Work in progress - first steps in developing computational awareness and interest in college studies in inner-city high school students

FI13 is an initiative between the School of Engineering, University of Buenos Aires, and 13 de Julio High School (Buenos Aires), whose main interest is to focus on technology education as a starting point for social integration. It will study the impact of a "technology project" on the aspiration levels of children and adolescents from a group of inner-city schools of Buenos Aires, and the relationships among university, high school, and elementary school. One of its sub-goals is the development of what can be seen as "computational awareness" in high school students. In this paper we report the first steps in the development of this computational awareness through four modules: "introduction to programming" (using Java), "Web design and local area networks", "Visual Basic programming", and "introduction to databases"