What makes projects & programs good/hard?

SSA @ Healey, 23 June 2016

  1. What makes for good projects?
  2. What makes projects hard to do [well]?
  3. What do we worry about?
  4. What will the arc of your program look like?
  5. Finalizing program choice, schedule, and individual next steps
  1. Making something physical (1h, 9—10AM)
  2. Making something digital (1h, 10—11AM)
  3. What's hard about real projects, what do we worry about? (30m, 11—11:30AM)
  4. Lunch (45m, 11:30AM—12:15PM)
  5. What makes for a good program? What would success mean for us? (30m, 12:15—12:45PM)
  6. Brainstorming program arc (1h, 12:45—1:45PM)
  7. Review suggested readings; brainstorm next steps; draft individualized write-up (15m, 1:45–2PM)

Fun activity;
bad project

scratch.mit.edu

Champagne's sweater

Rorschach Scratch

Pair up and make a Scratch project avatar for yourself and your partner, a la these examples

What was hard?
What worries you?

What's essential to a good project?
What excites you?

Lunch

Hard [for them],

meaningful [to them],

intended for a real audience

  1. If people are going to share a project with a real audience…
  2. …then they have to make a project of their own design…
  3. …which means they have to scope and design their own project…
  4. …which means they need a well-chosen space of projects to expose them to (and engage them with) what's possible
  1. Expose & engage
  2. Engage, brainstorm, & scope projects
  3. [Do it]
  4. Share with a real audience

Pair up and choose one of the programs which interested you

  1. …brainstorm and sketch out a handful of 1) activities which could effectively expose and engage people, and 2) projects which you'd be excited to see a young person have done by the end of the program.
  2. …and then take a photo of those notes and email it to

Thoughts on
the day?