Kids from eight countries gathered online on December 3, 2023 to physically make dace moves, such as floss and body roll and digitally program for such dancing in their apps. NPOs from Japan and U.S. held “CS in English”, a free online event to help 83 kids from 1st to 10th grade learn computer science with professional engineers from IT organizations, including Google and Amazon. This workshop  was conducted as an activity under Hour of Code.

Meet a real dancer to floss and dab?

Yusuke who joined from Kumamoto, Japan initiated the event. The professional dancer and choreographer demonstrated various dance moves that kids program in the Hour of Code lesson module - “Dance Party: AI Edition”. The majority of participants were not familiar with such dance terminology as Double Down and Star.

After a short warm-up, Yusuke showed how to make those moves listed in the programming, and kids tried the same in front of their computer screens. Kids were so inspired by dancing with the real dancer, which would have not happened just by digital animation.

AI focuses “association” to auto-generate pictures

Greg Cannon, a software engineer at Google, gave a lecture on how generative AI works. Utako Kase, a software engineer at Amazon, interpreted his lecture into simple Japanese. The generative AI is a tool that can automatically create a background picture and animation based on the emoji icons that kids choose in the Hour of Code module.

In the Dance Party module, kids can program their own dancers, choose their moves and music. They can also use an “AI block” to set a background picture, instead of drawing it by themselves. Greg explained how AI can automatically generate pictures based on the “association” between different input and output pictures.

Working with  27 IT pros from U.S. and Japan

After the main lecture, the kids were divided into 21 breakout rooms, where they had one or two IT professionals as their TAs. They worked on some programming lessons in the Hour of Code module, while the TAs explained more details about how AI works and enjoyed chatting with kids.

It was a very rare opportunity for a kid in Kumamoto to talk directly with a Google engineer in Mountain View, for example. This breakout session is one of the highlights of the CS in English event.

Kids from 8 countries inspired by others’ programming skills

Nanami, the MC, led the online communication with kids from Japan, U.S., Canada, China, Thailand, Singapore, Malesia and Philippines. Speaking  in both English and Japanese, she covered various topics such as music, movies, celebrities and cultures to keep the kids engaged in the event. Nanami added a lot of fun and joy to the event with her lively comments and questions.

Nanami facilitated a “Dance Battle” activity, where some kids showcased their Dance + AI apps. More than 10 kids volunteered to present their work to the others, demonstrating their coding and design skills. Some of them used very complex coding to coordinate multiple characters and movements, which impressed everyone at the event.

Kahoot time - fun but serious!

The event ended with a Kahoot quiz session that tested the topics and points from the main lecture and the module. All the kids stared at the screen to find the correct answers, very seriously. Why? Because some of the winners would get small gift cards😊!

See you in February 2024!

CS in English will continue to cover AI in the next online session in February. Kids will work on another AI module from Code.org. If you are interested in joining the event, please contact at info@kidscodeclub.jp. 

Thank you, Hour of Code, for this opportunity!

Hour of Code® are registered trademarks of Code.org. The 'Hour of Code ® is a nationwide initiative by Code.org to introduce millions of students to one hour of computer science and computer programming.

Watch our sessions

Introduction with Nanami

Dance with Yusuke

Main Lecture with Greg and Utako

Kahoot