“Youth-led Tech | Summer 2015” is a technology mentoring program in five Chicago neighborhoods: Austin, Englewood, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, and Roseland. As part of this program, we’re teaching various classes on digital skills. We’ve open sourced our curriculum through a series of blog posts. We cover an introductions to WordPress, Wordpress dashboards, themes, how to post, and how to add media to your WordPress site. We also have set time aside each day for students to work on their typing skills. These are minute-by-minute guides on teaching the youth. If you want to start your own Youth-Led Tech program, this is the place to start. At Smart Chicago, we are dedicated to sharing all of our methods. Not just code published to Github (though we do that, too), but whole swaths of templates, resources, and guides that help spread the practice of community technology.

1. Youth-Led Tech Curriculum
Day 20: I have a dream
Content Goals: Youth will learn the components of building an app and will
start building their own app.
Leadership Goals: Team-building activities with a focus on communication
Materials: Bandanna
10:00 AM Sign-in
Use the online attendance sheet to mark students as present and
note any issues.
10:05 AM Mood Check/Icebreaker Question
It’s important to start every session with an opening activity, such as
a Mood Check-in, where students state their mood on a scale of 1-
10. We often pair this with an icebreaker question that each student
answers.
10:15 AM Assassin
1. This is a game best played in a large group.
2. Sit all of the children in a circle, with legs crossed.
3. Have all children put their heads down.
4. One person (we always had at least one adult present) would
walk around the circle and tap one child on the head.
5. This person was the assassin.
6. The child eliminates all other players by winking at them.
7. If you are winked at, silently count to 10, then put your feet in
the middle of the circle.
8. We always had a few drama queens who would act as if they
really had been shot, and clutch their chest, and shake and
scream.
9. If the assassin eliminates everyone, then they win. They can
be "witnessed" as well.
10.If a player thinks they know who the killer is, before they get
winked at, they can say they have a suspect. Such as "I
suspect that Sally is the assassin." If Sally is not the assassin,
then the accusers are eliminated.
11.A less brutal version is the sandman. Same thing, except
being winked at means you take a nap.

2. 2
10:45 AM Introduce App Inventor
You can use this Google Presentation or modify it to your liking. The
presentation is meant to be interactive:
 Shows the blocks for an interesting app (No Texting While
Driving) and give audience a chance to talk amongst
themselves to figure out what it does.
 Demo the “Raffle App” and let the audience text in to win.
You can give away a book or first choice on devices you have
available. Be sure and:
 Introduce Designer, Blocks Editor, and live testing of app
(either on device or emulator)
 Talk about the apps that can be built with App Inventor.
11:10 AM Students build their first app: I have a dream
 Get the students building and exploring as soon as possible.
There are two ways to provide the first experience:
 Teacher demos each step and students follow along.
 Students use written/video tutorial and teacher just facilitates
and demos as needed.
A key to this first lesson is how students will test their apps on a
device or emulator. You may want to demonstrate this part even if
you don’t demonstrate each part of the app.
Pass out or have the students open/download the “I Have a Dream”
tutorial:
http://www.appinventor.org/apps2/IHaveADream/IHaveADream.pdf
You can also refer students to the video tutorial as well:
http://appinventor.org/IHaveADream-steps
12 NOON Lunch
1:00 PM Blind Tag
Choose a person to be it. The person who is 'it' will go out of the
room and count to 60 blindfolded. The people would then hide. The
people inside would have to remain as quiet as possible for if they
didn't the 'it' character would find and tag them.
1:00 PM Typing club
1. Log on to http://youthledtech.typingclub.com
2. Allow youth to practice/develop their typing skills. This could
be a useful time for facilitators to catch up on paperwork or

3. 3
setup for the next activity
3. Facilitators can track the students progress to make sure that
they are actually on the right site
2:10 PM Break
2:20 PM Students create their portfolio and add “I Have a Dream”
Ask the students to create a web portfolio where they will “publish”
all of their work, including tutorial apps like “I Have a Dream” and
more creative projects. Step them through:
 Creating a Google Site site (or other) with a simple profile
 Downloading (Building) a .apk file from their App Inventor “I
Have a Dream” app.
 Creating “app page” for “I Have a Dream” and attaching the
.apk file to it. The page should have title, description,
screenshot and QR code for the app.
 Creating a QR code for the webified .apk file, using a service
like qrcode.kaywa.com, then placing that QR code on their
portfolio app page.
 Instructions for creating a Google Sites portfolio:
http://www.appinventor.org/portfolio. You can also instruct
your students to use the Google Sites template described
here:https://sites.google.com/site/cs107f14/setup-portfolio.
 Instructions for creating an app page:
http://www.appinventor.org/appPage
3:40 PM Thunder Props reflection
1. Everyone log on to your Twitter account
2. Today we are going to give props to our peers in the
#youthledtech program
3. We have created a prompt for you to fill in on your Twitter
account and on 3 we will all send our tweets at the same
time.
a. PROMPT: “My app will address_______ because
___________ #youthledtech”
b. Make sure they use the hashtag so that we can view
all of the tweets
4. READY??
5. After you read the prompt give students 1 minute to complete
and tell them to raise their hand once they have typed their
message. Tell them “DO NOT hit send until I say so.”
6. Once everyone has constructed their tweet then count down
3, 2, 1, SEND!!
7. Read a few tweets from the screen and then do a live Thunder

4. 4
clap.
3:55 PM Sign out
Make sure each youth is accounted for.