It is IT: A great project with kids teaching kids programming

This past weekend was the school festival at my main job Tokyo Gakugei University International Secondary School (TGUISS).  The IT club, run by the amazing Soto Yamauchi and his group “It is IT”. Their mantra is ‘of the kids, by the kids, for the kids’ and Soto is the right kid for the job. When he is not donating his time teaching other young students how to program his is busy winning programming contests. I think he is a genius…but don’t take my word for it, Microsoft thinks so as well!

Soto on the right.

Minecraft workshop

I saw in the festival guide that they were presenting on Minecraft, Scratch and littleBits. I wondered how many littleBits they had and if they wanted to use the Maker Toolset kit; a handsome collection of Bits I must say. They agreed and I began labeling the bits.

They were running Raspberry Pis for the workshop.

Some pretty good art! They were using littleBits to lure people in. That buzzer is hard to ignore.

While labeling, the IT club and I had a good talk about integrating littleBits into TGUISS’s curriculum and making it the first littleBits school. We had some good ideas floating around, like students programming their own e-flashcards in English or using the littleBits in a play for drama or a classroom performance.

We will revisit these ideas when I crash their upcoming club meetings!

More to come on this…