PVP Coders

This was my first day at teaching at Nadar Sundara Visalatchi Vidyasala Matriculation Higher Secondary School in 2024. I taught for 4 hours and 15 students from the grades 6th-8th. This time when I came I brought a total of 20 laptops and 45 Micro: Bits. This was in partnership with my Girl Scout Gold Award Project where I collected a donation of 20 laptops from Medhost and 45 Micro: Bits from people who read about the cause of this project. The purpose of collecting laptops was when I taught there last time there was the issue of electricity. Since Pattiveeranpatti is a very small village, the power cuts off a lot and if you are working on a code the code will not save. So, I collected laptops so that work could be done even if the power went out. The Micro: Bits was so that the students would learn Python more easily and be interested. Micro: Bits have a small LED board where you can program using Python to display images. They also have a microphone, touch sensors, and many buttons that you can program which allow it to be multi-functional. Using this allows students to see the result of what they are coding and makes it easier for them to understand and piques their interest. They were brilliant. They remembered to understand the code and did so well. They executed the code and even went above and beyond what I taught them. By the end of the day, they had added so many variations to the code that it was far better than anything I had thought of. They turned a simple rock, paper, scissors game into a complex, multi-player game with more rules and animations. When I asked them the question, “Who wants to go into a computer science field?”, all of them raised their hands. It has been such an amazing opportunity seeing all their advancements and how far they have come. They all have bright futures and I am overjoyed that I get to teach them again next year!