"Do children need a 'special keyboard' to learn typing?" (from Ender's Game), raising thoughts about teaching design for children/K-12.
Activity: "if I were to popularize my course to high-schoolers with no programming background, where would I start?"
Data structures: use something like Scratch visual programming to present sorting and other basic algorithms.
Computational thinking: this course needs little change — it's already for students without a programming background; visualization matters; can use AI for live explanation/programming demos — today's high-schoolers can generate more complex programs with AI than we did as freshmen.
Computer culture basics: data-processing content, e.g. analyzing high-schoolers' grades with visualization/natural-language presentation; data analysis can connect to high-school statistics; let students try software, simple Python/R.
Digital-logic lab: students with a programming background may not be interested; first explain the foundational nature of hardware-system knowledge (build a digital-circuit game? Turing Complete).
Industrial data mining: content relates to internet-product design; many humanities students enroll; fairly general; once had students build an agent with an LLM, a fun assignment; also ideas about attracting OI (competitive-programming) students to university CS (giving talks at alma mater, including the "less good" parts).
Discuss Zhejiang's new gaokao technology subject (IT) exam difficulty and whether it could spread to more provinces; how to implement the 2022 new curriculum standard; whether GESP can validate children's learning and whether teaching by it sparks interest; the "children's programming boom" — sustainable?
Further reading: Papert's Mindstorms (Logo, let children learn math through programming), 落日间's game-making course for high-schoolers, Compulsory Education Information Technology Curriculum Standards (2022), and the Ministry of Education's notice on AI education in K-12 (popularize AI education in primary and secondary schools by 2030).