I'm really excited to welcome today our presenter Kelly Smith.
We, as you know, provide two webinars a month through our WebJunction programming.
We seek out folks who are bringing excellent services to their community and Kelly reached out to us and I was really excited for this opportunity because we have seen coding, as a topic that's come up, in our webinar surveys, as a resource that folks want to explore.
So, Kelly, you just came at the right time, with the right information and I'm really glad you're here and I'm going to let you go ahead and get us kicked off today.
>> Kelly Smith:  Thank you, Jennifer.
Thanks for joining.
This is a really exciting topic and hopefully you're as geeked out about coding as I am or maybe if not right now, you will be later.
Webinars are always funny for me.
It's so weird to just sit here and talk to your computer screen and imagine that there's people out there that you're communicating with.
This time, I'll -- a quick story -- I decided to Google advice for how to do a good webinar and I've done a few before.
But one of the things I thought was interesting is it said, dress like you would if you were standing in front of a room full of several hundred people and so, normally, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, and it's been 110-plus for many, many days.
We're trying to hit our high temperature record.
I opted out of shorts and flip-flops today and decided to actually dress like a presenter.
So I'm sitting here in an empty office and I'm already to go.
So, hopefully it comes across in the way that I speak.
The main thing for me -- 
Jennifer said this already -- 
let's make this a conversation as much as the technology will allow.
Over the past couple of years, you know, I've had the opportunity and blessing to meet lots of people like you who are out there looking at how to turn your library into a place, a physical place where people are learning digical programing.
I'd love to hear your stories and I wish we could all sit in a room and chat with each other.
Let's replicate that and do that with the beautiful chat box.
Fire away.
Please enter any comments or questions.
We'll take breaks throughout the presentation so we can go through and answer questions.
Share your stories.
Post links to anything you're doing at your library.
If the rest of the attendees are like me, I'll be curious to go through and click on those links and read and see what's happening in other parts of the country.
I'm going to tell my story, but I want to hear your story, as well, and questions.
So, thank you, again, the joining.
It's my pleasure to be here.
Thanks to Jennifer and WebJunction for this opportunity.
Today, we're going to spend just a little bit of time at the beginning on my story.
You're probably wondering who is this guy, besides normally wearing shorts and living in a crazy, hot place like Phoenix.
That's all you know about me.
We'll talk about foundational Guiding Principles that apply to any program.
I'll paint a picture of what I think works and what I've seen work in libraries all over the country and we'll start age group by age group.
I've broken it down into categories.
We have five buckets of demographics.
Let's focus that way on how can we provide the best coding resources and coding education for these different categories of learners?
Then we'll summarize and wrap it up and hopefully have a great discussion.
So, I'm excited for this opportunity and let's go ahead and kick it off.
While I'm telling my story, I ask you to tell your story.
If you've done anything in coding, any attempts at all to do a coding program or a camp or a class, please go ahead and share about it.
If you can type it if you want or even better would be a link that could send us to your coding story.
My story, I am a self-proclaimed technology nerd.
I have really always loved technology.
It goes back to me as a child, taking things apart, building Legos.
My robots were pretty lame.
I would often place a tape recorder inside a cardboard box and play it so that my sister would be afraid of this robot that's coming to get her.
Technology has proven -- has improved so much and we have opportunities for being technology people.
Software is a thread there's always been there for me.
It has really aligned around technology.
I've been able to use my ability to write software -- by the way, I don't consider myself a great coder or a ninja ninja.
I don't get paid to write software, I do it for fun.
That being said, I've seen it help me in the jobs that I've done professionally.
But also in my personal life, I've been able to use coding for fun.
I sold a software company and came back to my home town of mesa, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix.
In 2013, I looked around.
Having lived in places like san fran  Francisco and MIT, I looked around the coffee shops of mesa and said, why don't we see those people here with their apple Mac book pros and big head phones typing on computer code at the coffee shop?
My answer to that was, well, we got to start young.
So I walked into my library and volunteered to do computer programming as an ongoing program and my version of that was, let's meet once a week in the computer lab.
The library staff was very accommodating and they said, sure, let's do it.
I put posters up.
Literally taped posters to street lights.
I dropped them off a boys and girls club and local elementary schools and kids started coming.
It was neat to see all different types of kids that would join us for computer programing.
It still happens every week.
I continue to volunteer as the facilitator for the Code Club in mesa.
We started with 15 kids in a little computer lab.
Over time, that evolved and we ran out of space.
We had a programming room next door and did a crowd campaign and raised $10,000 and purchased chrome computers.
We have two rooms full of coders and sometimes as many as 60 kids to code with us and it's a fluctuating number.
Every week, we're down there.
I was there yesterday, doing coding again.
What happened then is that started to gain the attention of other people and we started getting requests so we set up a nonprofit and an organization called Code Club of Arizona.
The whole goal being, let's support in any way we can.
I have a full-time day job so I wasn't able to personally be at all these Code Clubs.
But I started creating resources and sharing resourcing with other libraries and so over time, you'll see this Code Club resource kit.
And we can talk about that, as well.
That is a free 20-page book that -- it's not a book, but a packet of ideas and information about how to run a Code Club and it's free at this website, which I have a link to later on.
Over time, we had more libraries coming in.
Some of them saying, it's great that these resources are available.
But we still don't have tech expertise.
We don't know how to code.
How can we offer a coding program?
The big breakthrough for me was realizng you don't need that.
You don't need to spend a ton of time preparing something because -- because the kids can guide the learning and we'll talk about that.
I say, kids, because  that's who I'm used to sharing.
So, now it's a full-blown business.
I actually quit my job two months ago and I have sat through webinars where people try to sell me things so I'm not going to talk anymore about the commercial side of it besides this is a full-time business and a small business, two people.
The goal is to basically bring coding to every library in the world.
I imagine that you having joined this webinar and having looked at coding in the past, I see a lot of stories showing up here in the chat.
Thank you for that.
You share that passion.
Let's help a lot of these kids come to the library and teach themselves computer programming so they can go out and can get a job.
If they want to start a business, they can start a business.
If they want to make a website or video game, that's fine, too.
So, that's my story.
We currently have 60 or so Code Clubs running.
We are mostly in Arizona.
But we have some in western United States.
Had ongoing conversations with people in other places and by no means a geography snob.
I'd welcome a conversation with anybody, no matter where you are.
Geography snob is not a real term, by the way.
You've probably seen these from code.org.
The picture they're painting here is that coding -- learning to program computers is as close as it gets in 2016 to a guaranteed job.
You're going to be able to go get a job and if you don't like that job, you can go to a different job because these skills are so valuable.
The ability to make something on a computer is just really, really important and everyone I know, literally, technology CEOs, software companies are coming to me and saying, how old are these kids you're working with?
I say, some of them are 12 or 13.
Could we hire them in a couple of years?
They're impatient for these kids to gain the skills required to be a developer and these skills then, you know, go on to lead to career success.
That can be boring for a kid but I've used this messaging for the adults, the parents.
When you show them the videos of the workplaces and eating food and playing games, it's pretty fun.
I wanted to flag this quote from Drew Houston, who's a technology CEO.
He started a company called Dropbox.
He said coding is the closest thing we have to a superpower.
It's said in the tone of wonder.
Like, this is the first time in the history of the world that anybody, no matter what their background or where they went to school, anybody can create something and it can be valuable -- just seeing in the last week with pokemon.
It is going to hundreds of millions of people using these things quickly.
That is all facilitated by, you know, the internet and the social media and the connection that we all feel through technology.
It truly is a power.
What's great about this is even if a young person that I'm working with or somebody that's older -- we've done programs with older adults.
They're not looking for a cucareer opportunity.
It doesn't matter, if you can do these things and build something with computers, you have this ability to influence the world.
As the tech people like to say, to put a dent in the universe and it's a pretty powerful -- I would tell more stories if I had more time but I want to make sure we get into the different groups.
The other other things people have asked me, why are you doing it for libraries?
I know people who do camps and charge $10,000.
I also have -- well, basically that.
I have friends who have done younger kid boot camps and coding camps and what happens then is you target a one particular segment of the world, which is people whose parent can, one, pay for it and, two, they understand it.
The kids I get excited about helping and the people I get excited about helping, young and old, I want to get to people who don't have anyone in their life telling them how important coding is.
I want them to walk through the library, because that's the place near their school, and see the coding going on and walk in there and learn the skills that will allow them -- if they stick with it and work with it -- that will allow them to do something great with their life.
It's a community resource.
Libraries are a great place to go.
The trust is there.
People have been coming there with questions at the library forever.
And it's open to everyone.
So, you of course, know these things.
You work at a library.
This is why -- this is my answer to people who are critical of me choosing libraries as a place to try to build this cause, try to accomplish the mission of bringing coding to lots and lots of people.
I can feel like the library is the perfect place to do it.
So, let's go ahead and jump to the next one.
These are Guiding Principles.
So, I'm going to talk through three of these in terms of, okay, what do we really need to know to be able to run a coding program?
One is that coding is best learned by doing it.
So, I think you probably have seen the charley brown commercials or the cartoons.
I've been this person in front of the class and I've seen the look on childrens faces and teenagers faces and adults faces as I've said, this is how you create a function and this is where the inputs go and this is where you put the jquiry.
The look on their face indicates that this is whah, whah, whah.
Instead, what you want to do -- 
I tell, in my training for librarians I'm helping -- to never lecture.
It's just out.
You never stand up there and give a lecture.
I believe it applies to all levels.
So, here's the picture.
Formal learning is maybe what you're used to from your college classes.
You can think of putting a circle around that and putting a line through it.
The best way to learn it is by doing it.
So what you have is a learner at the center and that person, using questions to go out and find the answers that they need.
Finding the information that they need to succeed.
That's subtle.
When thinking about running a Code Club or doing a Code Club, they think of themselves as the person on the left.
You know, standing up in front of everyone or projecting their computer screen and that terrifys them.
That terrifys me.
I did it at first.
It was effective, but I never enjoyed it.
What's fun is having a room full of young or old coders, people learning at their own pace and I get to walk around and support them in that, asking them questions, marveling at what they've done.
Anyone can go online and teach themselves for free.
Code.org, Scratch.
I think Jennifer put links on the WebJunction web page that talk about the free services.
You can play to a certain point and then you pay additionally --
you pay for additional levels.
For free, you can do quite a bit with computer programming on the internet.
However, most people don't do it.
You don't know where to go.
Maybe someone doesn't even know what coding is or how it works.
Even if they know what coding is, where do they go to learn it?
What's going to be an appropriate step for me to do when I don't know anything?
I never want to get too overwhelmed.
I don't want to be thrown in the deep end but I want to continue to progress.
People need help Curiateing that.
This is the role of libraries in the broader world of learning information and knowledge.
That's point number one.
Point number two is that there's this motivation factor.
Even if they do get started and there's an online course that's perfect, what you're looking at here is a chart for people who sign up for online classes.
This is the percent that stick with it.
100%, day one.
These are the days of the course.
This probably comes as no surprise to you.
I've definitely done this.
I've started an online course thinking it would be interesting and maybe I'm stuck on something or I get distracted and I lose my passion for it and I never come back to it and that's happening over and over again.
This is why online learning is not the full answer.
As we just talked about, it is a big important part of the answer.
So, having the online learning, but then coupling it with your magic at the library.
That leads us to guiding.
Librarians have all the right skills to run a computer programing program, a coding program.
One of the things I hear a lot at library -- thanks to the folks at the library who I borrowed this image from.
I don't know the answer, but I can help you find it.
That's something I hear from librarians all the time.
With coding, it's the same time, this optimism that these answers exist and with effort, we can find the answer.
Librarians are great at communicating that mentality.
That's the perfect approach of learning coding.
This is why I've really enjoyed working with librarians and in contrast to some of my friends who have tried to do coding by hiring their own staff and they get computer science majors to come in and train them up, I don't think those are the right people.
I think the librarians have the rapport with the patrons and you're exactly the right person.
You say, I still don't know coding.
I don't know how to write HTML text or CSS.
No problem, right?
You have what I just showed you, the ability to say, I don't have the answer, but I can help you find it.
There's a great ted talk, there's this concept given by [Indiscernible] in his ted talk of the method of the grandmother.
He has empirical data that shows how effective a person can be to inspire and encourage learning by simply just standing there and being, you know, doting and interested.
Walking around and saying, what are you working on?
Can go so much farther than if you happen to know the ins and outs of python or ruby on rails.
So it's your role, and my role, too, the fact that I know coding is almost irrelevant in my efforts as a facilitator of a Code Club because I encourage these coders that are people that are learning coding to go down a process of figuring it out by themselves and I drive a lot of peer interaction and I encourage them to get up and help each other and so much what I do is simply cheerleading.
It's guiding them along and saying, you can do this.
Librarians have the perfect skills to be able to do that.
Hopefully I've convinced you that you can do this and there's this model out there, this approach, what I'm calling a hybrid learning model that really works well for doing this and it's very easy to facilitate.
It's a group of people that are learning online, but learning together in person.
They are going to spend time, typically one per computer.
You can do it two per computer.
You have a facilitator there that's guiding that process.
Lots of peer interaction.
You're using resources and it's all informal.
The other piece of it, projects.
When I first started Code Club, I would get up in front of the room with the whiteboard and literally with nothing in my mind, I would draw a picture of a tree and then I would say, okay, here's coconuts that need to fall out of the tree and you have a bunny or something that moves around, right to left, and then basically at that point, I've said, try to make that.
The kids would love it and look at me and say, how do I do that?
It would inspire all this new learning, new effort that maybe you wouldn't see if they were going through and trying to pass a test.
A project has the ability to really truly inspire and push people.
Hopefully that makes sense.
I'm not going to be able to show you this video.
We've created a video, it is available at our website, the link's right here.
If you want to just see what it's like, see how it works, go ahead and take a look at that.
It's a minute and a half long and you can kind of see peer interaction.
You notice that there's no teacher.
There's no real structure.
It's a very loud -- just a fun environment.
And we'll get to that in a little bit, as we talk about specifics.
You're going to want a room somewhere in your library where you can close the door and be separate from the, quote, quiet areas of the library.
We've worked with lots of Code Club.
And two I wanted to show -- 
because I hear this a lot.
What if I'm at a small library and I don't have the resources or the people?
We've done a project that's been exciting to see.
We're working with Parker, Arizona, along the Colorado river.
They have two to seven kids coming each week.
These kids, they keep coming back and now for six months-plus, they've been coming every Thursday through -- this is just for June and July.
They'll continue through August.
They come and they keep learning and the same mechanics are working as the kids are helping each other and figuring it out.
By the way, Tracy, who's running that club, she's amazing with the kids and she is not an expert at technology and also has no time to really create all this because it's a small library.
She's doing seven other jobs, as well.
Truly inspiring.
Over here, this is a news article about the Ak-Chin Community Library.
There's a Code Club running there and they've been so inspiring.
There is a team that have been doing amazing things and taken the kids over to a software company on a field trip so they can visit and get a feel for what a coding job would be all about.
So, I wanted to make sure to throw all those out.
These are two of many, many examples of real inspiring things that are happening out there with really no budget.
These are grant-funded, so no budget and no dedicated staff.
The same people who are running story time and a bunch of other stuff are running Code Club.
It's working.
So, I want to take a minute and stop here.
I know questions have been coming in and I've been focusing in on talking.
Jennifer, if you can come back in and ask questions.
>> Jennifer Peterson:  
Absolutely.
This is exciting to hear about and your open question of what people's coding stories are brought some great sharing and chat.
There were folks that mentioned hour of code.
But said that it ended in -- 
that was December and now they're looking for more ways to bring it more regularly to the community.
There are folks saying that they're beginners themselves.
Others have broader backgrounds but wanted to be able to share it with their learners.
There was an excellent question put out of how important it is to give information about coding jobs to those folks in the community, not just stats about how many there are, but help people find what an available coding job would look like.
I love your comment about taking the kids perhaps on a tour.
Somebody did post the list -- 
the link to the dictionary of occupational titles, as an example.
It would be interesting to hear how you frame that.
I know that you've got that intro video that you share, that you mentioned, and the kit, as a way to talk about who are coders that are more sort of high-profile coders.
I think being able to sort to frame coding as a part of everything else is really important.
>> Kelly Smith:  Yeah.
Let me jump in there and say -- 
I love that idea.
Making it real for these kids so early, early on -- I keep saying kids, I apologize.
This is applicable to adults as well.
Anybody that's looking at this as a potential career, it's just so helpful to be able to see it live.
So one of my friends from a software company that I worked at, he -- he's a philosophy major, a Ph.D. in philosophy and taught himself computer programing on the side and works out of his home in western Massachusetts and he does everything over Google hangouts and chat and he's just online all the time, writing software and he's just a really interesting person.
He's different than the type of person that you might think of, like a stereotypical -- that's a lot of the reason for the video is that frankly the stereotypes are just wrong so it's just time to be done with the stereotypes and say, look, this has nothing to do with whether you're a computer person or not.
This is about, let's give it a try, let's do this.
The fact that you know how to do computers is going to help you with any job and it's going to help you think better.
So it's just generally good to be doing this no matter who you identify this.
Going back to Joseph, this co-worker I had at the time, he was at his house in Massachusetts, I was online with him and I said, I've got this Code Club I'm doing, would you join us by Google hangouts?
It was fascinating to see the types of questions the kids were asking and it made it so much more real for them.
They were like, this guy is getting paid lots of money and how many video games he's made and he didn't make any video games and it was still an interesting conversation.
Yes, I would just say, if you've thought about doing this or if you have anything going on, it is easier than you think to get your local technology community to do this.
Right?
To volunteer time to come in, just speak.
That's very easy, just be a -- 
what is the day in the life of a computer programmer like?
Those people are out there and they're very, very happy -- I've had hundreds of them here in Arizona that have come out.
Any type of event can add to this.
I can give you the link to this.
It's super fun.
It's called the great Arizona code challenge and we have 165 kids from all over the state that are registered to compete.
It's at one of these software companies.
I was not sure how this would work.
I thought it would be interesting if winners could get a job for the summer where they get paid to write software and I thought, well, that's going to be a stretch.
So I sent -- I spent five minutes sending off texts and a few emails and I got three local CEOs that immediately volunteered, you know, to come in and be part of the thing.
So they're going to offer internships and we have now space for these kids to actually go from learning it to competing at it to getting paid for it and I think that makes it more real, more concrete.
It takes a little bit of time.
I think it's probably less than you would imagine to get that kind of stuff.
To make that kind of thing happen with your community.
>> Jennifer Peterson:  
Excellent.
That's great.
There are a few other questions, some of them a little bit more specific.
I just want to reiterate, there were a few questions about, when are we going to start learning about coding.
This is really a webinar about how to bring Code Club or code workshop to your library.
So hopefully that's clear.
Yes, we are going to be moving on into some specific tools and it's great to see folks sharing tools.
There was one interesting question, like I said, there's lots of more specific questions.
What about teaching ethics for computer programmers?
Do you see ethics come up?
>> Kelly Smith:  I love, love that question.
It's so important to underscore the morality associated with this, right.
That's using computers and being a good online citizen and things like that.
Yeah, at the beginning, frankly, I said, that's their parents issue, that's somebody else's issue, I'm going to teach them HTML and javascript.
You've got these people looking to me, and to you as the facilitator, they're looking to you as a role model.
Like, what is the appropriate use of this?
And so, constantly underscoring this -- we've done some efforts.
I mentioned the software we've written that guides kids through the process.
We've put in things like helping another coder getting started.
Ethics of being a giver as opposed to a taker.
We've put things around online citizenship and just started to dabble with that.
As we go, we're going to continue to build that out.
Yes, that's something that responsible Code Club facilitators should be thinking about.
>> Jennifer Peterson:  One more logistical question.
You had said something about chrome books.
Is that a good solution?
Somebody else brought up the fact -- which I know is the case -- they don't have a dedicated computer lab or budget for buying laptops.
Do you have a solution?
>> Kelly Smith:  We'll talk a little bit about money here later.
But, yeah, I would say, there's -- I think somebody just showed up in the chat with offline.
There's csunplugged.org.
There's board games, one called robot turtles.
There's things you can do to start to introduce.
I haven't yet seen the light bulb -- the figurative light bulb go off from those.
I've now seen thousands of kids come through and do this, it's the -- the magic is, I put in code and the computer executes it and they can see that happen so the real goal does need to be getting them to that experience.
I'll talk about the specifics.
The younger kids, I encourage tablets.
The chrome books work well for 8 and up.
As the world progresses, there's more and more you can do completely online.
So you know a chrome book doesn't have a lot of device local storage.
Everything's done online and that being said, you can still do some pretty neat things.
You know, with just those tools.
So, yeah, I would encourage -- 
you know, bring your own device.
I would encourage you to try an [Indiscernible] campaign.
I'm happy to send you the link.
We have one live on generosity, we have another one that we had succeeded in a couple of years ago and got funded -- it looks like we failed because we asked for $5, 000, we got $2,800 but then I had individuals call me and write checks for an additional $7,500 >> Jennifer Peterson:  All right, let's move on.
Everyone's eager >> Kelly Smith:  I hate that when it's generic.
Let's be specific.
Pre-readers, these were the younger siblings of the 8 to 12-year-olds that I was focusing on.
Often the library got a grant in iPads and we were able to download Scratch Jr., which is my number one favorite tool here.
I can recommend that as a free download for iPad.
I don't think it's on android yet.
I do believe Tynker is.
I should have the specifics.
I'm one of those -- these people always drive me nuts.
I can't afford an iPad, but at my library, we have a cart of 20 of them.
That's just lucky for me.
You've got about an hour of an attention span.
The iPads that we work with have additional games and things, like, literacy, learn to read games and often times, the kids will kind of -- I don't want to use the word, disvolve or distract, because those are positive goals in interacting with letters and literacy.
For me, it's coding for this age, and it's about an hour or less.
Really encouraging the parents, so, making this inner generational.
It's tough.
I would not open this up and say, drop off your 3-year-olds and we'll teach them to code.
If they come in together and you have the tablets available, I would give this a try.
You can do more than you think in a tool like Scratch Jr., which by the way, doesn't have words.
You can do everything by words.
It's amazing to me.
They've created computer programming without actual words.
You can do events and loops and move characters around and things like that.
I would encourage you to use that one.
Tynker I've used less.
It's best on a tablet and you've got games and puzzles.
So, I'd encourage you to give that one a try, as well.
During these, if you have something that you've used for this age group, just say the age group and type it in, too.
This can be, you know, a resource now -- I know Jennifer's going to make the chat available and I'd love to look through ideas you've had.
We'll hopefully have time at the end for questions..
Hopefully that was good.
That's tablets.
I would not give these kids a keyboard.
We have some 7-year-olds that can read and are fine.
Scratch Jr. And Tynker is what I would recommend.
When you get to the 12-year-old group, I want them with a keyboard and a mouse to get used to the whole notion of programing.
There are things you can do that don't work on an iPad.
Scratch relies on flash as technology.
You don't not want to try that on an iPad.
My flow is I'll start them easy with code.org.
They've got puzzles and tutorials.
It's very structured.
See if you can get this zombie to go eat the flower.
You guys have probably seen that with hour of code.
You can skip them ahead if they've done that before.
It gets them used to just the basic idea of how blocks fit together and how that's giving the computer instructions so it's a starting introduction.
The bigger thing is these are doable.
You have to think a little bit but, basically, you can do it.
With help from your friends, these kids will accomplish these.
At that point, they are engaged and they're confident.
That's what I love the most about code.org.
It's a fun, catchy way to get them started with these hour of code puzzles and they get started.
From there, it's Scratch and I have -- the kids will stay anywhere from six months is probably the shortest time I've seen the kids stay on Scratch.
It's such a rich platform.
Some kids have stayed there for two and a half years.
Eventually, they're going to want to get out and make websites.
You can do a lot in Scratch so I've had really good experiences with that and we've built out a lot of sublessons and projects focusing on specific pieces of Scratch.
Some of that is in the free resources kit.
Some of it, I'd be happy to talk to you about.
Focusing on the projects is fun.
Make it a social, you know, interactive experience.
That's really the key.
So any time -- we're just dabbling with schools.
This is not meant as anti-school.
I visited a Code Club that was using the software that I'd written and the kids were working with it and it was all kind of a subdued atmosphere and over time while I was there watching, the kids started to get out of their chair and helping each other and giving each other pointers and laughing about stuff and that led to sound effects that were being played and maybe a silly song about a unicorn and it was starting to get loud and I'm sitting in my coding heart, I'm saying, this is great, this is exactly what I want to be happening.
People are engaged, they're learning and they're having fun.
The teacher that was facilitating this did one of those exercises for quiet everyone down where they sound off numbers or -- you've probably seen this in classrooms.
So, it was like everyone had to get back in their chairs and be quiet.
It hurt my feelings.
It was like, no, they were learning.
It was working.
Just be -- as you think about what you are doing, make sure the focus is on learning and getting these things done.
Hopefully that's not too -- I don't mean that as critical for here.
I'm sure that's what she's used to and what she's been taught.
I'm feeling a little bit guilty, now, for telling that story.
I'm going to quickly run to ages 13 through 18.
These are high school-age.
This applies really the line for me between 12 and 13, that's not a rigid line at all.
As kids get done with Scratch and they're interested in looking at other things, one is how to make phone apps.
You don't make a phone app on the phone, you make a phone app on a computer.
And then you test it on a phone.
There's great platforms for that.
You'll see in both of these tools I'm featuring here.
You have basically a phone screen that you're you're working with.
The goal is to make something that can easily port to the phone.
Once they write code and send it to someone's phone, it's magic.
They're so proud of themselves.
A teenager that can put an app on her own phone or send it to her friend or send it to her mom, that's good stuff.
That's magic.
It's going to be a wide variance of skill.
You'll see a wider variance.
You'll see come people who come in who have been writing full-blown code for awhile.
I would grab them and turn them into a helper.
You know, for the club.
Have them be a peer organizer and they'll love that feeling.
They're more than happy to share what they know and it gives them good practice in communication, which is sometimes there and sometimes isn't a strength.
I talked about phone apps.
The other direction to go is front-end development.
Even there, learning javascript is good for both because there are several good platforms for porting javascript on to phones.
Bits box -- I've talked to the CEO -- they're doing cool work and making it cute and accessible and fun for people, even people that don't -- 
especially people who don't necessarily identify with computer programming.
There's nano degree.
They can go online and sign up for one of these and that'll take their learning to another level.
I mentioned internships.
There's one called menitve and Thinkful mentors.
They pair you up with a software programmer.
So, that's teens.
I know, I'm sorry, II am rushing.
I have not run a program about adults so all I'm going to share is what the research is.
There was a great WebJunction seminar about it.
There is a partnership between code academy and the New York public library.
Code Louisville, they have deep partnerships with the community and been able to find young to mid-age adults real software jobs.
This is a very pilot mode.
Just like my friends that are out there doing immersive boot camps, charging $1 #  0,000, they can compete and show they have learned web development skills, the tech community is picking them up and it's been a really cool story.
I'll leave you to Google them.
I have some connections with some of these people, as well, if you're interested in getting introductions.
Hopefully that's helpful.
This is a great one for me.
A lesson for me in not knowing everything going in.
So, I had focused so much on the kids, the younger kids and the teenagers, and I had not thought about this.
Working with the Maricopa County library has been truly humbling because the great librarians said, look, we've got older adults that are coming to the library a lot.
Some of them dropping off [Indiscernible] programs that are being run by the libraries.
Some of them coming, it's a place to be.
It's a place to be social.
So we decided to do this as a test and it's worked really, really well.
So, we have basically not modified the curriculum at all.
The approach we're taking.
And we've offered it as a program for adults and built it as exercising your mind.
Instead of the talk about getting your job and make a dent in the universe, this is let's just do it because it's interesting.
It promotes a growth mindset.
You know, it's about getting out of your comfort zone and saying, look, this isn't something I know how to do.
These people say, I'm not a computer person and I'm not a technology person.
They're truly inspiring because of prompting from the library and the staff, they're willing to give it a try and you get multi-generational links that are truly beautiful.
We're continuing to expand that program.
I think we've done three locations now around Maricopa County.
We've talked to other library systems about doing the same thing and it's truly excited.
If you have older adults, don't rule that out.
I would explore that as a possibility and there, I can give you some help.
Talk to the folks at the Maricopa County and I'm happy to introduce you, as well.
We're going to be talking about that together at the Arizona library associate meeting.
If you're ready to start a Code Club.
I'm sure you are.
Here are some things to think about.
You're going to need a space.
We talked about the noise already.
I would encourage something where you can close the door and you deencourage that louder, creative process of discovery and learning.
You're going to need a facilitator.
Consistency and caring about the kids are important.
I've seen programs that are built around volunteers.
I've started several of those.
Sooner or later, those programs sizzle.
It's hard when somebody's not there on site to be the backbone on the program.
The people coming to code are going to build a connection, a reliance on that person because that person the one that believes they can do it and they want to show what they've worked on.
That applies to even the older people, as well as young.
That person does not need to be a coding expert.
Let me just repeat that, you don't need to be a coding expert.
You can do it.
There's all these online resources.
You look at it as the same as you always have, I don't have the answers, but I can help you find it.
You can encourage the group to work through things together.
What you'll find is that the people that are learning to code will be much more willing to go out and do the effort that it takes to learn it on their own if they don't believe that you can do it.
[LAUGHTER]
that person's no good, I'm not going to ask them.
That's great because then they're going to go ahead and put the effort in.
Computers, we talked about.
There was a specific question about chrome books.
I've had good luck with chrome books and they're cheap.
They're less than $200.
You can have people bring computers from home.
It needs to have a modern browser.
You need to schedule this.
I say weekly meetings.
We have people who say every other week.
In evtitably, you get somebody who shows up on the wrong week.
So, hopefully that's a helpful list.
Oh, my goodness, I have tactical advice.
The biggest thing between between you and starting a Code Club is in your own head.
If you believe you can do it, you can.
Call me, I'd love to have you do it.
Tactical advice, PR.
This is Steve Chucri.
He was instrumental in encouraging that and very supportive, helping find budget and things like that.
He was so excited about Code Club that he actually made a campaign video featuring Code Club and it's not -- you know, shady or anything like that.
It's like, look what's happening in Maricopa County.
He was so happy to be a part of that, that that's part of his story.
You'll find that same interest from all of the people who hold the budgets and the powers in your -- inside of your organization.
Don't be shy.
Call the mayor's assistant and say, hey, we're going to have this coding program.
We'd love to see the mayor come down and take photos with the children and teens and older adults.
So, the last thing is, let someone else pay for it.
I don't have a lot of time to talk about this.
We got another grant today from imls money.
The lsta funding is very good for this.
Bill and Linda gates are paying for this very webinar.
So they're into this kind of thing.
Go to your local friends.
Oh, I have a click here to [Indiscernible] and I'll make sure to give the link to the [Indiscernible] campaign.
I'm happy to see you copy that if you want, if it's helpful to you.
I'll just mention this partnership.
There's no money here yet, but I think there might be down the world, the American library association and Google are partnering on ready to code and the whole idea here is to say, look, libraries offer a unique opportunity for coding.
I'm going to stop there and just move on to this slide and hopefully have time for at least one question.
I took longer than I expected.
>> Jennifer Peterson:  
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
There were lots of great questions and lots of folks chiming in to answer questions, so I appreciate everyone's participation in there.
You definitely did start speaking a little bit faster so it's a good thing we have an archive we can go back to and pause.
There were some specific questions about the tools and approaches in your experience between javascript and HTML/CSS, which one do you suggest to offer first?
>> Kelly Smith:  Because I'm coming from Scratch, which is a programming language and it's all about making stuff happen, javascript is a scripting language, it makes stuff happen.
HTML/CSS is visual, so what does a website look like?
So what I do is I go into javascript and then I show them how to build the kind of the framework around it, using HTML.
So that's kind of a flow that you can try.
I happen to know, there's a great tool call free code camp that starts at HTML and CSS and goes into javascript later.
I don't mean to say my way's the best.
If you have done an if statement and you've seen if this, then that happens, then you take them to javascript and say, look, it's the exact same thing.
You show them how you're doing the same thing you were doing in Scratch, it's a good transition.
>> Jennifer Peterson:  Excellent.
I've collected a few other questions I'm going to send to Kelly and he'll respond.
He's provided his contact information.
He really loves this.
So, you've found the right person to ask additional questions of and I want to thank everyone for joining us today and for being such great participants in the conversation and I look forward to learning, hopefully, through the grapevine and what you all end up doing and it was really exciting to hear that many of you are already doing great work and I'll be calling all of those great gems you shared in chat and adding those to the event page.
I'll be sending an email to all of you once the recording is available and just another note that, as you leave today, we are sending you to a short survey and we'd love your feedback.
We'll be sharing that with Kelly, as well, but it helps us guide our ongoing programing.
Thank you, again.
And thank you so much, Kelly.
I'm sure all the libraries out there that have had the pleasure working with you are grateful for the work you're bringing to their communities and these folks, as well, will benefit.
Thank you so much >> Kelly Smith:  Thank you, it's my pleasure >> Jennifer Peterson:  Everyone, have an excellent day.