{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02546296296296296, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.766666666666667, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Indirect Interaction: A Computing Lecture for Five to Seven Year-Olds

Most papers on introducing children to computing assume the children will interact directly with the technology or task. In this paper, we reflect on a case of designing for indirect interaction -- where it is not the children's hands but a facilitator's on the device. The context is a computing lecture we gave for twenty-six children aged between five and seven years old. This was specifically designed to give a stylized experience of being a university student -- it is self-consciously a lecture emphasising student-teacher interaction around code. We found a technique from undergraduate engineering education -- a partially exposed simulation in a text-based programming language -- allowed imaginative interaction from the children as they discovered they could model the impossible.