ADET first in Westbury to launch ‘coding’ in the community
According to Jacobs, they at the centre are currently giving the children the basics of storytelling with a programme called ‘Scratch’.
The African Digital Education Trust (ADET) situated at the Masters Field in Westbury has become one of the first in our community to launch the ‘Google coding project’.
Janine Jacobs who is heading the google coding project explained: “Google has introduced us to coding and it is the latest school craze that the Department of Education is trying to get the learners in to.
“Coding is computer science, Google has created a platform for learners to start at an early stage to do computer programming and things like graphic designing, even creating their storybooks, and computer games.
“We at ADET have been for training on the coding programme and we launched the programme on Wednesday, July 17. It is amazing how the kids have adapted to the programme as a whole, its something new, something exciting.”
According to Jacobs, they at the centre are currently giving the children the basics of storytelling with a programme called ‘Scratch’.
“Children are able to create their own stories, they create their characters, they put sound and a background, we give them an eight-hour assignment to complete their stories, we give the learners two hours each day, at the end of the assignment we will be able to view everyone’s stories,” said Jacobs.
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Jacobs also indicted that ADET started as a technology and science centre in April 2015, with Reading X, Matific and Robotics and the learners really took to it, since then they have evolved into different programmes as they as facilitators noticed that too many children were failing and when they got to the core problem, they found that the children cannot read and understand what they are reading.
Jacobs added: “We gave them computer skills but since they could not read, they could not follow the instructions that the computer programmes were giving them.
“We then shifted the focus on reading and helping our learners with their homework, we would ways to make it interesting for them to learn. We also have free Saturday classes for the high school learners, we have about 100 learners.
“The learners shocked me because they came to take notes as they were watching the tutorials to learn how to use the new coding programme, they are making an effort to learn this new exciting programme.”
There’s coding class every day with different groups, and Jacobs mentioned that in October they would like to introduce this programme to adults.
“We’ve heard remarkable stories of kids from rural areas whose books have been published. As ADET we would like to introduce this programme to the principals of the local schools,” concluded Jacobs.
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