It's been a busy summer so far! I'm 2/3rds of the way through teaching App making with the UVa Summer Enrichment program. And working my way through the MIT Media lab online Coursera course "Tinkering Fundamentals". Very cool to teach in a "tinkering" way while taking a course from "Tinkering" thought leaders. Teaching App Inventor has revealed glitches, expected since MIT is migrating from one platform to another. But, also given us teachable moments about what it's like to be a software developer, where the challenge is often in the "workaround", where a good programmer isn't necessarily the one with the strongest technical skills, but one who can think creatively and keep their project on track with positive momentum. And, my favorite part of embracing a 9 day experience with my SEP sessions is reminding kids, the best way to learn programming is not to focus so much on the "right" answers, but on enjoying the freedom to "mess around", being natural scientists to ask questions, test hypotheses, and take what you learn when you test what you create to build something meaningful to you. The computer lab really is a "studio", an "exploratorium", as MIT Media lab calls their hands-on learning space.

So, I hope to be back to weekly posting soon. In the meantime, be inspired by this Wright brother's quote:

"We tried all the systems that had been tried before, then we tried our own systems, and we tried some combinations that no one had thought of. Eventually, we flew."