Covid Carry On

Kinsale CoderDojo carries on regardless. 

During some of the bleakest times any of our Ninjas would have experienced, this year under Covid 19 lockdown has been a challenge that needed to be met if the Dojo were to survive. 

 I am proud to say not only have we survived; we have flourished. 

Faced with our facilities being formally closed from March, the Mentors brainstormed to find a way forward, and as most of them were experiencing the same issues with their working and home life there were many suggestions. Settling on the use of an Education version of Microsoft Teams allowed us to quickly set up a remote environment that has ended up enhancing rather than limiting the coding world that we supply to our Ninjas. 

As we move forward in this strange new world, as lockdown is hopefully lifted we can re-introduce assembled classes in Kinsale Community School, however we now have a new string to our bow, the ability to centralise all our tasks and projects, the ease in the way that the Ninjas have access to learning materiel through Teams, and the seamless integration of the distanced and close contact learning, has provided our Ninjas with a rich, bold and rewarding way of sharing and learning with each other this is in no small measure down to the hard work of one of our Senior Mentors Anthony Nolan. 

Until then we will continue, with the help of Microsoft, to provide regular Thursday night sessions where Ninjas gather and enthusiastically share everything they have been building during the previous week, and plan their work with the mentors for the coming week. Its not perfect, but it will continue to evolve as our Ninjas do to become a tool for the future growth of our Dojo. 

Onwards!