General Information — Mediatech’s Coding Program for Kids
ABOUT THE PROGRAM: Mediatech’s Coding Program for Kids is a one-week, morning program for children aged 8-14 years of age designed to introduce the principles of creating digital content. The objective is to give participants an open-ended environment where they can develop and then apply their digital creativity skills. Enrollment is limited to 12 on a first-come, first-served basis, and no experience is necessary. The program curriculum has been designed by Warren Buckleitner and tweaked over the years, and is taught by educated staff and volunteers. Parents are encouraged to visit to observe or help out!
WHAT WILL MY CHILD LEARN? The curriculum is based around MIT’s Scratch language (http://scratch.mit.edu), which will be used to create multimedia presentations that will be demonstrated at the end of the week. Each child will progress at his or her own pace.
ABSENTEE POLICY: If your child cannot make a day, please let us know. It is especially important that your child attends the special session on Friday.
BEHAVIOR: All members are expected to abide by Mediatech’s acceptable use policy. Children who break this policy, as determined by the supervisor, will first have their parents contacted, and then will be asked to leave the class. A copy of this policy is posted on the bulletin board, and at http://mediatech.org/policy-and-operations-manual/.
VOLUNTEERS: Teens ages 14-17 may opt to participate as volunteers to help with programming and providing individual support. This role is eligible to be counted for community service hours.
FRIDAY DEMO DAY: At 11am on Friday (the last day) participants will demonstrate their projects, showing off completed works on the big screen. At this time, each student will be presented with a certificate of completion. Parents are welcome to come and celebrate the group’s accomplishments.
PAYMENT: Make checks for $120/week to “Mediatech Foundation” to bring on the first day. These donations help support Mediatech throughout the year and to help run the program in the years to come.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES/MATERIALS. It will be helpful if your child has a working email account that he or she can access during the course (e.g., www.gmail.com). Children may bring a laptop if desired, but Chromebooks are provided. A digital camera may also be brought to use for creating stop-motion animations.
DROP OFF: Parents are asked to drop off their children at 9:00 and enter through the Maple Avenue entrance. If you need the elevator (or have a stroller) you can come through the front library entrance and use the elevator.
PICKUP: Please pick up your child promptly at 12:00 noon from the Maple Avenue entrance. If you’d like to arrive a few minutes earlier, you can park either on Maple Ave. or on Main Street, and walk up the steps to greet your child.
DAILY SCHEDULE:
9:00 Programming and instruction period.
10:30 Light snack or refreshment, provided in the courtyard.
10:45 Demo and/or lesson (optional) in the community room. We’ll be showing videos of other children’s programming projects as well as some science-related movies. Children will have the choice of working on their projects or viewing the movie.
12:00 noon: Pickup. Note that Mediatech stays open following the program each day. Children are welcome to stay and continue working on their projects. Mediatech will close at 5pm, subject to staff availability, and children of 9 years or younger should be supervised for the duration of their post-program stay.
MEDIA RELEASE:
As part of this program, your child may generate ideas, video or photographic materials that may be posted publicly, online. All of these materials will be created under Creative Commons copyright guidelines, found at www.creativecommons.org. This means that your child’s work may be used by others with attribution. In addition, it is possible that your child’s voice, name, age, photo or a video of your child might be posted either on Mediatech’s web site and or on a public site such as www.scratch.mit.edu, www.facebook.com, orwww.youtube.com. If you have any problem with this, please let us know prior to starting the course.
Personal Information Release Form
As part of this form your child may generate ideas in the form of programming code, video or photographic images, that may be posted online. These materials will be posted using a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, using guidelines found at www.creativecommons.org. Part of this includes listing your child’s name or screen name as the author of this work.
While we will make every attempt to teach children the basics about how to create an anonymous screen name, and how to keep personal information safe, and we pledge to prevent the distribution of any personal identifying information such as your child’s name and age, it is possible that your child’s voice, name, age, photo or a video of your child might be posted online in some form such as on Mediatech’s web site (www.mediatech.org) for use in promotional materials or presentation, a documentary, a newspaper article, and or on a public site such as www.scratch.mit.edu or www.youtube.com.
By participating in this class, you release the Mediatech Foundation from any legal liability that could result from release of such information. Please acknowledge that you have read this and understand it fully, by completing the following:
Name of Child (children) participating in the course:
Signed
Date
Please return to the supervisor desk, Mediatech Foundation 120 Main Street 2nd floor, Flemington, NJ 08822 908-284-2006