Your Name and Title:
Kim Wilkens, Teen Tech Girls founder & ACPS CoderDojo mentor

School, Library, or Organization Name: 

Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS)

CoderDojo

Co-Presenter Name(s):

• James Whelton, CoderDojo founder
• Bill Liao, CoderDojo founder
• Lindsay MacVean, CoderDojo Ireland organizer
• Michael Craddock, ACPS High School IT Instructor & CoderDojo mentor
• Erica Payne, ACPS Library Media Specialist & CoderDojo mentor
• Jon Barber, ACPS Middle School Teacher & CoderDojo mentor
• Paula White, ACPS Elementary School Teacher & CoderDojo mentor
• (we’ll recruit students & parents once we have a time slot)

Country from Which You Will Present:
Virginia, USA & Ireland

Language in Which You Will Present:
English

Target Audience:
K12 teachers, administrators, students & parents

Short Session Description:
CoderDojo: World-wide Youth Coding Club Movement

Full Session Description:
CoderDojo is a movement oriented around running free not-for-profit coding clubs for young people. It was founded in Ireland in 2011 by James Whelton and Bill Liao. There are now over 125 CoderDojos in 22 countries around the world. Albemarle County Public Schools in Charlottesville, Virginia held its inaugural CoderDojo Summer Academy, August 6-9, 2012.  The initial goal for the Academy was to host 50 students. Those slots were taken up in the first few minutes of registration, so the program was expanded to 200 while over 700 applied!

Technology-based innovations like PCs, the world-wide web, social media and smart phones have fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate, govern and educate. Unfortunately, educational systems around the world have not been doing a very good job of providing students with the opportunity to get a peek "under the hood" of technology, to understand how it really works. CoderDojos make development and learning to code a fun, sociable, cooperative experience. CoderDojo also emphasizes open source and free software, and has a strong network of members and volunteers globally.

CoderDojo founders, organizers, mentors, parents & students from around the world will come together in this session to share their experiences of setting up and running a CoderDojo.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
http://coderdojo.k12albemarle.org/index.htm
http://coderdojo.com/
How my school computer club turned into a worldwide movement