Taking part in FITTT: theater as a tool to learn about technology

Generally speaking, when we talk about culture and education, we can hardly put them in the same sentence when it comes to children. We can talk about schools or events designed for children as passive agents, but it is rare to think of children as active cultural subjects and to think of culture as a fundamental element of education.

This year, Moussa Thiam, director of the Melokaan company, and a small team decided to take up the challenge of organising a festival for young audiences called FITTT (Festival itinérant tuut tank théâtre).

The aim is to spread theater among the very young as a means of learning and sharing knowledge. Theater as an educational tool. What’s more, the festival has an innovative feature in that it travels to different parts of the Dakar suburbs.

NTL was lucky enough to be invited to do a workshop for adults who work with children and show how technology can be explained using theatrical tools to learn how to program software using Scratch.

First, we concentrated on explaining what is an algorithm, then on explaining what is software. We did a body exercise session reproducing the logic of constructing an algorithm, working in pairs. Then we abstracted the same process we do with the body with Scratch to show how an algorithm is created in/with the computer.

It was a great experience and I’d like to thank the team and especially Moussa Thiam for giving me the confidence to take part in the festival.