The Center for Civic Media showcased its playful side last Friday when it hosted Google’s Computing and Programming Experience (CAPE) program.
Through the CAPE program, 10 local rising 8th graders (five boys and five girls) experience daily life at the Google offices in Kendall Square. Immersed and exposed to the amazing variety of computer science applications at work there, the program reveals how computer science impacts society and culture everyday.
Part of the CAPE program involves visiting local businesses and research facilities to expose the students to the diverse opportunities they have to apply a computer science education. Their visit to the Media Lab included a general tour and time interacting with various Center projects.
Students hailing from the Dorchester neighborhood were interested in the My Dot Tour project introduced by Rahul Bhargava. As one student noted, “it is a great way for people from Dorchester who don’t live there anymore to be able to share their stories and experiences, too.”
Rick Borovoy demoed the Junkyard Jumbotron for the students and got a couple yearbook-like headshots into the Center’s Jumbotron display rotation. Many of the students familiar with the One Laptop per Child project thought the Jumbotron was a cool way for children to create large screen displays with their laptops.
Lastly, Audubon Dougherty and the UROP developers working on the mobile application Aago had the students test their recent prototype. Aago is a set of digital tools and interfaces (mobile app + website) that would allow youth and community-based organizations to easily create, organize, and share “stories” that combine photos, videos, and audio from an ipod or other Apple device. UROPs paired up with small groups of 2-3 students to demonstrate how users can create mixed media narratives either individually or as a group, and then curate and share that content on the web. The mini focus groups provided valuable feedback for the development team.
As Audubon Dougherty recounts, “The Google kids had great UI suggestions like renaming some of the icons and changing our conceptual model to better communicate the mission of the app. They also highlighted technical fixes needed, like the process for deleting items and saving/arranging video clips.”
In addition to the Google youth group, Aago has also conducted preliminary usability tests with teens at the Museum of Science and the Codman Square Neighborhood Corporation.
The CAPE students, who have been learning Scratch during their time at Google, also enjoyed a visit to Life Long Kindergarten before heading back to the Google offices.