BEST DIGITAL RESOURCE FINALIST

CoderToolkit

Digipolis Gent

Resource website: http://www.codertoolkit.be/

Year created: 2016

Number of people benefited: 10 supervisors, 75 young people 

RESOURCE DESCRIPTION

CoderToolkit.be is part of the 'Code Your Future' project in Ghent, a project by Digipolis - Digitaal.Talent@Gent in partnership with FYXXI and Mediaraven. They organized train-the-trainer (TTT) sessions for 10 youth workers from 7 organisations working with underprivileged youngsters. They learned how to create games in Kodu with their youngsters during the summer holidays. During the summer, these young supervisors worked within their organisation with underprivileged children and teenagers and taught them how to make and play their own videogames by learning how to code.

CoderToolkit contains an extensive video library (in Dutch), including interactive Kodu tutorials, but also – and particularly – tips & tricks on how to integrate coding in youth organisations. The web platform is freely accessible, allowing groups and organisations, who did not participate to this year's project, to start up coding activities as well. 

INNOVATION

While several (often free) tools and platforms are available to let children and youngster learn how to code, information on how to use these tools within organisations that work with underprivileged children, is less readily available. This is precisely why the CoderToolkit platform was created: it is a source of information and inspiration for young supervisors, showing how they can make use of these tools in their organisations.

The video library does not only contain videos on technical aspects, but especially on ways how to set up a workshop with children and youngsters or how to make the workshops part of a longer trajectory with competitive elements that further motivate children and youngsters to learn how to code. The platform is freely accessible. 

IMPACT

As detailed before, the CoderToolkit platform was part of a larger project in which 10 supervisors were involved, and in which 75 youngsters have been reached. After the training sessions, the supervisors have regularly visited the platform to update their knowledge on the tool (Kodu) they were using and to look for inspiration on how to integrate the tool in the activities of their organisation. Today, the tool is further used by Mediaraven, which will promote the use of the tool through their channels.

Due to circumstances in our project, there was quite some time between the TTT-session and the time the youth workers started using Kodu in their organisations. The platform was helpful for the youth workers to refresh their memory and find inspiration on how to use the tool in their activities.

SCALABILITY / TRANSFERABILITY

The platform CoderToolkit.be could quite easily be used in other countries. The biggest barrier for adoption would be the language: the content of the website would need to be translated. The videos would need subtitles, dubbing, or even would need to be reshooted with local organisations to ensure maximum impact and facilitate identification by the viewers.

As with any digital tool, this tool too will have maximum impact when it is part of a project / service. In this case, CoderToolkit is ideally part of a larger trajectory where youth workers start with a train-the-trainer session and can afterwards refresh their memory and look for further inspiration on the CoderToolkit-platform. The transferability is thus substantially higher if resources are available to integrate the tool in a larger project.

Check other finalists for ALL DIGITAL AWARDS:

- Digital Resource 'Yep4Europe Methodology'

- Digital Resource 'Get Smarter'