Given their financial constraints, demonstrating to them how they could use a Raspberry Pi-level device to create a website or business accessible to people around the world might inspire.
There's an unspoken dogma that without a $1000 phone and pricey Mac, you can't be a creator.
Alternatively, demonstrate a very cheap Youtube or podcast production setup and show them how they could do a channel inexpensively.
Common theme is that the barriers to entry in many digital fields are lower than expected.
I've also had kids amazed with tools like React Native Expo where they can make a "real" app that lives permanently on their phone after the exercise in just a few hours (starting with some boilerplate code that they learn to customize). Walked a group of 10-year-olds through the process and they each came away with a very basic app on their phones that looked unique.
>There's an unspoken dogma that without a $1000 phone and pricey Mac, you can't be a creator.
You just made me realize an interesting cultural shift. I distinctly recall how an old 386 or 486 wasn't good enough to run the cool games anymore. But it was good enough for QBASIC and turbo pascal. So I spent time tinkering on that system.
I could create on my 486, but since it didn't have a math co-processor I could only create a Doom level, I couldn't build them. I spent hours blindly building and checking it over and hoping that when I put it on a floppy and took it to my friend's house that all the doors would work, the elevations were correct, etc. Good times.
No, I never made Quake levels. Mine was an SX-20 and it played ok, but building a level complained about a math co-processor. I tried an emulator once, let it build all night and it still wasn't done.
Salvation came through Wal-Mart of all places and I convinced my mom that this $20(or $40, maybe I was paying half?) chip would just drop in that empty socket and double the speed of our computer. 486DX-40, that was nice...
There's an unspoken dogma that without a $1000 phone and pricey Mac, you can't be a creator.
Alternatively, demonstrate a very cheap Youtube or podcast production setup and show them how they could do a channel inexpensively.
Common theme is that the barriers to entry in many digital fields are lower than expected.
I've also had kids amazed with tools like React Native Expo where they can make a "real" app that lives permanently on their phone after the exercise in just a few hours (starting with some boilerplate code that they learn to customize). Walked a group of 10-year-olds through the process and they each came away with a very basic app on their phones that looked unique.