Coder Dojo Update 6/12/2013

The coders worked on adding key press events to their scratch projects. Students learned how to make their characters (sprites) move in various directions.

They learned to move their sprites left and right as well as up and down. They learned that moving their sprite is based on x and y coordinates. Next week students will receive their coder dojo teeshirts.

Coder Dojo 5/29/2013 Update

Tonight the young programmers took turns giving presentations. The first presentation was on how to install and use an anti-griefing plugin to your minecraft server to roll back damage done to your creations by other players. One other presentation given by a 7 year old member was regarding how to create and upload a custom made minecraft skin (look and feel for your minecraft character). Lastly students were shown how to input questions and output answers to and from characters in scratch. Next week the students will go through a lesson with more indepth animation.

May 22 2013 Coder Dojo Update

The young coders watched a video about programming: What most schools don't teach

One on the coders showed the others how to make an arena in their minecraft worlds. Most of the current participants love Minecraft.

They then did their first Scratch lesson. The lesson provides step by step instructions. Scratch Getting Started

Coder Dojo Nolensville Kick Off was a Great Success

Six kids turned out for our first Coder Dojo. Mr. Chris Byrne one of the Coder Dojo mentors from Coder Dojo Dingle based out of Dingle Ireland helped the kids create their first html page. The students learned how scientists at CERN needed a better way to communicate and thus created html in 1989.

Mr Byrne helps students edit their html using Quick Dojo

During the next session students will create web pages with tables and populate the tables with facts and images related a topic of their choice. Plans are in the works to introduce the students to Scratch programming which is a free platform created by MIT with the goal of teaching young people the basics of programming.

A new projector (used from Craigs List)

Will be using this at the coder dojo and at work. Makes code reviews and pair coding easier.

CoderDojo Nolensville Kick Off Night

Coder Dojo Nolensville will officially start 5/15/2013 at 6:30 pm. We have two speakers scheduled. One of the speaker is a mentor go Coder Dojo Dingle from Ireland. He will describe the idea surrounding the Coder Dojo movement. The second presenter will be a local 4th grade student that will describe how to create and manage a minecraft server. Points covered will be server trouble shooting, moderation and of course how to make your server awesome/majestic. Attendees will then help each other install texture packs.

Our local group is forming, have kids need a location.

We are still looking for a location in the Nolensville area. We have several kids interested. We already have a group of kids running a minecraft server and interested in creating mods. We plan on teaching kids the basics of programming that will apply to any current language(datatypes,variables, classes, methods,flow of control,operators,html, css). The first sessions will be very introductory, as the group members progress and more mentors are added we plan to branch out. Should anyone be interested in being a mentor (teacher) or onplease contact us at coderdojonolensville@icloud.com. This group is part of CoderDojo.com. It is a global collaboration providing free and open learning to young people, especially in programming technology.