Erasmus+ Workshops to be held at DojoCon 2015 in Derry, 18th-19th September

DojoCon, now in its fourth year,  is the official annual conference for CoderDojo volunteers. At DojoCon there will be community and industry panels delivered by both CoderDojo community members, supporters and industry leaders. The 2016 conference is hosted by CoderDojo Derry.

As part of DojoCon 2015, there will be two workshop sessions held for CoderDojo Mentors as part of the CoderDojo Erasmus+ project. DojoCon will be taking place on the 18th and 19th September in Derry during CultureTECH which is being organised by the Nerve Centre and Dojos located in the North West of Ireland.

As part of DojoCon 2016, the Erasmus+ project team will be running interactive and engaging workshops for the CoderDojo Community. The purpose of these is to give community members the opportunity to have an input into the outcomes of the ongoing CoderDojo Best Practice Erasmus+ Project. Each session will follow the same format and last 60 minutes and there will be a limit of 20 mentors per session! We urge community members to attend, as there will be surprises for participants to bring back to their Dojos!

Both sessions will be interactive and follow the same pattern:

• CoderDojo Toolkit. The Erasmus+ project is developing a Toolkit to help with the running and management of your Dojo – this session will give you an opportunity to develop the Toolkit as part of the wider community.
• Best Practice. The Erasmus+ project is working to identify and share Best Practice from Dojo’s across the world. If you have Best Practice to share or want to learn from the experiences of others running Dojo’s of all sizes and at all levels then please come along.

Time/Location Session 1 11:45-12:45 – Studio

Time/Location Session 2 13:00-14:00 – Working Lunch Session – Studio

The Erasmus+ Project aims to provide opportunities for young people in Europe by promoting skills and employability through partnerships with different European institutions. This project aims to help to combat the skills gap currently faced by different countries throughout Europe.

There are five partners involved in the CoderDojo Erasmus+ Projects from Ireland, Poland and Spain.

Erasmus+ have funded the research with CoderDojo for Training in ICT Programming Skills. Another aim of the project is the examination of means by which evidence of learning gained by CoderDojo participants might be recognised.

CoderDojo is a global community of free programming clubs for young people. CoderDojo clubs (Dojos) run all over the world on a weekly basis, giving young people between the ages of 7 and 17 the opportunity to learn how to develop computer code, websites, apps, programs, games, digital media and to explore technology.  

Notes on Project:

The project team are from across Europe and each of the team host their own CoderDojo:

• Cork Institute of Technology/CoderDojo CIT (Cork, Ireland) Lead Partner
• The CoderDojo Foundation/Docklands Dojo (Dublin, Ireland)
• The Nerve Centre/Moville CoderDojo (Derry, Northern Ireland)
• WiMi5/CoderDojo Bilbao (Bilbao, Spain)
• Instytut Badan Edukacyjnych/CoderDojo Poland (Warsaw, Poland)

For more information follow: @CoderDojo #CoderDojoEPlus