Codemob in Catalonia
The existing diversity among participants in the e-facilitators training period has led to the same degree of diversification when the project has been implemented in close contact with its participants.
Abel Camps, an e-facilitator from Barcelona, has focused his training efforts ―still in progress― in a learning process based on challenges (problem based learning): repairing an old table football game and designing an app to keep the score of both teams, for example. The project seems to be taking quite a lot of time, but they have already acquired the technologic basics needed to complete the project and participants have accepted it very positively.
In Tremp, a rural area located in the Pre-Pyrenees, Carme Badia has already completed the training of several young people who took part in several afternoon sessions. They spent the first hour of each session working on the proper use of smartphones aimed at professional development: social networks and LinkedIn where the big stars of this part. During the second hour of the session, they followed the Codemob syllabus step by step to address the subject of programming. They have also tried APP Inventor, a programming environment for mobile apps that has proved to be fun and easy to handle. The final result is not complete, but the experience has been worth the effort, since it has allowed the young students to learn the basics of programming and it has also motivated them ―in different degrees― to widen their knowledge on the subject.
In Sant Adrià ―a town located in the vicinity of Barcelona menaced by a high risk of socioeconomic fracture― David Picó has also presented his project to young people, a project encased in a wider one that tackles problems related to health, sexuality and affective relationships between minors. The link among young population between affective relationships and the usage of mobile phones has been the perfect excuse to introduce the training on the usage of mobile phones and basic digital skills. David is also teaching a course on programming aimed at another group of young people. In this case, participants are not limited to the CODEMOB syllabus ―they are also using other technologies like Scracht or BitBloq, for example.
In a similar environment ―but on a different town― Pep Oliveras has chosen to offer a single course combining both curricula. For the programming part, he has used Scratch, AppInventor, javascript, HTML, CSS and some other resources recommended by his colleagues during his training in Rovinj. The big stars of the programming part were LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Canva, CameraMX, Drive and Wordpress. A group micro-project has been the linking element of the course.
The four of them ―Carmen, David, Abel and Pep― are e-facilitators or trainers of the Catalan Punt TIC Network and they all agree in one thing: the qualitative results of this project ―still on its beta stage― will be noticeable in a medium-long term, and a continuous improvement of both training curricula is needed. Your contribution is essential to do so and we count on it. Thank you for your cooperation!