Coding for Good: Brownie App Development

The third badge in the Coding for Good Series is App Development.  You can review the badge insert here. According to GSUSA, "when I've earned this badge, I'll know about user-centered design and the process computer scientists use to develop apps".  As with the other progressive badges, the badge insert provides information on the subject but no activities.  The plans for earning the badges are on VTK, and they are what will be summarized in this post.

Planing an Event: Coding Basics

One thing many leaders on facebook groups seems to want is more programming provided by someone else.  The girls enjoy a chance to do something different, and you don't have to be the one planning it, making sure everything you need is available, and otherwise running the show.  Going to events planned by others also allows your girls to experience things you aren't comfortable leading.  However, to get events run by "others" you either have to pay a professional a lot of money for what could turn out to be a so-so program, or you need something that someone inside GS offers, basically at cost.  This post is to encourage you, the ordinary leader, to take the lead on providing an event for girls in your Service Unit, with the hope that another leader will do the same, with a different topic.  Supporting each other, we can offer our girls more programming for less money than if we depend on outside vendors or council. While the post is written leader-to-leader, the steps involved are similar to those that would be used if an older girl troop wanted to do programming for younger girls as a money-earning project.

Daisy Digital Game Design

The Digital Game Design badge is the second in this year's set of "progressive" Coding for Good badges.  Like the Cybersecurity and Robotics series, the badge pamphlets for these badges show three badges rather than one, and, rather than giving a choice of three activities for each requirement for each badge, they simply give age-appropriate background information on the badge topic.  The VTK plans are clearly lesson plans, not just groups of activities related to a topic.  

The badges were sponsored by codeSpark Academy and while the VTK plans are "unplugged" and do not require the use of a computer, the materials provided to the leaders include a file about codeSpark Academy and which of its games related to the various badges.  

According to GSUSA's Badge Explorer, the requirements for the Daisy Digital Game Design badge are:

Explore how video games can make a difference

• Explore tools used to develop digital games
• Plan a maze game
• Build, test, and improve your maze game

When you've earned this badge, you'll know how video games are designed.

Below are the steps in the VTK plans:

Brownie Digital Game Design

The second badge in the Brownie Coding for Good series is Digital Game Design.  You can purchase a badge insert that covers all three badges in your council shop or you can buy a pdf download from GSUSA.  However, like the inserts for robotics and for cybersecurity, the Coding for Good insert is mainly background information as opposed to being in the three choices for each of five requirements format.  Instead, the insert refers you to VTK for the activities to earn these badges.

This article is a summary of the VTK plans for Brownie Digital Game design. The idea is to allow you to decide, without reading 30 pages of a script found in two different places, whether your troop wants to do these badges.

The activities in the VTK plans are "unplugged"; they do not require a computer or computer expertise.  However, GSUSA has partnered with Codespark Academy and if you are working on a service unit or council-level program for these badges you can get a code that allows you short term free access.

Daisy Coding For Good: Coding Basics

This year's new badges include a series of three "Coding for Good" badges for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors.  The basic requirements are available on GSUSA's Badge Explorer and meeting plans are in Volunteer Toolkit, to which most leaders have access.  While GSUSA has published a badge pamphlet for this set, it, like the sets for Cybersecurity and Robotics, is for background information only.  It is not in the format of three requirements and three options for each requirement.

One issue people have with VTK plans is that by giving leaders a script to follow (if desired) they make the plans very wordy and hard to skim.  This post and others like it are designed to summarize the VTK plans so that leaders can get a real feel for what the badge entails, and then, if they decide to do the badge, they can more carefully review the VTK plans.  In fact, I do not recommend that you do the badge without reviewing the VTK plans because their talking points are what connect the activities to coding.

Brownie Coding for Good Badges: Coding Basics

GSUSA has just released this year's new badges.  For Daisies, Brownies and Juniors, these badges included a new series:  Coding for Good.  Each level gets three badges, which, like the robotics and cybersecurity badges, were designed to be done sequentially.  Also it appears that like the robotics and cybersecurity badges, if you purchase the badge brochure, instead of getting a choice of three activities per requirement, you are given background information to use with the VTK plans.  In other words, your activities choices are to use what is in VTK or to come up with your own activities.