Extreme English CoderDojo
Finally! My Italian students have the opportunity to study English and technology in English! After years of work and organization, beginning on Monday, September 16, 2019, my students can participate in Extreme English CoderDojo.
My Dojos give students the opportunity to double their English time per week, either adding 1,5 hours of Dojo after or before their afternoon lessons. CoderDojos are free-of-charge, and they're open to the public, too.
We will begin Dojos with Scratch (www.scratch.mit.edu), the excellent and opensource program created by Mitch Resnick at MIT. With Mitch's team called the Lifelong Kindergarten group, the development of Scratch is forever ongoing and creative. Scratch allows students to use coding features in a block style format easy for them to use.
The Dojos will move onto the use of Microbit, Raspberry Pi, Lego Robotics, Dash and Dot and Ozobot. Students can begin to learn robotics concepts and beginning ideas of mechanical and electrical engineering. Students progressing quickly through Scratch can move onto HTML and Python, entering into more advanced coding language.
Extreme English CoderDojos will work on group projects and present them to Coolest Projects in Dublin, Ireland. We'll first try to get projects completed in time for Coolest Projects in Milan (http://milano.coolestprojects.it/).
Students from 10 to 17 years old will take part in Wix's Beta launch of Wix Education. Students will have the opportunity to work on an HTML project, creating a website for their community. The students will begin with brainstorming, and they will move through the developmental process of creating a useful, functioning website while learning to code in HTML.
In today's world, students of all ages need 21st-century skills! Working in groups and hammering out all the dinks in projects will give them the chance to grow. Maturing with others through collaboration helps students develop social and cognitive skills needed in today's world. It should be part of their key development in this new century, and it will help students become astounding, well-rounded and ambitious adults. Extreme English CoderDojo's will help students do all those things.