A Facilitator’s Guide to Create and Consolidate a Teenage Coding Camp

Abstract

We look back on a journey of more than 10 years of teaching coding skills to high school students using block-based programming platforms. Eleven years of evolution, capabilities, and technical content impact teenage participants in problem-solving, creativity, collaboration, and coding skills. We discuss how we plan and execute each instance of a coding camp, the progression of the topics and tools, and the main insight collected working with more than 500 participants. We summarize our experience in four main aspects: Learning strategy, Enabling Technology, Teamwork, and Partnerships. We also list recommendations to facilitators and share a series of reflection points.