As many of you know, I started my own programming club for children about two years ago. This weekend we had our 40th session (!) and I thought it is a good moment to look back and share some of the things I have learned. First and foremost, volunteering my time has been a hugely rewarding experience and has allowed me to meet a bunch of wonderful people who have helped all along. So without further ado, my short list of lessons.
- Setting up a CoderDojo is easier than you think. The resources are already there, the community is great and it doesn't have to be perfect to be good. Are you are thinking about volunteering your time? Stop thinking, start acting!
- Small is good, so no need to scale up. One person can comfortably deal with 10 to 15 children plus the parents. This is not a start up! Having said that, help from other mentors have been much appreciated.
- All free means no money transactions, i.e. I get to spend time where it matters. The only down side is that some people will sign for a session and then not show up.
- Surprisingly high turnover. I did underestimate how difficult it is to retain children, especially teenagers. I run the club on Saturday afternoons and children have busy agendas on weekends!
- Having a few spare old laptops available is great as it makes the CoderDojo truly open to anyone, no matter whether they can afford a laptop or not. So big thank you to the CoderDojo @ HPI for the laptops, to RRD for the old power units and mice and, last but not least, to my brother for collecting and sending me old laptop hard disks.
- Parents are heavily biased. This means very few girls are encouraged to code. Not good. But not giving up on this though.
- It turns out you don't need to be an expert programmer to get children started. When I was in Cranfield I ran a Fortran course for university students and learned that (mostly) you just need to be one step ahead.
- Most excuses you can think of for not doing something are actually not valid. Children don't seem to care much about my accent when I speak German.
- Finally, don´t fight the good weather, between an afternoon coding and a Summer day outside the choice is clear.
This post was first published as a LinkedIn article
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