Intro
Over the past year, I have been asked many, many times to explain what I’m doing with Kodu (Boku back then), how I got involved and what I’m doing with schools. This has been an interesting journey.
A journey that I did not expect when I set out to setup a Computer Club at my kids' school -- Explorer Elementary. Explorer is a part of Kentwood Public Schools, Michigan.
The Beginning – October, 2008
I attended the Microsoft PDC Conference in October, 2008 and it was packed with all sorts of great content: Cloud computing, multi-touch and surface devices, Win7, Kodu demo, a great event at Universal Studios and more.
When I got back from the conference I was surprised that after several weeks I still thought about Kodu a few times a week. No, no, it wasn’t like I was obsessed but rather it was that it reminded me of my early childhood years with technology – only for today’s students. I grew up a product of the 1970’s and 80’s with my first computer in elementary school in 1978 – a Commodore PET and its Star Trek game that would take an hour to load.
I don’t know about everyone else but for me after the PDC it was apparent I really didn’t understand everything that Microsoft Research produced. Sure, prior to PDC, I knew of some of the hardware, and cool programs like World Wide Telescope but I really didn’t understand the depth of the group.
I’m not going to go into MSR in this post, but for more information please watch this video, which is the Keynote from the third day of the conference and has Kodu in it:
http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/KYN04/
Getting Involved, November, 2008
My thoughts were revolving around talking to my son’s elementary school about what they do for computer skills – specifically computer science related. Figure if we’re going to live in the community, why not spend some time to setup a computer club and get boys and girls (especially girls, more on that later) interested in opportunities in technology.
Talking to the school -- Meeting Principal Dahlquist, Explorer Elementary
I had already met the principal of the school, Donald Dahlquist, and had his business card. So I flicked him an email asking if we could chat about what they were doing with computers in the school. I soon enough receive a reply, “let’s talk.”
We had a great conversation about these ideas and the past – how like so many of my peers of the 70’s and 80’s, I was turned onto technology by being able to experiment with computers at an early age and just have fun creating and building simple, but enjoyable software projects. Then I showed him the PDC keynote (above) – specifically, the demo about Kodu from Matt MacLauren. It was instantly obvious to him that students at Explorer (4th/5th grades) would just “get this.”
Dahlquist was interested in having a computer club of some kind setup for the fall of 2009. My tasks were to find out pricing, possible date of availability and what equipment might be required for the schools PC’s.
I’m the first to admit that I am not a professional teacher, but I am very passionate about technology and my chosen craft of software development. Maybe that helped my talk with principal Dahlquist.
Next up: Creating a proposal and contacting Microsoft Research
A few days later I drafted a short inquiry/proposal to be sent to the Kodu team. I explained my interest in expanding computer science education in the area, could they tell me possible cost, release date and hardware requirements. I didn’t expect a reply. Mark Finch replied within a few hours. I didn’t notice the response for a few days as my email client put it in my spam folder. Little joke here, isn’t that fitting? Any email from from Microsoft Research must be junk mail, not withstanding Mark Finch’s.
Mark Finch couldn’t answer any of my questions but asked me many questions about Explorer, the teachers, the schools computers and myself. Within a few days, he explained that our school would be a good fit to participate in a limited research project, if we were interested. They were fine with us setting up a program in the manner that worked for us and was the best fit with the students and teachers. No requirements or conditions, they would like a few assessment questionnaires filled out if possible, but nothing else. Wow, is this for real? Microsoft’s Research division (with an $8 Billion budget) makes an offer with free software and direct support with no strings attached? Cool. Explorer was interested as well.
I think this speaks well to the adage, “Be careful what you ask for.”
I signed the Kodu NDA for Explorer and so it was a done deal.
Organizing, December, 2008
What am I doing?
What started as a project to organize a computer club for next year (fall 2009) turned into a challenge for the here an now and not next year. Who is going to be involved and how are we going to pay for all of this?
As it turned out we needed,
25 Xbox 360 controllers + controllers for the teachers
25 graphics cards to upgrade the PC’s
What was that going to cost the school? Not millions but not in the schools budget either.
How does one raise money? Exactly what is the process to ask for money without irritating the person receiving your plea for “cash?” I limited my initial reach-out to known local technology companies that might be interested either because they were Microsoft Consulting Partners (and who wouldn’t mind being associated with a very cool MS Research project involving kids) or general technology companies with an established footprint in the community. Either seemed logical. The 2008 economy and the holiday season appeared to be against me.
I will say that the story of this project almost sold itself –
“Hey, how would you like to help 4th/5th grade students learn computer science skills? MS Research is donating the software, created by a small, talented team of designers, in the hopes they can improve students perceptions of technology, math and science, especially girls and other non-gamer/technology inclined kids?”
Those of you reading this, thank you, please take this quote along with my helping my own kids school as the reason I have devoted so much time to this process. Please look at the online profiles of the Kodu team and ask yourself why would such a small team of some of the best gaming and design talent build such a tool to help kids?
Happly holidays!
Blue Sphere Solutions, Inc. of Ada, Michigan confirmed they would help sponsor the project. Chris Hashley and Steve Goulet found the project very rewarding to help fund, in addition to Steve’s qualification of not only a technologist but also having a Master’s degree in Psychology including electronic assessment tracking and other education interests. Brilliant fit. I have worked with Steve and Blue Sphere in the past and I didn’t know this.
Just a few days later, Mark Finch from MSR informed us that they (the Creative Systems Group in MSR, now FUSE Labs) would like to offer a research grant to help with the costs on a bigger scale. Happy New Year, indeed.
Teachers
Derek Braman and Dion Price were introduced to me by principal Dahlquist as the teachers that would be taking this system forward within the school setting. This was great news. Not only was the project starting faster than expect but there were two very good teachers ready and interested in the same topics as I was. Excellent.
Getting Closer – January, 2009
Coordinating & Planning
Equipment Testing
I needed to test Kodu on the schools computers. They had laptops and desktops. The hope was to find a set of machines that would just work. Alas, that wasn't the case and we needed to aquire video cards for the five year old computers.
The Flame-out
The first video card we obtained and tested actually caught on fire in front of some of the teachers. How embarrassing. It wasn’t a total “fire” but rather quite a bit of smoke.
I needed to order a replacement card from another vendor and test again. This involved – system updates (bios, system), staying until 11pm in the middle of the freakin antarctic cold. In Michigan we were experiencing some of the worst cold weather I can recall. It was below zero (0 F) every night for a month and this night was no exception. I was there until 11pm. Crazy.
More to come Part B -- Kodu Club launch, meeting Microsoft Research, SIGCSE 2009, Australia, ...