“Code is where everything comes together” Nikole shares her inspiring experience

Nikole Vaughn is the champion of CoderDojo Collaborative, a Dojo which has been running for several years in San Antonio, Texas. We previously wrote about how Nikole is inspiring the next generation of female coders. We caught up with her last month to hear how her Dojo has adapted over the last year.

Nikole told us about how she is currently running the Dojo online, projects her Ninjas have worked on, challenges she has faced, and what she values most about being part of the CoderDojo community. Read on to find out what we learnt and be inspired by Nikole’s story!

 

What do you enjoy most about being involved in CoderDojo?

“The Ninjas start to understand the power of code and how it transcends industries, cultures, generations. And code is where everything comes together.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Nikole!

 

What does being a part of the CoderDojo community mean to you?

Nikole tells us about moving her Dojo online — something that many Dojos around the world can relate to. Ninjas joined from five different states, including young people who were brand new to CoderDojo!

 

What types of projects have your Ninjas been working on?

With many different ‘classrooms’, including a room for Scratch, Python, HTML, and Raspberry Pi, there is so much that the Ninjas can learn at CoderDojo Collaborative. Nikole shares some of the projects that her Ninjas have worked on, such as building a travel website for a city. Find out how her volunteers also introduced typing skills to the Ninjas!

 

What was the biggest challenge when organising your online Dojo event?

Ensuring the Dojo remained accessible when moving online was something that was very important to Nikole and her volunteers. Find out what tools worked best for them.

We would like to say a big thank you to Nikole for sharing her CoderDojo experience with us. We are always excited to hear about the things that matter most to volunteers.