TYWLS Digital Dance

I blogged about this in the spring of 2017 but I am back with more.

TYWLS stands for The Young Women’s Leadership School, which is located in Astoria Queens in NYC. A few years ago the students decided to show off their computer science coding skills by making a “digital dance.” I posted the first one they did at the link above.

I just saw a video about their most recent digital dance and I just had to post it here.

I love this digital dance thing so much. It shows that coding skills can be used creatively. It shows that young women, particularly young women of color, can be coders and be proud of it. And it shows that technology is everywhere.

I have met some of these young women and they are impressive and I can’t wait to see what they are going to do when they grow up.

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Comments (Archived):

  1. Mike Zamansky

    I had a chance to visit TYWLA in Astoria a few weeks ago to talk to some of their seniors about things to consider when thinking about college choices.Really great energy from everyone there – students, faculty, and staff. I left really impressed and anxious to work more with them.TYWLS is actually a network of schools – I think they’re now 5 of them with Astoria being the most STEM focused (from what they tell me). I haven’t visited any besides Astoria yet but look forward to in the future.

  2. Kirsten Lambertsen

    Love it! Thanks so much for sharing it today :-)We need TYWLS in Jersey…

    1. LE

      See my comment re ‘Tutus’.Most suburban districts are non only totally non creative but they do traditional and standard things that take no effort. It’s box checking. It really sucks honestly. Lame.I noticed this with both my Daughters as well as my Step kids. Both attended/attend different but highly regarded schools in good districts. And the lack of creativity in everything and lack of quality and attention to detail is really astounding. They don’t get rated on efforts such as this and as a result put zero effort into whatever they do that isn’t tested. But sure they are still with the after school teams and learning a 2nd language which has no use for 88% of students later in life.

      1. sigmaalgebra

        Yes, but until they DO learn something about a foreign language, they can’t be so SURE that for someone with good knowledge of English learning a foreign language is next to useless.Until they DON’T go to college, they may for the rest of their lives be throttled by the fear that they missed something important, but if they DO go to college they will see how little they might have missed. Some of college, grad school, professional school, etc. really CAN provide important stuff, but even in college or more such education that fact might not be clear.What is in university education occasionally is so powerful and valuable that it can make a huge difference in life.Two seconds doesn’t sound like much, but running the 100 yard dash 2 seconds faster than anyone else is a path to free college, the Olympics, fame, and maybe eventually some fortune — just two seconds.The little differential equationy'(t) = k y(t) (b – y(t))is some of the easiest math I ever did, but I was the only one at FedEx who saw how and why to do that, and the results saved FedEx and got a lot of people in and around the C-suite afraid of and jealous of me. It was part of why on my last day at FedEx the CEO/COB said “You know, if you stay you will be in line for $500,000 of FedEx stock?”. Well, no, I didn’t actually “know” that, and he was already over a year late with a stock promise, so I left, but, still, that little differential equation was much of why he was motivated at least to pay some attention my getting the stock I’d been promised.

  3. JamesHRH

    hahahahaha – love it!Kudos to the political polling people – they nailed it.Onward.

  5. LE

    ‘Just because we are girls and just because we come from a regular public school’Interesting that they said this. ‘Regular public school’.This is super cool (I love colorful things like this).This is way more creative and shows more effort than the local kids (where I am) that dance in tutus in the dance competition honestly.I can see these girls putting together a small production in association with a DJ at a ‘Saturday Night affair’ and earning income that way. That would be a good way to entrepreneurially distinguish themselves and be a bonus on college applications.

  6. Adam Sher

    Fun video to watch. I was always challenged as a student to understand where an academic concept may apply in real life. This video is an excellent way of showing the intersection of school and life.

    1. LE

      academic concept may apply in real lifeUsually it doesn’t. They do it because it’s legacy and they (as a group not individuals) lack creativity. And they also don’t get rewarded for doing so.As always blame the top colleges and of course my favorite villain US News and World Report type rankings.

  7. Adam Sher

    This video prompted me to google “dance with code” to see what else shows up. It looks like Google is supporting efforts to engage girls and women in ways that tie coding to pop culture. Love that. @fredwilson:disqus do any of your CS education efforts intersect with this? https://www.madewithcode.co…

  8. sigmaalgebra

    Good grief. It looks like the girls were having fun; that’s better than not having fun. As in the original Jurassic Park, “they do move in herds”!! I don’t know if that is good or bad, but clearly it’s what they do.