Happy birthday, CoderDojo ?

Seven years ago today, on 23 July, James Whelton and Bill Liao held the first-ever CoderDojo session in Cork, Ireland. When that first group of volunteers and young people (Ninjas) came together to learn how to make a website, design a game, or write their first program, they never imagined how far the CoderDojo movement would go. But the message of CoderDojo and its values of openness, inclusivity, creativity, and community have resonated with many thousands of people and continue to encourage them to get involved to learn and to volunteer.

Founders of CoderDojo James Whelton and Bill Liao

Going global in 95 countries

Since that first Dojo session, the movement has become truly global: there are now more than 1900 Dojos in 95 countries around the world. And not only CoderDojo clubs have developed, but also a fantastic, welcoming, worldwide community of volunteers, and a foundation that provides it with support and resources and is part of the Raspberry Pi family.

Sharing the community spirit

As if running and growing the network of Dojos wasn’t enough, our community also runs wonderful events: CoderDojo volunteers started the Coolest Projects showcase in 2012 as a way for Ninjas to come together and share the projects they have created.

This year, more than 1000 young coders showcased what they have built at the international Coolest Projects event in Dublin, with regional events taking place in Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, the UK and, in two months’ time, in North America.

Passionate CoderDojo community members also saw the importance of meeting each other and sharing experiences of running their Dojos, so they decided to create an event to bring community members together: DojoCon gives volunteers from around the world the opportunity to gather in person, make friends, and learn from each other to better run and develop their Dojos. Regional DojoCons have been held in Toscana (Italy), Perth (Australia), and Osaka (Japan), along with numerous smaller mentor meetups that offer more localised support and friendships.

And MegaDojos have enabled groups of hundreds of young people to meet up for a day and code together, also providing the chance for newcomers to get involved and try a variety of technologies.

Forming regional bodies

In regions where the concentration of Dojos and the drive to create more clubs are high, CoderDojo community members have formed regional bodies to provide focused support for growth.

“We are located in a city in Italy hit by the earthquake in 2016. We do not have a lot of places to meet. But every month, with a lot of work, we organize a CoderDojo, and the happiness in the children’s eyes is all we need!” – Dojo champion, Macerata, Italy

This highlights the grass-roots nature of the movement, and the passion that people involved have to achieve our goal of every child worldwide having the opportunity to learn to code and to be creative with technology in a safe and social environment.

Publications and initiatives

Since 2011, community members have created and shared learning resources, and translated content at home and in organised hackathon events to help more young people learn to program. Following on from these resources developed in Dojos, two CoderDojo books have been released and translated into ten languages to help even young people in areas where Dojos haven’t cropped up develop the skills to be tech creators.

The CoderDojo Foundation is implementing initiatives to encourage diversity in all Dojos, such as the CoderDojo Girls Initiative, which was inspired by and shares the outstanding work that Dojo volunteers around the world already do to encourage more girls to become Ninjas and learn to code.

Award winners

Since CoderDojo began, we’ve had eight girls attending Dojos be named European Digital Girl of the Year. Ninjas have been nominated for the BAFTA Young Game Designers award and won regional robotics challenges. They’ve travelled to the European Parliament to show MEPs a thing or two about coding. Ninjas have coded in libraries, tech-hubs, nursing homes, hotels, community centres, children’s hospitals, under trees, and on buses!

Answering the call

CoderDojo has encouraged cross-collaboration and intercultural learning. For example, Ninjas in Japan made 1000 origami shuriken to share with Ninjas attending this year’s Coolest Projects International in Dublin, and young people and volunteers in Dojos in Argentina and Belgium worked together to enter the European Astro Pi Challenge. And on community calls, volunteers from different continents, who would never have the opportunity to talk to each other otherwise, ask each other questions and offer each other advice.

“CoderDojo provides Ninjas with a positive, safe space for them to exercise their brain and to work on various projects. The sense of recognition and achievement among the young people is amazing. [Where our Dojo is located] is considered a disadvantaged area with a high level of poverty, substance misuse issues, and unemployment. Having such a positive space like CoderDojo for the young people of this community is acting as a prevention factor to the issues. Our young people are continuously learning, exploring, building relationships, and increasing their chances at a better quality of life.” – Dojo mentor, North Dublin, Ireland

Over the past seven years, thousands of amazing volunteers and supporters around the world have enabled 200000 young people to be technology creators. In 2017 alone, volunteers gave an incredible 290000 hours to support Ninjas to gain the confidence and skills to create with code!

It was amazing celebrating our 7th birthday today. Well done in particular to all the young people who attended, those who shared what they were working on with the Duke & Duchess of Sussex, to their parents/guardians, & all the volunteers for their support thoughout the day!♥️ pic.twitter.com/G7MH0b1RsG

— ☯CoderDojo☯ (@CoderDojo) July 11, 2018

But it’s not just time they give, volunteers have contributed their enthusiasm, creativity, and love to create a generous and fun community! We would not have reached this seventh birthday without all the champions, mentors, and other volunteers who are the backbone of the CoderDojo movement, so thank you! We hope, with all your help, to continue to inspire young coders around the world.

Join the CoderDojo movement

“As the champion, the Dojo is the thing in my life I am most proud of, and that I look forward to each week. It is the most meaningful thing that I do, and seeing all the kids having a great time with their friends each week, and enjoying the learning experience, is truly fulfilling. It makes me wish I was young again to have such an opportunity to learn and be cool with all the great kids involved. It re-ignites my own passion for technology, which sometimes is easy to forget!” – Dojo champion, Kildare, Ireland

If you would like to start a fun, inclusive coding club for 7- to 17-year-olds in your local area, then find out more about setting up a Dojo here.

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What is CoderDojo?

CoderDojo is a global network of free, volunteer-led, community-based programming clubs for young people aged 7 to 17. There are currently more than 1700 Dojos running regularly across 75 countries. All of these clubs were started by individuals who are passionate about giving young people the opportunity to learn to code. Some people assume you need technical skills to start a Dojo, but that’s not true. The most important thing is that you can bring people together for a shared goal.

What is covered on the course?

The course was developed by Philip, CoderDojo’s Educational Content Lead. It gives those who think empowering young people to be tech creators is important the resources and supports to achieve that goal by starting a Dojo. Divided over three weeks and running for about four hours in total, the course provides practical advice and resources on everything you need to know to plan and run a fun, social, and creative coding club for young people.

“In the first week, you’ll look at what coding is, at the worldwide CoderDojo community of coding clubs, and at the creative approach CoderDojos take to helping young people learn to code. In week two, you’ll move on to setting up your Dojo with a team, a venue, and any needed materials. You’ll also look at how to find young people to attend. Week three wraps up the course by giving you sample plans for a Dojo session and a Dojo’s year, and we’ll be talking about how to grow and develop your Dojo over time as your attendees become better coders.”
— Philip

Who is the course for?

Anyone interested in enabling young people to be tech creators should take this course. Parents, teachers, librarians, IT professionals, youth workers, and others have all started Dojos in their community. They say that “it’s an amazing experience that led [them] to expand [their] personal horizons”, and that they “find it really rewarding”.

The course is free and open to all — if you’re interested, then sign up now.

If you’re already mentoring at a Dojo, the course is a great opportunity to revise what you’ve learnt, and a chance to share your insights with newcomers in the discussion sections. Parents and guardians who wish to learn more about CoderDojo and are considering getting involved are also more than welcome to join.

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Six months on, we wanted to highlight what we’ve done so far and what’s next for our initiative.

What we’ve done so far

To date, we have focussed our efforts on four key areas:

• Developing and improving content
• Conducting and learning from research
• Highlighting role models
• Developing a guide of tried and tested best practices for encouraging and sustaining girls in a Dojo setting (Empowering the Future)

Content

We’ve taken measures to ensure our resources are as friendly to girls as well as boys, and we are improving them based on feedback from girls. For example, we have developed beginner-level content (Sushi Cards) for working with wearables and for building apps using App Inventor. In response to girls’ feedback, we are exploring more creative goal-orientated content.

Moreover, as part of our Empowering the Future guide, we have developed three short ‘Mini-Sushi’ projects which provide a taster of different programming languages, such as Scratch, HTML, and App Inventor.

What’s next?

We are currently finalising our intermediate-level wearables Sushi Cards. These are resources for learners to further explore wearables and integrate them with other coding skills they are developing. The Cards will enable young people to program LEDs which can be sewn into clothing with conductive thread. We are also planning another series of Sushi Cards focused on using coding skills to solve problems Ninjas have reported as important to them.

Research

In June 2017 we conducted the first Ninja survey. It was sent to all young people registered on the CoderDojo community platform, Zen. Hundreds of young people involved in Dojos around the world responded and shared their experiences.

We are currently examining these results to identify areas in which girls feel most or least confident, as well as the motivations and influencing factors that cause them to continue with coding.

What’s next?

Over the coming months we will delve deeper into the findings of this research, and decide how we can improve our content and Dojo support to adapt accordingly. Additionally, as part of sending out our Empowering the Future guide, we’re asking Dojos to provide insights into their current proportions of girls and female Mentors.

We will follow up with recipients of the guide to document the impact of the recommended approaches they try at their Dojo. Thus, we will find out which approaches are most effective in different regional contexts, which will help us improve our support for Dojos wanting to increase their proportion of attending girls.

Role models

Many Dojos, Champions, and Mentors are doing amazing work to support and encourage girls at their Dojos. Female Mentors not only help by supporting attending girls, but they also act as vital role models in an environment which is often male-dominated. Blogs by female Mentors and Ninjas which have already featured on our website include:

• Creating an environment to support female Ninjas
• Building a network to support female Mentors and Ninjas
• CoderDojo youths: Laura loves building robots with friends
• Celebrating Girls in ICT Day with CoderDojo
• [Video] Niamh on ways to encourage young girls in CoderDojo at a Mentor meetup
• Mentor story: Maggie on understanding what kids want
• Aerospace Engineer Tiera Guinn spoke at Coolest Projects 2017
• Ruth and Alina (Ninja) talk about their Dojo and badging!

What’s next?

We recognise the importance of female role models, and over the coming months we will continue to encourage community members to share their stories so that we bring them to the wider CoderDojo community. Do you know a female Mentor or Ninja you would like to shine a spotline on? Get in touch with us at info@coderdojo.org. You can also use #CoderDojoGirls on social media.

Empowering the Future guide

Ahead of Ada Lovelace Day and International Day of the Girl Child, the CoderDojo Foundation has released Empowering the Future, a comprehensive guide of practical approaches which Dojos have tested to engage and sustain girls.

Some topics covered in the guide are:

• Approaches to improve the Dojo environment and layout
• Language and images used to describe and promote Dojos
• Content considerations, and suggested resources
• The importance of female Mentors, and ways to increase access to role models

For the next month, Dojos that want to improve their proportion of girls can still sign up to have the guide book sent to them for free! From today, Dojos and anyone else can also download a PDF file of the guide.

We would like to say a massive thank you to all community members who have shared their insights with us to make our Empowering the Future guide as comprehensive and beneficial as possible for other Dojos. The CoderDojo Foundation would also like to thank Microsoft, our funding partner on this project, for their commitment to making STEM skills training available to European youth.

Tell us what you think

Have you found an approach, or used content, which girls find particularly engaging? Do you have questions about our Girls Initiative? We would love to hear your ideas, insights, and experiences in relation to supporting CoderDojo girls! Feel free to use our forums to share with the global CoderDojo community, and email us at info@coderdojo.org.

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The paperback book will be available in English from Thursday 7 September (with English flexibound and Dutch versions scheduled to follow in the coming months), enabling young people and adults to learn creative and fun coding skills!

What will you learn?

The new book explains the fundamentals of the JavaScript language in a clear, logical way while supporting you to create your very own computer game.

You will learn how to animate characters, create a world for your game, and use the physics of movement within it. The book is full of clear step-by-step instructions and illustrated screenshots to make reviewing your code easy. Additionally, challenges and open-ended prompts at the end of each section will encourage you to get creative while making your game.

This book is the perfect first step towards understanding game development, particularly for those of you who do not (yet) have a local Dojo. Regardless of where you live, using our books you too can learn to ‘Create with Code’!

Tried and tested

As always, CoderDojo Ninjas from all around the world tested our book, and their reactions have been hugely positive. Here is a selection of their thoughts:

“The book is brilliant. The [game] is simple yet innovative. I personally love it, and want to get stuck in making it right away!”

“What I really like is that, unlike most books on coding, this one properly explains what’s happening, and what each piece of code does and where it comes from.”

“I found the book most enjoyable. The layout is great, with lots of colour, and I found the information very easy to follow. The Ninja Tips are a great help in case you get a bit stuck. I liked that the book represents a mix of boy and girl Ninjas — it really makes coding fun for all.”

“The book is a great guide for both beginners and people who want to do something creative with their knowledge of code. Even people who cannot go to a CoderDojo can learn code using this book!”

Writer Jurie Horneman

Author of CoderDojo Nano: Make Your Own Game Jurie Horneman has been working in the game development industry for more than 15 years.

Jurie would get on well with Babbage, I think.

He shares how he got into coding, and what he has learnt while creating this awesome book:

“I’ve been designing and programming games since 1991, starting with ancient home computers, and now I’m working with PCs and consoles. As a game designer, it’s my job to teach players the rules of the game in a fun and playful manner — that gave me some useful experience for writing the book.

I believe that, if you want to understand something properly, you have to teach it to others. Therefore, writing this book was very educational for me, as I hope reading it will be for learners.”

Asked what his favorite thing about the book is, Jurie said he loves the incredible pixel art design: “The artist (Gary J Lucken, Army of Trolls) did a great job to help explain some of the abstract concepts in the book.”

Gary’s art is also just gorgeous.

How can you get your copy?

You can pre-order CoderDojo Nano: Make Your Own Game here. Its initial pricing is £9.99 (around €11), and discounted copies with free international delivery are available here.

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