An opportunity for teachers, Raspberry Pi enthusiasts and Code Club/Coder Dojo volunteers to come together to discuss the new computing curriculum in an informal and friendly environment.

Welcome to the first Southend Coding Evening.

We are expecting attendees from local schools, Code Clubs and industry specialists.
Coding Evenings are established in Twickenham, Peterborough and London and we hope to continue their success in Southend.
I hope you are able to come along as this is an excellent opportunity to develop the teaching of computing and coding within schools.

So far, we'll have people who can demonstrate and talk with you about :

* How to use Raspberry Pi to teach interesting and engaging lessons with physical computing and how to find suitable resources, lesson plans and help.

* Find out about the BBC Micro:Bit which will be given to every Year 7 pupil in 2016.
Try some code on an actual Micro:Bit, including a first look at the Python implementation, and see some projects on the AstroPi which use similar hardware features.

* AstroPi - Tim Peake, the first British ESA astronaut, will fly to the International Space Station and run science experiments and apps written by British school children on Raspberry Pis and an addon sensor board. We'll have the hardware which is going to space, and you can find out about further educational opportunities.

* SonicPi - Use music to learn to code. A textual programming language simple enough for primary school pupils to use and powerful enough to learn and perform music through "live coding". Highly fun and engaging.

* Southend Raspberry Jam - a free local event where Raspberry Pi users meet and show their projects with workshops, talks and a Teachmeet.

What sort of thing can I expect if I attend?

The event starts at 5.30pm, but attendees can arrive anytime between then and about 9 o’clock (which is when we start to wind down). People tend to gather in small groups to discuss things. Usually, if a teacher is looking for something specific, we will recommend someone to speak to who can help them; however, most teachers seem to get the best out of the evening by simply chatting to each other and finding out about the resources on display. There are usually at least two Raspberry Pis set up with various addon boards and things attached to the input/output pins and some of the attendees bring their own tech to demonstrate and talk about, either informally to small groups or to the group as a whole, as part of a Teach Meet style show n tell.

There is no pressure to demonstrate anything or to get heavily involved, the emphasis of the evening is to feel comfortable and relaxed. So far, nearly all of the teachers who have attended one evening have signed up for the next one too because they have found it so valuable.

So what sort of people attend the Coding Evenings?

We get a large range of people who come along – very often we have teachers who are complete beginners and have no idea of how to teach the coding side of the new curriculum and this is an excellent opportunity for them to discuss their ideas and gain some confidence by trying things out. We also get people involved with Code Club – an initiative to get coders to volunteer in primary schools to help run a club either after or before school (and some people looking for schools to volunteer in); we have attendees who help run Coder Dojos, which is a similar idea. We also get people who are employed in the coding industry who aren’t able to volunteer in schools, but want to give something back to the community by chatting to teachers and helping to build their confidence. We get a lot of enthusiastic people who love Raspberry Pi, Makey Makeys, Arduinos or even Lego – at the last Twickenham evening, we had a Lego sensor controlling an addon board on a Raspberry Pi to make lights come on controlled by Scratch. Finally, we have a core group of very enthusiastic teachers and school technicians who have lots of ideas to share and want to show other people what they’re doing in their schools and how other schools can further their computing teaching. Everything is presented in a non-threatening, informal way to help build confidence.

Facilities

If you do have something you want to demonstrate, please let us know via the "contact the organiser" button so we can ensure we have power / internet / monitors etc. ready for you as required.

Location

The entrance to Temporary Arts Project is located on the junction of North Road and Chelmsford Avenue.
From West Road, TAP is 100 meters south of the BP petrol station with a large gate on the left at the junction with North Road.

The Eventbrite map is wrong (it's 50m South East of the indicated point) and Sat Nav is sometimes incorrect so check where you are going beforehand.
There is lots of free parking at TAP.

Other Coding Evenings

To find out about previous events in London, Twickenham and Peterborough see https://codingevening.wordpress.com/

Coding Evening by Cat Lamin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.