Activities
One page per class session, posted the day we do it. What's here is what we actually did, not a plan for what we might do, so it will always be a little behind and never wrong. If you teach and want to borrow any of it, please do.
Some of them are hard to picture from a description, because they happen on several screens at once. Those have a walkthrough: the whole activity recorded end to end, every screen side by side, a step at a time.
Wednesday, October 28
Ready to Ship
Two days before project two ships, run by the clock: write where your project stands, get it ready for a stranger, then hand your laptop to a classmate for four minutes, twice, and ask whether they'd call it done. Take what they saw back to your agent after each round.
Friday, October 23
How Would You Know?
Your agent says it's done. How would you know? Twenty minutes with your agent thinking up ways to check your project without taking anyone's word for it, the room's ideas on the projector, one idea each around the room, then twenty-five minutes building one so it runs from now on. Project two ships Friday 10-30.
Wednesday, October 21
Ready
The first try by the people it's for: the person who proposed your idea tries your project for four minutes while you say nothing, and you build on what they ran into. Project two ships Friday 10-30.
Friday, October 16
Say What You Saw
The second building day, run by the clock: write what your project is for today, build for half an hour, then hand your laptop to a classmate for four minutes and don't help. Take what they saw back to your agent as what they saw, not what's wrong.
Friday, October 9 to Wednesday, October 14
What You Want to Happen
The first building day, in pairs the room seats as you arrive: four turns with your agent, while your partner listens for whether each request says what should happen or how to do it. Your agent is listening too. Run again on October 14 after the cluster cut Friday short.
Wednesday, October 7
What Done Looks Like
The standings from Head to Head, on the wall. Then, with a partner the room chose for you, back up from the idea you picked to the goal behind it, ask your agent for several different ways to get there, and choose.
Friday, October 2
What's Out There
Pick the idea you'll build for someone in this room, from the list the class made on Wednesday. Then, in pairs taking turns, find out what already exists for it, with your agent, while your partner checks what it says in a browser.
Wednesday, September 30
Built for Us, Then Head to Head
Write down three things you care about, then invent an app with four different classmates, one after another, a new idea every time, for the people at the table. Then compare the class's finds two at a time.
Friday, September 25
Ask the Agent, Then Eight Sites
Ask your own agent how to work with it well, then merge what you found with three different classmates, one after another, until the room has its own list. Then go and find eight personal websites that are both effective and distinctive.
Wednesday, September 16 to Wednesday, September 23
Show and Tell
Everyone shows their site to the whole room, from their own laptop, and answers the same two questions. While someone else is up, you're on their site, writing them a note and asking them something.
Friday, September 11
Going Live
Your website gets a real address today. In pairs, side by side, each with your own agent, which knows the plan and will nudge you to look at what your partner just did. Then, with the time that's left, make it yours.
Wednesday, September 9
Fresh Eyes
Your partner looks at your website the way a stranger would and says what they see; you change it while they watch. Then you swap, and then you find someone new.
Friday, September 4
Pair Prompting
One of you prompts the agent; the other watches how, asks, and keeps notes. Then you swap.
Wednesday, September 2
Your Website
Set up Codex, then start the site that will hold everything you make this semester.