First video of the primary school journey towards exploring the computer and its codes.

Here is the first meeting type,

done by creating a simple circle

and asking the children many questions

aimed at creating a connection between
things they know

about concrete life and these concepts,

memory, Google, computer, internet,

which have substantially flattened
everything

... kind of a Russian salad.

At one point we brought out
an old computer

which they were free to explore.

They got excited, we put in on a table

and the objects got taken apart
and commented,

always in the same questioning approach.

Spontaneous groups appeared,

aiming at investigating some aspects
in depth.

After about an hour,
the children were invited

to sit in a circle,

which they speedily did,
to my amazement

because they were really enthusiastic
about what they were doing

and we suggested making a survey.

They all volunteered to go
to the blackboard.

Fortunately, the teachers made
the selection

because I wouldn't have known
how to do that.

The survey was about their habits,
video games

the computer they use, tablets, etc.

In the following clip, we see
the second meeting type

where the children are offered
the four computer kits

and the four video cameras.

Children are divided into four groups
of 4 people

and roles get assigned:

one child makes video recordings,
one writes the story,

one draws and one works

at building the computer
and will command it afterwards.

Then they move to building

and the meaning of the various parts
is explained to the children.

The children build, write, document,

and as you can see,
this is a slow approach.

We also suggest that they use
the instruction booklet

that they must try to follow.

The booklet is written in English
but the illustrations are very clear.

This also allows us to discuss
the meaning of some English words.

They get help if they ask for it

but always according to the principle
of minimal intrusion,

just showing them

then letting them enact what is shown,

actually do the work.

Always, or almost always,
they achieved the goal,

and with great concentration,
as can be seen with this little girl.

Collaboration is great too:
hands helping one another,

not clashing, collaboration between
different roles.

I was deeply impressed

by the diligence of these children.

Nothing like the idea I got
from public discourse

on bad manners, restlessness,
superficiality.

I felt that if children are respected
as persons

and if they are offered things related
to their own reality,

they are also, to my mind,
very, very disciplined.

As to the myth that digital natives
will not use instruction booklets,

it depends: if they are put in a situation
where the booklet helps, they use it

as, for instance,
towards the non-trivial action

of attaching correctly the fragile jack

of the audio loudspeaker
to the computer's small card:

a delicate operation.

Roles were managed informally:

for instance, if a child got tired
of making video recordings

and another -- like this little girl --
asked to take over,

we let her do it.

Once the computer was built,
time was over, or almost over,

so it was time for reading the texts.

As it was late, I had offered
to disassemble the computers myself.

To my surprise, the children asked instead

if they could disassemble them themselves.

And they did it with impressive accuracy.

I found some boxes
-- they all put everything back

but some but all parts back

exactly as they had found them,
with all wires coiled

and each part at the right place.

In the last part, the narrations
were read

the drawings were shown.

The monitors only got connected
during the following meeting.

Computers got built more quickly

because the children already were
somewhat expert in that

and then the monitors got connected,
and thus they were able to

start exploring them.

They immediately found a game, Minecraft,

with which they obviously started
at once to play

and in this case we let them play freely

so that they could find a link
with the world they know.