Contributed by Ms Elaine Gerada Gatt and Mr Pierre Bellia
The Digital Literacy team within the Secretariat for Catholic Education organised a two-day coding event as part of the activities to participate in the EU Coding Week that was held across Europe. This event, held between the 15th October and the 21st October, is dedicated to the contribution that coding makes to digital skills which are so much needed by the current working force.
The Coding event, which was hosted at the Archbishop’s Seminary in Tal-Virtù, provided an opportunity to students to engage first hand with various elements of STEAM. Not only does coding incorporate the five disciplines of STEAM into an integrated learning system focussing on real world applications, but it also incorporates learning, literacy and life skills which ultimately make up the 21st century skills.
On Monday 15th October, students from Year 5 classes from varying Church Schools attended the activity and the following day, students from Year 7 classes attended the event as well. Their activities were particularly relevant given the newly introduced subject ICT C3 in Year 7. This new subject is part of the new approach which purposefully works towards the STEAM approach.
Students participated in activities such as building robots, writing programs to make them work and writing coding to solve simple puzzles. Their enthusiasm could be felt strongly around the hall; most of our students stood out in solving the challenges they were presented with in a creative and collaborative way.
A big thumbs up to all!
You may find further information about the event on the Facebook page of the Digital Literacy Team:
https://www.facebook.com/DigitalLiteracySfCE/
‘What I liked about it is that we made new friends from different schools and that we learned very interesting new things.’
Gianluca Abdilla Castillo Year 7
‘Jien ħadt ħafna pjaċir nesperjenza is-suġġett għall-ewwel darba u tgħallimt minn dan is-suġġett allavolja kienet l-ewwel darba. Aħna mhux biss tgħallimna fuqu iżda tgħallimna teamwork ukoll. Iltqajna wkoll ma għalliema ta’ skejjel oħra. Ħadt ħafna u ħafna pjaċir.’
Nick Spiteri Year 7
‘We had time to see how robotics work and are controlled. We also learned more how to work in a team.’
Jordi Vassallo Year 7
‘During this session we were given instructions to build objects like dinosaurs and windmills which we could then program to move. We joined up as a team of five and gave all our efforts to work together on building and using robots!
I found this session very interesting and enjoyable because I enjoy creating new items and experimenting with technology.’
Jan Abela Scolaro Year 7
