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Congratulations Coder Dojo Richmond College

Today Katy Parnell, a regular at Twickenham Coding Evening, along with her colleague Janna, helped to organise a half term Coder Dojo at Richmond College. Workshops included Scratch, Kodu, Microbit and even Arduino and Katy managed to persuade Nic Hughes, Richard Hayler and Marc Grossman to come along and help out as well as myself.

With over 20 children in attendance, the event was a huge success and the children had an amazing time. There were lots of enthusiastic parents who really got involved too!

I’m so impressed with how amazingly hard Katy and Janna worked to make the event a success and I can’t help but feel a little bit proud that an alumni of Coding Evening is sharing her enthusiasm with others.

Well done Katy and Janna, good luck with the next one and hopefully we’ll see you all at the next Coding Evening in Twickenham on Thursday 10th November. Sign up here.

Twickenham Coding Evening September

As we all put our feet up and relax over the summer…please put a date in your diary for the next Twickenham Coding Evening, which will be held on Thursday 22nd September in the Stokes and Moncreiff.

Book your free tickets here.

Twickenham Coding Evening – June

Sorry about the mega short notice, but our next Twickenham Coding Evening will be Thursday 23rd June (after the election and all that).

Please note – this will be the last Coding Evening of the academic year – we will not have another until September so that teachers can enjoy their summer break! Thank you all for attending so far.

 

Twickenham Coding Evening – May

With lots going on and the summer term heating up, I’ve realised I’ve forgotten to post about the upcoming May Coding Evening in Twickenham. We will be visited by Pi Top again who are eager to show off their new CEED, I’ve got my new CamJam Robot ready to show off and loads of other great bits and pieces to demo to teachers.

We’ll also be able to chat about the upcoming Wimbledon Raspberry Jam that I’m helping to organise.

So, get your free tickets here and we’ll see you on Thursday in Twickenham!

Upcoming Events – Including a special big announcement!

We have an exciting couple of months coming up with a host of Coding Evenings in February and March, but first, I’m pleased to be able to announce that we have been invited to Pi-Top HQ in Bethnal Green for a Coding Evening. The lovely Pi-Top guys have very kindly offered to provide food and drink for attendees and an opportunity for people to have a play with both the Pi-Top and the Pi-Top CEED as well as the usual Coding Evening fun.

To sign up for the Pi-Top special event, click here.

Not only that, but Coding Evening will soon be heading to Jersey when the lovely Jason hosts his first event sometime before Easter (keep your eyes peeled for a date announcement soon).

The lovely guys at Hack Horsham hosted their first event last month and it was a huge success so we look forward to hearing about them hosting a second event soon. Thanks again for hosting guys!

I was recently at BETT and managed to spread the good word about Coding Evening both on the amazing beach stand for Exa Education and at the massive Teach Meet in main arena in the evening – check out the pictures at the end of this post! I also used my Scratch Pi-Stop sheet to deliver a workshop for the Raspberry Pi Foundation while at BETT which was great fun!

So, here are all of the upcoming events – hopefully you can head over to one of them!!

Pi-Top Special Event Thursday 25th February

Southend Coding Evening Thursday 10th March

Peterborough Coding Evening Tuesday 15th March

West Berks Coding Evening Thursday 17th March

Twickenham Coding Evening Wednesday 23rd March

 

Soldering at Twickenham Coding Evening

For the July meetup, I’m hoping to get Stuart to show us how to solder using the Learn to Solder Zoo Badge Kit from The PiHut. I’ve just written a post on my blog about how to use the kit, but it would be great to demonstrate how to use it in real life!

He’s also going to bring along a 3D printer so if you have any questions about how to use them he can at least attempt to answer.

Coming to the July meet up for the first time is Ben Dornan, a self confessed ‘Arduino Addict’ so I can’t wait to see what he’ll bring to show us all.

Don’t forget you can get your tickets here.

See you all soon,

Cat

Review – Twickenham Coding Evening June

I attended the Twickenham Coding Evening for the first time this month and was really glad I did – thank you Cat for organising such a useful and friendly event!

As a secondary trained ‘ICT’ teacher, I have slowly but surely been adapting my teaching to the new computing curriculum, incorporating a bit of Scratch here and a bit of Python there. I have also been taking a keen interest in practical computing projects that use ‘MaKey MaKeys’ and ‘Raspberry Pis’; however, having never seen these in action in real life, I have been reluctant to commit precious budget to purchasing either! The friendly faces, advice and fun practical activities and projects on display at the meeting have inspired me. I am now the proud owner of two ‘Makey Makeys’, a roll of tin foil and a tub of playdoh, and my Raspberry Pi is in the pipeline.

I am definitely the kind of person that needs to talk to real people as opposed to chat on message boards and this gave me an opportunity to do just that in a very welcoming and informal environment. Thanks again for the opportunity!

Amy Box

St Marks Catholic School, Hounslow

Coding Evenings

In January 2015, inspired to do something to help support teaching the new computing curriculum, I organised an event in a local pub and invited local schools, code clubs, coder dojos and anyone else I could find who was vaguely interested in coding and the new computing curriculum.

At the first event there were 12 of us in a local pub, which included 3 of my friends, and we chatted about strategy, Raspberry Pi and Code Club. The overwhelming response to the evening was that people wanted more of the same – an informal opportunity to chat about the curriculum with a pint or a glass of wine and the opportunity to have a play.

The Coding Evening was born…

Six months and four events later, and I’ve been asked by several people if they can host their own Coding Evenings in their local area so I’m hoping to give you information here about hosting your own evenings, about my evenings as they happen and about other evenings and where you can find an event in your local area. The goal is to encourage other communities to follow my model to give teachers the opportunity to discuss ideas and meet up in a relaxed environment – no lectures or workshops, just people bringing what they know and sharing with each other, but the whole thing relies on communities coming together to support each other.

So, if you’re interested in hosting your own events, get in touch – I’ll update this site as soon as I can with further information!

Cat