, Alice Shriver, Anna Doo, and I got this idea to participate in the Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) Conferences. EYH is a conference for young girls in middle school and high school that offers, according to their website, “opportunities to explore their career options through small hands-on technical career workshops led by female professionals from their local community.”
At the Digital Family Summit in October, my kids went to a game workshop where they learned about Scratch, some really nifty story, animation and game creation software. If you’ve never heard of it, check it out, it’s fun for kids of all ages. It was a huge hit with my kiddos and we decided to give it a go with the girls at EYH.
The presentation was a resounding success, the girls were really into it. Jamii did a fantastic job presenting the ideas to the girls, starting them off with a quick tutorial and then we split into small groups where we all helped the girls create new projects, add sprites and new costumes, sounds, backgrounds, and anything they wanted to add.
We even had a few girls who had used Scratch at their schools and we were able to let them take the lead in some of the small groups.
Here are some pics:
Karen Alma 