Life as a CoderDojo Mentor

I have been mentoring in DCU CoderDojo since May 2012. I heard about DCU CoderDojo from a friend on Facebook who was mentoring in Kilkenny.

I wanted to check out what it was all about but had no intentions of mentoring for several reasons. More than anything I felt I wouldn't have the confidence or the ability to teach. I decided to bring my nieces along to see if this would be something they'd be interested in. While there I got chatting to Stephen Howell one of the mentors about CoderDojo and I changed my mind. If I could help my nieces, I could help other children.  As I was on maternity leave, I felt mentoring would be a great way for me to keep in touch with programming. 

It has been an amazing journey working with the young people attending @DCUCoderDojo. We teach gaming and then move on to what is called CoolestProjects.  CoolestProjects is where young people use what they learned in CoderDojo to develop their own projects for a competition.

In DCU Chris (15) and Chloe Burke(16) worked on a project called Theorem App for the competition and Caitriona Carrigan (15) worked on a website where the user could play the guitar, drums or piano.

Noel King, the lead mentor in DCU and Paul Phelan from Intel devised CoolestProjects and an accompanying awards ceremony which is held annually to showcase the creativity and talent of the young people attending CoderDojo.

I was blown away by the talent for the Coolest Projects Awards 2012 and very inspired. The excitement on the day was palpable and the projects were incredible. Maciej Goszczycki (15) the winner wrote his own programming language!

Since CoolestProjects, Chloe has spoken at the Dublin Web Summit “a global gathering of the world's leading thinkers and doers in technology”. While Caitriona's website has inspired a game which is making its way in the UK GCSEs. 

Parents play a huge role in CoderDojo and with their help extraordinary things happen. Mike Kehoe is one of those extraordinary parents, as he helped DCUCoderDojo visit the IBM campus where we had a brilliant day coding and getting tours of the campus, organised by Mike. Since then, Fred Raguillet and an amazing team of mentors have started a CoderDojo in IBM Dublin and plans are afoot for one in IBM Galway.  

I was lucky enough to help start up CoderDojoGirls. This came about after a chat with Noel where it was observed that while girls start CoderDojo they tend to drop out a few weeks later. Noel asked myself and another mentor, Sarah Doran, if we'd be interested in starting up an all girls CoderDojo. We loved the idea! CoderDojoGirls@DCU now has an amazing team of girl mentors and roughly 30-40 girls attending every week. 

I have seen changes in the group. I can remember when the class started, the girls were quiet, now they're more vocal - they'll look for help when they feel they need it. I am even seeing more girls now attending our mixed classes.

Dublin City University (DCU) hosted the second Coolest Projects event on at the end of August with amazing prizes sponsored by Intel.  We had over 300 visitors and over 50 projects on display, this was a fun packed inspiring day.

CoderDojo members like Lauren Boyle, (8) created an app that teaches you how to bake cakes. Mitchell Dey (13) built an impressive stand-alone ‘arm’ that can articulate and grab, and it even has a light. Niamh Scanlon (11) created a website for people who want to learn how to code, or improve their coding skills. With such an array of talent on display who could not be uplifted.

In addition to all of this, we had flying drones and security demonstrations and amazing guest speakers, Joe Hogan (Openet), Con Moran (Crainn), Harry Moran (PizzaBot) and Shane Curran (Libramatic), were the order of the day. I was so proud of all the members who contributed, to see their work and to see so much talent in one room was so exciting. All I can say is roll on Coolest Project 2014. 

Life as a CoderDojo mentor is full of creativity, inspiration, positivity and innovation. James Whelton and Bill Liao, the co-founders of CoderDojo, have created something so special which nurtures goodwill amongst the volunteers. As a mentor I work with an incredibly supportive group of people, who make amazing things happen. There are so many exciting things coming up in CoderDojo. We'd love it if you could join us. 

If you’d like to become a mentor go to www.coderdojo.com. Check out this year’s entrants in the CoolestProjects Awards.

Niambh Scullian
Connect with Niambh on LinkedIn

@DCUCoderdojo

Tweet

Aligning Students' Course Choices with Future Jobs

By Paul O'Donnell, Director @ Hays

I wrote an article published in this week's Sunday Business Post suggesting that CAO applicants need more information when they are making their decisions about what to study. The key points from the piece are detailed below, leave a comment if you have any views...

Despite the continued success of the multinationals in Ireland, graduates here remain under utilised.

Nearly 20% of the 443,700 people on the Live Registrar are under 25. That’s roughly 80,000 people, a large portion of whom will be university graduates. Considering the latest CSO figures show there to be only 275,700 people in the State between the ages of 20 and 24, that 80,000 figure is proportionally very large.

Rather than finding a home in the ever-expanding multinational sector graduates are either emigrating (in 2007 the CSO shows there to be over 370,000 people between the ages of 20 to 24) or lying idle on the Live Registrar. So why the disconnect between the multinationals requirements and the skill-set that graduates have when they leave university?

In a recent interview on Morning Ireland the Editor of the international blog Tech Crunch pointed to the fact that Dublin was fast been seen in the same light as a Berlin or Helsinki as a digital hub and part of a wider European IT Eco-System. We have some of the most successful IT companies in the world here and half the world’s gaming community – a genuine smart economy. So incredibly exciting stuff but how equipped are our graduates to take up some of these created positions?

The figures would suggest not very. The reason for this may simply be that students are studying the wrong courses. According to the Higher Education Authority 21,906 people entered the Higher Education system for the first time in 2009/2010. Of these 1439 began studying within the sciences category. This includes subjects like maths, computer science, and statistics. This is the bread and butter of an aspiring knowledge economy yet it represents only 7% of new entrants into the higher education system.

Compare that with 5322 or 24% beginning their studies in the humanities and the arts. It is not to imply that there is anything inherently wrong with studying these subjects – but viewed through entirely pragmatic eyes the weighting seems incorrect.

It’s widely acknowledged that education system may need some tweaking if it is to support the strategy of developing a real knowledge economy in Ireland. Is mathematics being thought correctly at second level for example? Are there enough university spaces for subjects that will be directly related to the smart economy? These are extremely important questions.

But an equally important question, and one which perhaps has not received much attention, is what drives the decisions of CAO applicants to choose one course over another? Why are 24% of them choosing the humanities when it doesn’t really fit with where future jobs are being created? We can change the education system to focus more on practical subjects but CAO applicants have to be engaged with those subjects and fully understand their practical application in the real world first.

What’s missing is independent scientifically compiled information from an organisation that stands to gain nothing politically by pointing people in one direction of the other. An independent body that has experience compiling reports like this should be given statutory responsibility to collate this once a year. The ERSI or the HEA would be potential options.
Their reports should contain projections on the number and types of jobs that will be created and what courses are relevant to each individual job category. Given the 3-4 year Degree life span it should not only project immediate skill requirements but also requirements 5-8 years down the line. If that report was released yearly prior to the CAO application process perhaps this would help students opt for courses that will make them extremely marketable in the Ireland of the future.