"I run a computer club for Middle Schoolers:Need Ideas" Topic

I know there are a fair amount of gamers here who are also educators and many more who have children. So I am requesting your help. Last year our principal put me in charge of the school computer club, because I showed a great level, of computer understanding (and by that he means I know how to turn it on and no one else wants to do it it).
There in lies my problem, I am trying to find kid freindly activies for them to do, what I know about computers is very little and I wish to do a good job, but I am not sure what activites would work.

So far I have found a site to make superheroes, one on making a newpaper front page, and I plan on giving them a chance to play around with a smart board. Beyond that I need some ideas what are som good computer resources/activites for 11-14 year olds. The problem is most sites are blocked by the school's firewall and we use MACs so most applications will not run as they are geared towards PCs. I know there are som computer savy sites for parents were do you have your kids go?

At my school we get them to make animated films with Pivot
link
It's very popular, they even work on them in their own time.
There seems to be a similar program on the way for the Mac here:
hyzkia.com/dimp

You can try Game Maker. yoyogames.com/gamemaker

It is mainly for the PC, but they do have a Mac version they are working on. My son and his friend (7th grade) have both been using it. We just downloaded the Mac version the other day, so don't have a lot of feedback on that version.

Good Luck!

I know kids now are mostly into things that give instant gratification, but I still enjoy the magic of being able to program a computer, starting with the ever popular "Hello world!" screen. Armed with the programming language of your choice, you can recreate what we went through in the 70s & 80s, being sure the foundation of any game or application works before making it look pretty. And there is a world of programming source material that can be converted from old books on the subject.

Learning basic HTML might be fun. I think macs used to have a decent HTML writing program built in. If not, anything that edits text will work. There are lots of sites with guides.

How about a computer comic?

There is a really good game out there that is physics based and teaches basic engineering concepts. Its called World of Goo and it is addicting and fun.

worldofgoo.com

Why not have them build a computer using component parts? It's really reasonable and you do learn a lot. Start with a cabinet and power supply, have them research and select a motherboard and processor(AMD or Intel? Dual core?), research to find out what kind of memory they need, disk (SATA, IDE or SAS), finally loading the OS and firing that sucker up. I build all of mine.

HTML or a simply programing language

Building a comupter or a a simple network is a good idea too.