Humans of Code Week – Maja Videnovik, Leading Teacher Macedonia

Publication date: October 3, 2022

What do you like most about Code Week? 

Communication, collaboration and learning from each other are the most important benefits of being part of the Code Week family. The possibility it entails to always find new ideas, challenges and to widen horizons with regards to the students’ development of computational thinking and coding skills fascinates me again and again. 

What are the top three reasons why everyone / kids should learn how to code? 

Computational thinking and learning to code are necessary 21st century skills when living in a world that is constantly changing as a result of globalization and the technologic revolution. It can generalize and transfer the problem-solving process to a wide variety of situations, connecting students’ learning with real-life situations, empowering their creativity to find solutions, collaboration with others, confidence in dealing with complex problems, persistence in working, learning from mistakes and the ability to deal with open-ended problems.  

Which project/activity related to Code Week are you most proud of, and why? 

I am proud of all my projects implemented through the years as part of Code Week, because each of them has contributed to the development of my students’ computational thinking and coding skills. I always try to make my activities interesting and fun, so the students will enjoy and engage in them, because only then will they be motivated and persistent in developing their coding skills.  

My last project focused on using games to learn about cybersecurity and misinformation. Through a game-based and peer-learning approach, students have developed their knowledge and skills on given topics. They have created interactive educational games in Scratch that can help other teachers and students while learning about cybersecurity. I am very proud of this project because it was an extraordinary experience and it was amazing to see how much fun students can have while working together, taking control over their learning and trying to give their best, empowering their coding skills through the project. Students were very satisfied with achieved outcomes and they wanted to transfer this approach to other subjects, too.