CoderDojo, DoSomething.org and Twilio Team Up to Train the Next Generation of Hackers

CoderDojo, DoSomething.org and Twilio Team Up to Train the Next Generation of Hackers

Getting ready to fire up your barby this 4th of July? Good, because we’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about what gets Twilio NYC fired up–mentoring the next generation of great hackers with the Mozilla Summer Code Party.

Last Sunday, with the aid of lots of yummy and healthy snacks, Twilio Developer Evangelist Jack Aboutboul teamed up with CoderDojo NYC and DoSomething.org to participate in a Mozilla Summer Code Party 2012 event. Taking place at the DoSomething.org offices, the occasion for this party was teaching middle school/high schoolers all about web development, focusing on HTML, CSS and some simple javascript.

The party kicked off with intros by Rebecca from CoderDojoNYC. After some explanation on how the web works, and some HTML demos, worksheets were handed out and everyone was taught to use Mozilla Thimble to create their websites, so that they could see how changes in code would affect their sites in real time. There were a few parents and adults in the room as well, and despite their age advantage, we saw first hands that kids learn quicker than adults!

After everyone got the hang of HTML and CSS, it was time to turn of the “Fun” dial to 11 and show the students how to create simple animations and basic games using Scratch. Within 10 minutes, the whole room was meowing. Check out scratch to understand why. Finally in the last 15 minutes, the students got some more information about how web hosts work and published their websites and saved their scratches.

The event was a resounding success. One of the participants was a 6 year old girl who made a website about her dog, another was a 12 year old boy who built a shrine to Michael Jordan. It was a really rewarding and cool way to spend an otherwise blazing hot summer day.

If you’re a student or parent in the NYC are and would like to participate in the next party, another similar event has already been scheduled! You can find more information here: http://coderdojonyc.eventbrite.com/. What are you waiting for? Sign up NOW!