Cracking the Code... Can we Crack it?....Yes we Can!!!!!

I was delighted to be at Cracking the Code, an event organised by the EXCITED movement in Farmleigh House on Friday 9th December. I was proud to be at this event as a voice for the young people of Ireland as a member of the Digital Youth Council of Ireland and to do a few interviews with a few experts in area for the Youth Media Team... A busy day!

My day started early with a trip on the train from Templemore to Heuston station just opposite Phoenix park where I had arranged to meet my fellow @DYCIRL member David Lalor (@David_Lalor) and DYC alumni Ben Smith (@benvss) which gave us the chance to chat about our relevant digital interests and why computer science and all things digital are sooooooooooooooooooooo important. 

We were also well-entertained by our funny taxi-man who did the best Jackie-Healy Rae impression! By then we were ready for breakfast and Cracking the Code didn't disappoint as you can see. 

Minister Bruton was introduced in Farmleigh House by Ciarán Cannon TD who is the inspiration behind the EXCITED movement. I was very proud to be part of this important event as a voice for students. The Minister had taken time out of his busy day to come along and give the keynote address. He spoke about how he had made a commitment to introducing computer science into Irish schools and about how education is the power behind change and how we need school leaders and teachers to be the key to this success. Minister Bruton quoted Leonard Cohen but more on that later. It was great to see the Minister for Education having this as a priority for education as this will help to drive it forward. 

Minister Bruton was followed by Ireland's digital champion Lord David Putnam (who announced to the room that he was soon to step down from the role- a great champion of all things digital and he will be sadly missed but has left a great legacy for us). He compared coding skills to having the ability to 'look under the hood'- a hugely important skill for all of us for all walks of life and he reminded the Minister that he had the best job in the world 😄 We owe it Lord Putnam to make computer science in Irish schools a reality. 

                                        

Professor Tom Crick was next up and showed us how the dream could become a reality as he had led something similar in Wales. This means it can be done so this helped to make the dream even more real as it was done only across the Irish sea. I was really lucky to get an opportunity to talk to Professor Crick afterwards as Caitlin Donnelly and I interviewed him as part of our work for Youth Media FM 

Our own chairperson Caitlin (@CaitlinD7) got an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the voice of students in bringing computer science into schools before we heard from the Commission representative Pan Kampylis who showed us the research that the European Commission had done in this area.

This was followed by a really interesting panel discussion with representatives from education and industry and we heard about lots of great work from PDST in using SCRATCH in primary schools and JCT in introducing the short course in coding (click here). Anna from the NCCA assured us that the student voice would be heard in developing the Computer Science curriculum

Caitlin and I also met and interviewed Ilse White after the symposium. Ilse the Education Outreach Program Manager at Google and we got a flavor of how the digital industry are thinking. This is important as companies like Google have the potential to employ us in the future. 


After all that talk and excitement it was time for coffee and once again Cracking the Code delivered!

There is no such thing as a free bun and it was back to work - this time we got to hear all about the great work of the Digital School Champions - I was lucky enough to be part of this last year and would recommend it to everyone (I liked it so much I'm doing it again this year!) and I am using the HTML skills I learned as part of DSC to embed tweets and audiobooms in my blog! 

We also heard from Gerard McHugh, Dublin West Education Center and Mr. O' Leary, a principal in a Digital School of Distinction- who told us it is not easy to lead change without resources. Professor Brian MacGraith from DCU spoke about the success of CoderDojo and also gave us some findings from the review of STEM in education. 

Then time to work in groups. We, the DYCIRL members were scattered around the rooms at different tables. There was lots of debate and ideas and it was great to have the student voice heard... my buddy David Lalor impressed Professor Crick with his ideas as you can see from this image: 

The groups discussed how to make progress- lots of ideas about supporting teachers, having a new approach to assessment , branding the new subject to make it appeal to everyone, recognizing great work done already by students in and out of school.... Oh and FUNDING!!!!!!

Caitlin and I were also busy using our digital skills as you can see and hear from our audiobooms- our mentor Pam O' Brien helped us to set up the interviews- we do this work regularly as part of the Youth Media Team.

This was a brilliant day- I'm in TY so 2018 for computer science as a subject will be too late for me but I hope to be part of it in other ways.
Minister Bruton quoted Leonard Cohen from 'Anthem' : There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in...

      That light was very bright in Farmleigh .... let's keep it glowing.

Thanks to all of my friends in the DYCIRL past and present (in attendance on the day were Caitlin, Niall, David, Gabi, Lee and Ben), to Frank, Ciarán, Linda and everyone in  EXCITED (especially Linda for the lift to the train!), and Pam O' Brien mentor of YMFM.

Follow Excited on Twitter @WeAreExcited, the Digital Youth Council @DCYIRL and Youth Media Team @YMTfm

The images here are taken from tweets on the day, mostly from the @WeareExcitED Twitter feed so thanks to everyone for these!