CAS at DigiMakers in the At-Bristol centre.

I know it sounds like a tongue twister, but it is in fact where I spent a vary enjoyable day last Saturday. 

DigiMakers is a regular event organized by Bristol University to give young children, and their parent's, hands on experience of a range of Computer Science and Engineering activities. It was really well attended and the children that came had a wonderfully creative  time hacking Minecraft, programming their own pianos, creating 3D prints and loads more.

I was there after being invited by Code Club to help deliver some workshops on programming with Scratch for children beginning their journey in coding. It was a really great day and, from the feedback we received, both the children and the adults got a lot from the workshops themselves.

For me it was seeing the range of abilities and experience each child brought to the workshop and how, by talking through their code with them,  they were each able to move forward in their understanding of how to use Scratch.  I think it made me more aware of the power of one-on-one teaching where children are actively thinking through the structure of their code and not just following instructions.  

I am now looking forward to the next DigiMaker event and dragging my own teenage children along for the day. Which shouldn't be that difficult once I mention Minecraft in the same sentence as 'hacking'.