Code my city – Transforming classrooms into real innovation labs
Publication date: May 13, 2019
By Fay Giannarou (Unit of Innovation and Best Practices, Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, Greece)
This innovation project was organized by the Unit of Innovation and Best Practices of the Greek Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction and was implemented within the framework of the National Coalition on Digital Skills and Jobs (NC) (www.nationalcoalition.gov.gr).
This project was inspired by the need to promote the EU Code Week event and its significance to stimulate coding in the Greek primary education. It fostered the exploration of the actual use of digital technologies in schools, insisting on the way new technologies could transform classrooms into real labs and on the impact they could have on both teachers’ and pupils’ digital skills.
The project started in September 2018, with a train-the-trainer workshop for ICT Teachers of Primary education. 21 Teachers coming from 18 schools in different regions of Greece followed the workshop.
In October 2018, 109 pupils aged 7-9 attended the launch event of the project and an intensive 2-days coding workshop where they produced animated graphics in teams, with the guidance of their school teachers.
For a period of 5 months, the pupils accomplished a series of tasks, such as the creation of animation videos. They uploaded the intermediate and final deliverables in a collaborative platform, used by all the schools, leading them to develop project management skills during their ICT classes.
On the 30th of March 2019, at the Closing Ceremony, the pupils came together to present the animations they created with Coding My City and received a Certificate of Completion of the Project by the Minister of Administrative Reconstruction.
The project was scaled up in classrooms and engaged more than 300 pupils. During this project pupils and teachers developed a set of digital and soft skills, such as project management, communication, teamwork etc.
The Unit of Innovation and Best Practices will conduct an Impact Evaluation Report for the project using findings as an input for a larger scale project, starting in September 2019. The findings will be used for the design of other innovative projects in the education system and will be communicated to the Ministry of Education.
You can find more information about our project on our website www.nationalcoalition.gov.gr
