What it’s like starting CoderDojo in my secondary school – CoderDojo youth, Barry

Transition year student, Barry, tells us in his own words what it has been like to attend the Dojo that has recently been set up in his secondary school in Dublin, Ireland.

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When I heard that a Dojo was going to be run in our school I thought this would be a great opportunity to give all students a chance to learn more about a skill that is becoming increasingly important in the modern world. Coding wasn’t recognised as well as it should be in our school and the students who are attending were gripped to learn more about this.

What does CoderDojo mean to me?

CoderDojo is a creative way to learn more about coding and technology in a creative social and fun environment, where everyone can learn and share their thoughts and interests with each other. You can also explore making a website, app development, game development and using Raspberry Pi’s.

What is our Dojo like?

Raspberry Pi model b+

Our Dojo is held after school hours for  between 1-2 hours on Thursdays in our newly updated computer lab. We like to think that this space is no longer a school environment, but a cool, creative Dojo space! Virgin Media have kindly sponsored our Dojo We have 2 mentors that run the Dojo, Irial and Claire who are all inspirational and interested to learn about projects that students are committed too and are in the progress of creating. So far we have been using programmes including Unity, Scratch and Python with more that they are going to introduce throughout the Dojo sessions. Some of us have used and have Raspberry Pi’s. They are really awesome and useful credit card sized computers that you can do so much with. It is a must have for everyone! Raspberry Pi’s are a  great chance to develop an idea for the Coolest Project Awards summit at the RDS in June 2017. Our mentors also have encouraged and helped everyone to be creative and be confident learning more about coding.

Benefits of CoderDojo in our school

I believe that by having CoderDojo set up in our school it will really revolutionise the way we look at technology and coding and that it will hopefully be a big contribution to our school community. Hopefully more and more people will look towards a path in coding or technology.

What I have done so far

So far from working with CoderDojo I have been learning a lot more skills including deepening my knowledge with coding and working with a Raspberry Pi. I think by being involved with CoderDojo it will greatly help me in choosing a career path in the future.

I recommend anyone to get involved in CoderDojo having loads or little knowledge at all of technology as it is a worthwhile experience to be apart of.

Check out photos of some of our projects below:

You can find our Dojo group here!