On October, 20th and 21st, 108 primary school students from various areas of the country participated in “Let’s code, girls ‘n’ boys!!!” coding event at the National Library of Greece at Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC).
The event was organised by Unit of Innovation and Best Practices (Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction), in collaboration with Oracle Academy (http://academy.oracle.com), supported by Revive Greece (http://revivegreece.org/) and Open Technologies Alliance-GFOSS (www.eellak.gr ) and is part of the actions of EU Code Week.
The Minister of Administrative Reconstruction, Ms. M. Xenogiannakopoulou, welcomed the participants. Greetings were also addressed by the Head of General Directorate of Public Organisations, Mr. N. Michalopoulos, the Head of Unit of Innovation and Best Practices, Mr. C. Kokkalas, the PR & the Corporate Citizenship Specialist, GCMM cluster of countries, Oracle Hellas, Ms. E. Tsipa and Mr. T. Dalla Vecchia from European Schoolnet Network via Skype. Moreover, the General Secretary of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction Mr. G. Theodorakis, the General Directorate of the National Library of Greece, Mr. P. Tsimpoglou, the Country Leader of Oracle Hellas, Mr. A. Monokrousos and the officers of the Unit of Innovation and Best Practices also attended the event.
Minister of Administrative Reconstruction, Ms. M. Xenogiannakopoulou
Minister of Administrative Reconstruction, Ms. M. Xenogiannakopoulou, Head of Unit of innovation and Best Practices Mr. C. Kokkalas and the students
The event marked the completion of the NC actions for the EU Code Week and introduced an innovative mentality, since for the first time schools from different Regions met at a common venue to enjoy coding and forge bonds of cooperation. The 108 students (half of them girls) represented 18 schools from the following Regions: Attica, Crete, Central Greece, Thessaly and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace.
Students, organised in groups and supervised by the IT teachers of their school, were taught specific programming concepts based on Java and made their own stories. The teachers had been trained on the software at Oracle Academy’s “Getting Started with Java Using Alice” workshop, organized by the Unit of Innovation and Best Practices at the National Library of Greece at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center on September 29th. In addition, GFOSS held a 3D-printer demonstration 3D-printer and Revive Greece provided part of the equipment.
Apart from being solely an educational experience, “Let’s code, girls ‘n’ boys!!!” evolved to a journey of cooperation, team work, imagination and creativity. Students participated with enthusiasm, did their best and expressed their desire to get further involved in coding. Within this framework, in addition to the souvenirs offered by Unit of Innovation, GFOSS, National Printing House and Oracle Academy, students returned home with the promise that their teachers will be provided with guidelines to create a project based on what they have learned during the weekend. The project will be presented at a special event in March 2019.