[Introductory paragraph that references the story published in the 1 April issue, and will go up on the Linux Journal website a few days later.]

I followed up that one-day tour by interviewing Devon and Melora, first in their offices and then by email. Here goes.

DS: How much about Linux, including, eventually, operating in command line mode, do kids pick up, and at what stage? I also want to know how kids learn to be masters across platforms: from Linux to Mac, Windows, Android and iOS, because I saw and heard all of those discussed in the schools we visited.

DL: It varies by program type and mentor interaction.

In kidOYO programs we run in our own community, outside of school classrooms, Linux engagement is higher than in K-12 ,public schools. It also scales with complexity of lessons and the skills of students and mentors. This past semester, our program was hosted at Stony Brook University, and we had ten to sixteen year old students learning to create projects within Linux Ubuntu and GNU Linux OS, as well as Mac plus Windows, by installing Windows sub-systems for Linux. They can set up their dev environment with basic shell commands using Vim, gradle, flask, etc. Skills and proclivities on this path vary widely, but I will say that outside of game development skills specifically, most high level learners tend to be Linux proficient. It's just a corollary I've observed over many years. For his Demo Day project to show parents, one kid built a multi-player version of Space Invaders in Java using libgdx on his machine running Linux Ubuntu. He did this at age eleven.

Since our platform runs on Linux, and my core team also serves as mentors to kids in these programs, we always enable students to see behind the scenes, and to learn why we use certain tools, such as Linux and Vim. To a kid at first this stuff is not obvious or relevant. Still, as they advance we show them how Vim works and how it is used, then create challenges for them to try it out. Some kids are tuned to this innately, and once they touch Linux and root dev methods via command line, they never go back to the GUI. Others fight it, as you might expect, and prefer GUI computing. Once kids self-identify as interested or proficient in an area like this one, I try to support them sharing their knowledge and interests in ways they think others should also like to learn. Here is one such example, created by 12 year old student who only uses Linux machines.

In K-12, though, Linux tends not to be an available path. For example, while schools are using Chromebooks that can be dual booted into a Linux Ubuntu environment, the option is generally disabled. Some schools will use Raspberry Pi's that will allow for introduction to Linux OS, but it's still rare. Limited gear availability also limits mentors' familiarity with Linux. Still,we support Linux with curriculum whenever it's possible. And we do our best to push schools in the Linux direction.

DS: What is it that makes kidOYO's approach so different?

DL: OYO—own your own—has been the guiding philosophy behind our efforts. For young people and families it resonates in a simple and powerful way. Kids get it immediately. Self-Sovereign empowerment, personal data control, and skill development are all baked into of our methods and tools. From the beginning, our kids have always had control of their learning outcomes, their data, their methods, their paths of study, their voices, their agency, and their freedom to make mistakes and learn from them, which we call "failing forward." All this is easy for kids to follow, and less easy for adults, mostly because they're used to seeing conventional pedagogies, courses and curricula. But when adults see first hand how failing forward actually works—as you saw in action in Mineola—their minds open up.

But institutional resistance runs deep. There are plenty of pedagogy-centric thinkers in the ranks of teachers and administrators, and plenty of methods to support their priorities. For example, pedagogy-oriented thinkers tend to complain when we give kids real world tools like their own DNS (domain name), hosting and editors. Instead they prefer limiting use-context of tools, so the kids can't publish online and complete the feedback loop. Instead of letting kids build their own learning portfolio, they prioritize templated tools with limited functions and limited downstream value for independent learning.

DS: Tell me about your approach to business and open source, because I think it's unusual.

DL: We think open source needs to be free as in freedom, or liberty. Not that a business based on it has to be free of cost. So we're all about free code, but we charge for our services. And that's how we're bootstrapped. Our services provide nearly all our income. Parents and schools pay us because they get value out of what we do. Even though kidOYO is a nonprofit with a mission, that's how we are sustainable. And paying for value is part of what makes us a community as well.

DS: Is there a name for your category?

DL: There are two. One is #IndieEDtech. That's the hashtag. The other is creative computing, which comes from the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten and and their Scratch perspective on CS. Within the creative computing camp, #indieEdtech and kidOYO stand apart, because nobody else has our advocacy for public-benefit technology and skills that individuals own root authority over.

DS: Who's you're competition?

DL: To our knowledge, nobody else does what we do. Not exactly, though some have copied it superficially. Salesforce's Trailhead, for example, is pretty much a knock-off of our learning paths approach. So is their use of badges. They also patented that approach; but I'm not worried, because I have correspondence that proves prior art on our part.

DS: Do they compete?

DL: No, Trailhead is about professional development. They're not in the edtech space.

DS: Though they did give a donation to CoderDojo.

DL: Yeah, so they're in the space indirectly.

DS: Describe the edtech space.

DL: The two big groups are the giant corps and the edtech nonprofits, most of which the giant corps also fund. What they have in common, and what sets us apart, is that they're all about FREE. Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft all give generously to schools. The nonprofits—Codeacademy, CoderDojo Code.org, FreeCodeCamp—all have business outcomes driven by FREE, though the outcomes are different. You'll find the most meaning by looking at their funding sources.

DS: I'm trying to see the picture here. Code Academy appears to be a freemium thing, with a Pro level. They claim 25 million users, and seem to have lots of VC money. Code.org is supported with lots of money from very large corporate players and some philanthropies, and hence a lot of money. Their mission seems very institutional with a lot of conceptual and mission overhead, meaning a long list of goodnesses that read like check-boxes. Do schools actually like it?

DL: Teachers like it because its easy, it's built for their level of technology literacy, and it allows them to control the pace of lessons. But kids quickly learn its not teaching them useful skills, or that its not "really coding" as much as it's embedding coding concepts into game play. Then they start complaining.

DS: CoderDojo is a registered Irish charity. What do you think about their Dojo approach?

DL: Initially, CoderDojo was a positive. But the Founders quickly turned it into a reputation gathering system for themselves and lost the community's support. I considered launching a dojo approach; but we dropped it.

DS: What about FreeCodeCamp?

DL: That model exists in abundance, but it's not really competitive. While it's a free thing anyone can access, they spend most of their online real estate begging for donations. I'm not really down with the "begging" business model. Ask or beg for twenty dollars and its the same outcome. When you do that, you get trounced on by behavioral manipulation outcomes that distort the meaning of free-as-in-liberty initiatives.

So the main way we compete with all that stuff is by staying independent and simply doing what we do. And we are beating the big corps in direct contract negotiations. Their FREE approach versus our cost-with-integrity one go head to head, and we often win.

DS: But some of your services are free, no?

DL: Yes. With codeLI.org and FredXcoders (in Fredricksburg), all content is created by volunteer mentors, and the depth of engagement tends to be exploratory in nature. These communities run cost-free live events, and curriculum resources are produced to support independent engagement. Where that model struggles is with sustained mentor engagement. That's why we have a member:cost model.

DS: Explain that a little more. What does member:cost mean?

DL: It means being a member has a cost, and the money we make pays for the services. Those services are guided by mentors. In order to have sustained mentor feedback loops, kidOYO runs member:cost communities. Mentors in these are compensated for their support of student learning. This allows increased diversity in learning progressions for students, and has funded building all these tools and relationships over the years.

DS: Unpack your corporate structure a bit more for us.

DL: kidOYO is a registered trademark for educational software and first used in 2006. It functions as DBA for NoizIvy.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which was founded in July 2001 to empower "entrepreneurial learning with technology through creation of products, services and programs in our local communities driven by peer-to-peer exchange and empowerment." In that role we founded FredXcoders in 2011, in Fredricksburg, Virginia. We also started CodeLI.org in 2012, LI Maker Fest in 2015 (now official Eastern LI Maker Faire), launched the OYOclass.com platform in 2014 and in our first school district in 2015. That was Mineola. Now we're approaching 75,000 members on Long Island in New York, and preparing for national and international launch.

I'm the President of the company, and also a Developer and a Lead Mentor since 2001. Melora is the Executive Director, and also Creative Developer and a Lead Mentor since 2001. Bo Feng is a Software Engineer and our CTO since 2014.

Nine people work at NoizIvy.org currently. The three I just named are the core team. We also have four software developers who are also mentors, plus one maker/engineer/mentor and one office manager, administrative assistant and mentor. Everyone in the company learns to code if they don't know how already.

We also have one print book, self-published in 2006, and available online for twenty dollars.

DS: How do you set your price points?

DL: We actually start with the seventh amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says "where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." We all know that amendment as the one giving us a right to trial by jury. But what it actually presents is a twenty dollar bar against triviality, and a distinction between civil rights and market rights. There's space there, under that twenty dollars, or the modern equivalent, for you to present a small civil case in a courtroom. Within that space is an existential gain in empowerment. It's also where we have also evaporated our civil rights. So we look at our market, and mark up from that twenty dollars to thirty five dollars. That's what we charge per student. Again, it's pretty simple. And the student gets a lot of value for that money. So do the schools that pay us..

DS: Have you taken in payments from any big companies?

DL: We have taken in ten thousand dollars in corporate funding, from just two entities. Red Hat gave us five thousand dollars, and a Long Island manufacturer, North Atlantic Industries,which makes electronics components used in military industry applications, gave us the other five. That was it.

DS: How about foundation or government funding?

DL: Something like 1.3 billion dollars got pledged in support of CS education in 2018, and I expect kidOYO would have been rejected by all of these sources of funding. I say that based on experience. We always get shot down. That's because the goals of those pledges, whether explicit or veiled, are for corporate expansion of influence and methods. Not for fostering general adeptness of independent learners. So we no longer bother going after that kind of money.

DS: Tell me more about how things are spreading geographically on Long Island and beyond.

DL: You ask at a good time. We had a meeting with ten school districts yesterday. The context was the first inter-district competitive hackathon on Long Island. Ten teams of eight students and coaches will be come together to engage in a social competition framed around creative computing. CS, engineering, making, art, game development, math, English, science and data-data-data will all be in the room during this event. And yet creative computing among those peers will own the spotlight.

This is significant because in this area of learning—talent development and discovery, social creativity with imagination and empathy—stands out starkly against the historical bias of computer science, which is toward research.

In so many ways, creative computing is enabling a different perspective on technology. Old school CS people do not present a developmental pathway I would be excited about advocating to my kid, let alone yours. That's because it puts technology in front of humanity far too regularly. Can't drive? Build self-driving cars. Can't cook? Build UberEats. Can't generate human empathy and personal imagination? Access sci-fi novels and support dystopian narratives of diversity in culture-producing outcomes.

On the other hand, creative computing is a paradigm shift away from that. It opens up a new context for the human-technology relationship—one that pursues framing on the basis of functional outcomes.

As we prep for this kind of event, we talk and discuss the creative computing perspective with education leaders that rarely get exposed to it otherwise. Every opportunity to bring this perspective to institutional players is a powerful step forward.

DS: I'd like to know more about kidOYO's background. Tell me how you got from here to there to here again.

ML: I grew up in what many would consider an unconventional household.  My Dad was a unique mix of tinkerer, artist, dare-devil and outright crazy person. I am not sure he was prepared to have a girl to be honest. That produced...well...me.

It's relevant to point that out first, because his unconventional approach to parenting created someone who was never raised with gender "limitations..  I spent a good deal of my childhood immersed in projects in his shop out back. Although he was more than capable, he rarely created for the sake of practicality so there was never any fear of failure mixed into anything he or I did. The freedom to fail and laugh at those failures helped to shape me into someone who jumped into a any project I found interesting without worrying about the end outcome. 

I had a tremendous amount of freedom, not being defined as a girl or a little kid in my environment. I could use any tool, any material, any method and make for the sake of making. I was trusted to fail though my own process of exploration when I was with my Dad. I was able to learn by doing and playing and that is how I approach my life still. I love to create new ways to learn through play.  I studied Psychology at Stony Brook University, and when I took my first cognitive psychology class I was hooked. Really, every thing I have done since then has been connected to the idea of teaching new skills to young brains.

I also learned along the way that I am a visual hands on learner. I think in pictures, so having the power to create digitally and with code has been so empowering for me. It gives me an unique ability to convey complex concepts to kids because I automatically turn problems/solutions into pictures. 

DL: In high school, my aim for college was to play baseball and basketball. One goal was to get a scholarship at Columbia, but I got injured. I recovered well enough to get a scholarship to George Mason University, but there my interests became more academic and entrepreneurial, especially around technology.

My first programming experience was on a Commodore 64 and soon after on an Apple IIe, when I was around nine and ten. Neither of my parents had any technical proclivities, but they put those things in front of me and I took advantage of them.

In high school, I discovered the magazine 2600 and how to hack into phone networks to make free calls using low-tech methods like a whistle to simulate tones unlocking long-distance calling capabilities. In terms of programming, I started in a Windows environment before Linux came around and I just had my own local environment to play with. I also ordered a CD-ROM on programming in C around that same time and played with that.

It wasn't until 1992, when I entered college in Fairfax, Virginia that I started falling in love with programming on the Internet. Looking back, I was hacking around with ASP, PHP, html, databases... never learning in a formal setting, since none of this was covered in the CS classes I enrolled in. I was just playing, and trying to find resources that could help me better understand the dependencies and histories of languages, their ideal uses, and so on.

I learned everything by trial and error, finding others I could ask questions, and playing around with ideas. That was my learning method.

As the Web expanded, my learning expanded along with it. I count myself lucky to have come of age at a time when the Web was doing the same, and people were making learning resources available online. As a lifelong entrepreneur, I am convinced that learning to code has been essential for me in learning to create in business. As an athlete, I self-taught my advanced skills, but never contemplated the role of failing forward and failing fast in skill development. I simply loved playing, and that was my focus.

As an entrepreneur and programmer, failing was not fun or playful. I had to discover something about my own attitude toward skill development that was crucial in sports and life in order to succeed in both. I never realized that it took personal courage and a productive attitude to overcome failure. I never realized that I had positive expectations sustaining my efforts through failures. I never counted how many shots I missed, or errant balls I threw. I just played with endless enthusiasm.

Becoming mindful of the process of learning to succeed by failing forward changed everything for me. It affected the speed I embrace in creative work: to start, fail, change methods, fail, iterate, fail, shift focus, fail, and keep moving forward with eyes on the objective—which is that I remain interested and enthusiastic about pursuing what I learn. None of this requires me to be naturally gifted; it only mattered how I did what I did to improve.

So that is the root message of my own learning that I bring to all our programs: "Fail Forward, Fail Fast."

My non-profit interest traces back to my upbringing in a home that heavily leans left, with lots of social workers, economists, and university degrees in the ranks of my relatives. One of my first jobs was working for a local homeless shelter on Long Island delivering food to their shelters. I met women with PhDs who were homeless, and who changed my perspective on what real poverty was. That influenced much of what I do. I am a big believer in empowering people, and helping them overcome the structural deficiencies that separate the haves from the have nots. At the root of my efforts is a constant interest in understanding entrepreneurial creativity, economics and personal skill development—and helping people advance all of those.

I founded our non-profit in Virginia after attending George Mason, and then staying around Fairfax during the time when the Internet and the Web were entering the public sphere of interest and influence. The non-profit allowed me to bring technology skills and subjects into contact with kids and families in a powerful way. I simply volunteered to teach, to share ideas. And over time that work grew based on the interaction that those people were having with my ideas and methods.

The toy business grew alongside this. With Melora's background in psychology and product development, and our own son creating needs that drove solutions, sensory play products, construction play products and technology play were front and center every day. As a Dad, I tested my own ideas about the earliest ages different methods could develop an entrepreneurial mindset about skill development and participation in society for kids as creative human beings. At age three, our son was delivering eggs from his backyard chicken farm to neighbors, setting prices, tracking expenses on crayon-drawn charts, and learning that root authority in this life is personally created, as are the products and services that allow people to make money. Not jobs. That's a concept that shows up much later in life. It is only now, at almost fourteen (the working age) that this has become a subject of inquiry for him. On a foundation he owns, all possibilities exist for him to explore.

DS: We've talked about the effect of your work on kids, and Dr. Nagler talked about those kids' effect on the world. He also talked a bit about the challenges his schools face in adapting to your methods, and how those methods tend to rocket kids upward in expertise faster than the existing system can handle. How do you see this going for the rest of formal education, or at least of CS?

DL: I see CS education splitting into two philosophical pathways.

One is old school CS/E, with roots in research pedagogy. This tends to attract specific types of students, led by traditional types of teachers. It can't handle demand, which is going through the roof, but it will still fail to adapt, because it can't help doing what it does.

The other is creative computing in CS/E. MIT leads the way here, with forty percent of their undergrad population studying CS, according to a recent New York Times article. Harvard CS 101 also supports this path by starting students off with the Scratch language. It also reports of higher engagement by women and minorities. What matters, as far as we're concerned, is that creative computing works. It vastly outperforms old school CS. It also scales in ways that old school CS can't, and by doing that it can meet market demand.

And many of the kids in our communities today will supply that demand. You saw some of those kids in your visit to Mineola.

DS: What are the larger implications of that, outside the academy?

DL: Mainly ramifications for the future workforce. It will apply everywhere, because CS applies everywhere. We live in a digital world now. You'll see it in physics, applied math, arts, humanities, social sciences—anywhere the creative use of data and computing methods will make a difference.

And one of those differences will be empathy for local human conditions. This is sometimes lacking, radically, on the traditional path. We see results in abuses of people by many typical VC-funded Silicon Valley companies.

DS: We didn't talk much about what you're doing with other institutions outside Mineola. Can you give me a rundown of what's happening in Stony Brook and other places? I want to get a sense of how your fires start and spread.

DL: So far, we are working with less than fifty percent of the hundred and thirty school districts on Long Island. There is plenty of potential, but many of the remaining districts here are not in a position to work with us, either due to their own budgetary planning and pension funding requirements, or due to lack of computing resources, such as laptops and computers for kids and teachers, or even functioning Wi-Fi. Those are real obstacles to progress.

But the biggest obstacle is admin-level and teacher familiarity with this type of literacy. You can imagine the looks of confusion we encountered in 2012 when we described what we were doing. It's getting better in 2019, but there is still lots of room for improvement.

Setting accurate expectations is another challenge. Too often school leaders do not believe this type of learning is accessible to five, six and seven year old kids. Their imagination stops waaayyy short of what kidOYO offers, and they end up choosing much lower level "digital literacy" pedagogies that make sense to a Facebook/Instagram user, with almost no context of functional literacy. In these cases, parents route around the problem by bringing their kids directly to our programs; and they do that in large numbers. This can influence the schools as well. We don't need to push. The parents and kids do that.

At Stony Brook, we are actively discussing our own capability to support a "OYO University" self-led model of learning with mentor support on campuses that are struggling to meet the demand students for this kind of learning. Stony Brook has been a great partner of ours for many years, with around six hundred fifty students enrolled in their Computer Science degree program. The demand from non-CS students to take CS classes is so high that they had to shut out students from enrolling in CS classes. And this is by no means unique to SBU. It's happening all over the country and the world.

We are about to release OYO University platform deployments broadly as well. We just pitched SBU on our ability to support their 25,000 undergrad students starting in Fall 2019, and we're looking for a first University partner to provide CS/E/Coding to all students on their campus.

Toward that, to date we've donated $125,000 to the SBU Foundation in support of a "Mentor Service Award." That's a lot for an unfunded non-profit. And this could scale with help.