trevordayschool

couldn't do much, they quickly became hugely popular among electronics experimenters. I built one for myself in 1977; it was about the size of a microwave oven and programmed by flipping switches on the front, and the output was in the form of red LEDs that were either on or off. ese first micros were really just intellectual toys, but they were a ton of fun to fool around with, and since they were designed to be modular and upgradable, they rapidly acquired more and more useful functions. By the late 1970s, these machines had monitors, keyboards, and storage systems—and though still primitive, were, in a general sense, functionally equivalent to what we have today. As costs came down, funds were allotted, and the clunky teleprinters at e Day School were replaced with a bunch of these new microcomputers. A portion of the Church of the Heavenly Rest's basement was now a computer lab, probably among the first anywhere for middle schoolers. ough the power of the equipment was now much greater, the way these systems were used didn't change much. Any student could sit down at one and experiment. But now that these machines were equipped with floppy disks, work could be saved and moved to other machines, and much more sophisticated projects were possible. e next 15-or-so years were a rich period of physical expansion and educational growth for e Day School. Gradually more and more microcomputers of greater and greater capability appeared around the school; computer labs were built; and more and more students took advantage of these resources. BASIC faded away, replaced by better-designed languages such as Pascal—as well as languages such as Logo, designed for younger children to develop coding skills and using turtle graphics. By the time Trevor became an N–12 school in the late 1990s, it had multiple computer labs, rudimentary internal networks, and many opportunities for students to try coding. e school still didn't have any formal computer science courses, but students had access to computers pretty much whenever they desired, and were happily encouraged and guided when they expressed an interest in writing code. Late 1990s and Onward: Formal Computer Science at Trevor In the mid 1990s, Trevor began the Laptop Program, which ensured that every student from the 6th grade upward has a personal computer available to them throughout the school day. is program was an important technological step forward for the school, but its effects on computer science at Trevor were mostly indirect. Students who wanted to code could now do it pretty much wherever and whenever they wanted. Not being bound to physical computer labs allowed an even greater emphasis on learning to code using inquiry-based learning. Around that time, I was director of technology at Trevor, and at some point in the late 1990s, I offered the first actual programming class in the Upper School. I called it "Programmer's Workshop," and any student who wanted to learn, or become better at, coding was welcome to join it as an elective academic course. I chose that name very intentionally, based on my many years of experience with the topic, and I made it clear to the students that I wouldn't be standing at the front of the room telling them what they were supposed to do. Rather, the class would aim to be a true "workshop," employing electrons rather than wood or metal as building blocks. Students would choose and work on projects of their own design, using whatever coding tools seemed best aligned with what they were aiming to achieve. At first these classes were small, ranging from three to eight students a year. However, the students who chose to join tended to be passionate about learning to code and were highly self- motivated. Like me in 1966, they mostly wanted a chance to explore the world of coding and see how far they could get in accomplishing their goals. From the beginning, the students' individual goals tended to be very diverse, and, of course, as the field has developed, their goals have diversified even more. Although the class focused on individually conceived projects, it still functioned as a group. Students regularly explained what they were working on to their peers and often formed teams to collaborate on projects. Early on, we started a tradition of ending the year with a group activity. At first this tended to be some sort of gaming challenge; the most impressive of these was probably the year that the class wrote a "Texas Hold 'Em" poker simulator. en each individual student created an AI (artificial intelligence)-controlled player, and in the final meeting of the year, we had a tournament to see which AI- controlled player was the best. 3 0 T R E V O R D AY S C H O O L n S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 – 2 0 2 2

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