Eugene McDonough, Geraldine Exton and Mags Amond gave a really interesting talk aboutCoderDojo.
A CoderDojo is basically group of young people who want to learn about coding that gets together regularly with mentors and the children learn about how to make programmes, make presentations on their work in front of the other children and problem solving skills. They learn why a computer does what it does and it’s a practical way of thinking. In this group kids are allowed to be the experts and are allowed to show that they are smart.
There are specialised Dojos. For example, there is one for autistic children and there is also a female-only group called the ‘Dojo Divas’ here in Ireland. In the United States there are also some girl-dojos. Facebook have donated laptops to the dojo groups that Eugene, Geraldine and Mags talked about today. They then showed us a slide of what the children thought of CoderDojo. Most of the children liked it as they made new friends and they could make their own games and programmes and it was up to you to make it.
Youth Media Team
Sínead & Kate