A movement for little ninja of Computer Coding
Acireale – Palestra Per la Mente, organization that promotes information technology and mathematics labs aimed at children and adolescents, has organized the 26th edition of CoderDojo Etneo for the first time at the Free Mind Foundry Innovation Hub, in Acireale.
An all-digital appointment for little ninja of Computer Coding focused on teaching new technology through an experimental and practical “Learn by doing” approach. During the event, have been carried out 8 different activities with 25 mentors, 120 kids and 160 parents involved. CoderDojo Etneo made his associates particularly proud because, even if it was founded in 2015, it has grown very fast, monthly organizing new appointments that host on average between 120-130 kids.
Initiating the Conference, Dr. Santo Sciuto, Commercial Director of Credito Siciliano for Central Sicily, in his opening statement, declared “The Free Mind Foundry Innovation Hub is an innovative smart workplace located in our territory, and that belongs to our territory”, and looking at the entire young audience, added “In the occasion of this event, seeing all these kids in front of me Today gives me great hope in future generation! Thank you everyone for being here”.
Angela Pontorno, BaxEnergy Human Capital Manager, presented and described the Hub to the guests, saying “Free Mind Foundry opens its door to CoderDojo Etneo for the first time! You are going to access into an intelligent and highly interconnected work environment, built to bring people together, in which it is possible having fun, working and developing innovative solutions in different fields such as renewable energy, IoT, Industry 4.0, video games and even more”. Next up, Francesco Russo, BaxEnergy CFO, after a short introduction about BaxEnergy, undelighted in a few words the importance, in a very fast-moving World always more out of control, of remembering to our children to not lose feelings and respect for the most important things of life.
CoderDojo is an open and totally free event organized in about a thousand of independent clubs all over the World, the aim of which is the teaching of programming languages and robotics to kids. There are more than 40 dojo in Italy since 2012, spread throughout the national territory.
Thousands of children have already joined the Italian events, learning different kind of programming languages such as HTML, Javascript and CSS, creating small video games with Scratch and developing using Arduino. Also, the interest of the educational World in CoderDojo appointments is continuously growing and lots of teachers came closer to a dojo, in order to learn the playful and uncompetitive methods, based on the peer learning.
The creative training activities revolve around the game, information exchange and peer learning, following the only fundamental rule of each dojo: “Be Cool!”
CoderDojo is a movement exclusively based on a common goal: teaching kids and adolescents, aged between 5 and 14, how to actively, and not passively, use the new technologies, by exploiting the digital tools to their own advantages and for their personal growth. And then, what is better than learning having fun?
A special thanks to CoderDojo Etneo for choosing our headquarters, Luca Zagarella, IntelliSync R&D Manager, for proactively organizing the event, Simone Massaro, BaxEnergy CEO, for making it possible as great technology believer and innovation guru, to the mentors of CoderDojo Etneo and all the kids and parents who have have been closely involved!
