[Guest Blog] PowerApps4Kids – A Community Project that Welcomes All

by Scott Muniz | Jun 22, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This article was written by MVP Rory Neary as part of our Humans of IT Guest Blogger series. Rory describes his project, PowerApps4Kids, and how children can get involved in building apps through the project. 

PowerApps4Kids Logo

In March 2020, PowerApps4Kids didn’t exist.  All that did exist were a group of people that didn’t even know each other yet, but who believed Power Apps had the ability to educate our children in diverse and entertaining ways.  We’ve come a long way since then.  You can find us at our website (https://powerapps4kids.com), on YouTube, GitHub and Twitter. We’ve also run online sessions that have been well received at the Microsoft Reactor. 

What is PowerApps4Kids? 

PowerApps4Kids is an initiative to bring Microsoft PowerApps to as many children across the world as we can reach, and help them discover fun ways to create things with technology.   

What do you actually do? 

We run a regular online user group via the Microsoft Reactor where developers demonstrate how to build quick and simple apps to children and their parents.   

The webinars are complemented by the website, where children can download assets, watch videos on the PowerApps4Kids YouTube channel and explore learning paths.  The downloads page is arranged so that children not only get to see a project, but also specific videos associated with the skills needed to be successful with the project. 

We are all living in highly unusual times, and one aspect of this is that parents and children are at home together, which offers some very interesting learning opportunities as parents can help facilitate their children’s learning of Power Apps right at home. That said, the project is intended to live on well beyond this period even as we enter into the new normal. 

Children love to copy their parents. Now that it has been more visible what the parents do (while they are working from home a lot), being able to do the same as the parent can get children really keen on  building their own things with tech, too. 

Ok, so take me through the first few sessions 
The first session was highly experimental. I reached out to Daniel Christian and Reza Dorrani from PowerAddicts to see if they would like to get involved, and we ran a session delivered through the Microsoft Reactor to demonstrate some of our simpler, “child-focused” projects.  At the end, we gave the children a challenge to write a story using an app we provided them with. 

In Session 2, we switched things up and my fellow MVP Pieter Veenstra’s boys showed us how to build Noughts and Crosses.

Session 3, another fellow MVP Laura Graham-Brown taught kids (and parents!) how to build the “Hangman” word game (minus the hanging, of course!). The delivery was well-paced and at the level that a supported child would understand. 

Finally, in Session 4, we packed out the session with a very simple sign language app in addition to building a Rock, Paper Scissors game by PowerAddicts community member Michelle Wong along with a little training on the shuffle function.

Session Flyer with Microsoft Reactor

In all of these sessions, we either reinforced existing skills or shared new ones, but we are acutely aware that it is easy to scare off parents and children with complex tech, so we’re doing our best to be sensitive to this each time we deliver a session. It helps to ensure we establish a solid foundation of skills that are progressively built upon in subsequent weeks and months.

Is developing for kids not the same as for adults? 

In a way it is, but where adults tend to quite often fake their understanding in classes and search online for answers on their own, children tend ask for more details and help with things they don’t understand. When teaching children, it means that you start with the basics and try to simplify the apps that you build. Quite often this is a good thing anyway, even for us trainers since it tests our ability to simplify concepts for new users! 

There are many options available for kids to learn how to create program code.  Why are you specifically targeting this product? 

That’s a very good question – so good in fact that we actually answer it during each session.  To children we say that this is an amazing multimedia platform for building interactive experiences.  To parents we say “there are very few examples of instances where something learned in a school setting is directly transferrable to the workplace – with Power Apps you have a tool that is exactly the same when used in business, albeit for different purposes”. In this way, through Power Apps, we are helping foster skills that kids can directly benefit from later in life, as working professionals! By gaining these skills at a young age, they not only have a head-start in tech, but can also help foster confidence in technical skills and a love for tech.  

With the above in mind, there is an opportunity like never before for both children AND parents to learn to use a tool that has value in both of their lives, and has applications whether your true love is art, science, mathematics or even music. Power Apps makes tech fun and accessible to all ages!

Why do you feel it is important for kids to learn how to code through Power Apps? 

You’ll hear many reasons for teaching kids how to code, however this is the first product that we’ve seen where the skills are directly transferrable to the workplace, and is just as valuable for the careers of the parents as it is for the children. 
 

Additionally, coding teaches children a ‘way of thinking’: fundamental skills that are important in anywhere in life, not just while on a computer. While coding you’ll encounter challenges and learn how to problem-solve.  You’ll develop an understanding of logic.  After all the app won’t run if it’s not given the correct instructions or arranged in the correct order.  Perhaps, above all you’ll need to use your creativity to design an awesome app and bring your vision into the world. 

It is a quite an extraordinary mix of skills that are required to develop an app.  Skills that are worth learning and encouraging in our children, and the coding element is just one of them, but an important one. 

 Some children watching one of the online sessions

What has the response been like? 

On the whole, we’re very pleased that having started with nothing more than an idea in mid-April 2020, we have a platform, digital presence and a community interest following 4 sessions and an invitation to an external session.  People seem to be enjoying the idea that if they’ve built something that’s a little on the silly side, they now have a way of sharing that with others in addition to sharing the learning along the way.  All too often we share how brilliant we’ve been, but sharing the knowledge and the eureka moments is where the real generosity lies. 

So tell us about the website? 

The website is intended to support the live sessions and in due course there is a desire to create “Projects” that require “Skills” so that theoretically a child could plan their own path through the resources.  It’s a work in progress, so in due course there will be a place for teachers, parents and IT administrators so that we remove any barriers that there may be at home or at school. 

How safe is this for children? 

This is a really important point. Firstly, our interaction is a collective or open one (versus one-to-one) with parents plus their children. Secondly, the platform does not make direct contact with children (i.e there should always be parental supervision/facilitation), and finally, all of the content is in direct control of the founders whether it be on the website, on GitHub (github.com/powerapps4kids) or on the YouTube channel so that it is fully accessible to all. Content provided by developers are always moved to these shared and vetted areas to ensure safety for our young participants. 

Ok, so tell us about the team you’ve put together? 

I guess you’d say that Pieter Veenstra and I would be thought of as the founders of Power Apps 4 Kids, with numerous others that are providing amazing assistance and support. Matt Devaney has provided guidance in the background to ensure that the presenters hit the high notes so we’re looking forward to his session on July 14th. We’re also supported by Ee-Lane Wu, Laura Graham-Brown, Reza Dorrani, Michelle Wong, Chris Huntingford and Daniel Christian.  I should also mention Emma Mcgrath of the Microsoft Reactor London who has assisted us in all our online sessions so far.

Are you where you want to be with the project? 

It is still early days, but there is already a lot of interest and support from Microsoft and the community for what we are doing.   

Personally, I’ve always said, start small in terms of output, but think big in terms of quality and governance in all my projects. For us, this means having multiple channels – a website, a YouTube channel, a dedicated GitHub, a Twitter handle and an Office 365 tenant – where we can easily collaborate with other community leaders. 

Do you need any help with this? 

Definitely. For this to be a true success, we need to be able to engage children wherever they are in the world. For this to happen, we need to have high quality, well thought out content delivered in a reasonably consistent fashion.  As the volume of the content increases, we’ll need the navigation experience around the website to reflect this, so we’re looking for:

• More content  
• Quality delivery through video or blog posts 
• Moderators for proposed content

If you’d like to be involved, please contact us here. 

You can also propose content to us via the form located on the site.

https://powerapps4kids.com/developers/ 

Content is reviewed and then moved to our GitHub location before we make it live on the site.

You can also contact us either through Twitter @powerapps4kids or via Linkedin (search for “Rory Neary” or “Pieter Veenstra”). 

What do I need to do to find out more? 

I think you’re best to head over to the website powerapps4kids.com, have a look around, then head over to the content explorer and pick a project and start building. Maybe even take a shot of your latest creation and tag it with #PowerApps4Kids – we’d love to see your creations!

Our next session is on July 14th with Matt, and you can find the details here.

Thanks Rory for telling us about what you’ve been doing, and good luck with the rest of the project!

My pleasure, thank you for having me on – perhaps we’ll come back a year from now and share a retrospective view on things. Here are some useful links in the meantime:

Web: powerapps4kids.com 

Microsoft Reactor https://www.meetup.com/Microsoft-Reactor-London/events/calendar/ 

YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/powerapps4kids 

GitHub – https://github.com/powerapps4kids 

Twitter – @PowerApps4Kids #PowerApps4Kids 
 

#TechforGood

#LessCodeMorePower

Copying projects in Project for the web

by Scott Muniz | Jun 22, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We are pleased to share that we’ve added the ability to copy projects in Microsoft Project for the web.  We built this feature to address your feedback to allow you to reuse projects and repeat workflows. With Copy Project, you can now easily duplicate projects to get started even faster. 

Copy existing projects

It takes a lot of time to build the perfect project plan. This is especially true when a project includes a lot of tasks or are part of a repeated process.  Manually recreating projects can be tedious and takes time away from actually doing the work.  With copy project, you can now create a new project by duplicating an existing one.  From the project, you can click on the title of the project to open up the details pane. From there, you can select “Copy project” from under the “…” menu.

Click on the title of the project to open the project’s details pane

Click on the “…” from the project’s details pane to open up the drop-down

Click on “Copy project”

Your new project will be created with the same original project name with “- Copy” added to it so you can easily track the copied project. You can update the name of your newly copied project through the Project Details Pane.

The overall project structure and tasks get copied over.  Copying a project does not copy over task assignments or the connected O365 group. However, you can always re-assign the project to the same group (or a different one!).  Tasks are also reset to 0% complete, so you can start your new project with a clean slate.

Tips & Tricks

Getting started with your new project: Don’t forget to rename your project in the project’s details pane! You can also share this newly copied project to a new or existing group, by clicking on “Group members” in the top right corner, so you and your team can quickly get working on the new project.

Moving your project dates: When you copy a project, the dates will copy over – and you may end up with a lot of “late” tasks! To quickly adjust the project to your new deadlines, you can update the Start Date of the project to push all of the tasks out. That way, you keep the relative dates, durations, and dependencies of all the tasks.

Update the Project Start Date through the Project Details Pane to change the period of your project.

Templatizing your projects: You can deactivate a project and use it as a template, so that others can reuse the project but not make edits to it. You can deactivate a project through the Dynamics interface, which will make the project read-only.

First, go to the Dynamics app via the O365 Waffle 

Select the “Project” module, where you will see a list of your projects – select the project you’d like to deactivate.  

Once you select your project that you want to deactivate, you can click the “Deactivate” button. 

In the Project for the web interface, you will see that this project is not editable, but can be copied. You can now use this as a non-editable template!

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback on the Copy Project experience, please let us know! We love hearing from you, so please continue to tell us how we can improve your Project experience by commenting directly on this post, through the “Feedback” button in the product, or UserVoice for Project for the web.  We read every submission and try to respond as needed — be sure to provide an email address so we can reach out to you for further