The Seprod Foundation in partnership with Halls of Learning hosted “Scratch Day” computer coding workshops for students in grades two and three last Thursday at the Holy Family Primary School, Laws Street, Kingston.

Scratch Day is a global network of events where people gather to celebrate “Scratch”, the free computer coding platform and online community for children. Scratch Day events bring together young people from the Scratch community to share projects, learn from each other and welcome newcomers.

The workshops are aimed at promoting and encouraging the learning of coding skills among students from an early age to boost Jamaica’s technological capacities to eventually drive national economic growth and development.

Approximately 400 students benefited from the training activities. The workshop series were delivered by tech education and youth empowerment organisation Halls of Learning, which created a fun and interactive learning space while having an overwhelmingly positive impact on the students’ development.

The activities in which they participated will provide them with fresh and invaluable knowledge, while expanding their future career possibilities.

The workshop series follows a similar programme organised by the Seprod Foundation from April-May 2017, targeting teachers, during which 89 schools participated and 162 teachers were trained, including 11 members of the deaf community. Through these activities, the foundation was able positively impact a total of 13,257 students.

The morning session at the Holy Family Primary School was opened by Member of Parliament for Kingston Central Ronald Thwaites who started by asking questions of an excited and highly responsive class of students.

“It is through coding that you are able to play your games and carry out the other activities you like on these devices. I would like to say thank you very much to the Seprod Foundation for coming here to conduct this workshop which no doubt will be of tremendous value,” Thwaites said.

Seprod Foundation Chairperson Melanie Subratie also engaged students, explaining how programing feeds into the different careers they were interested in pursuing.

“Whether you want to be a soldier, a nurse, or even an animator, programming will play an important role in your work and the tools you will use every day. This is why the Seprod Foundation thinks it’s so important that you begin to learn these skills for the future. I hope you all have fun,” Subratie said.

“I would also like to recognise Marvin Hall and everyone from Halls of Learning, who is our partner for these workshops. You have made these workshops very innovative and interesting, thank you,” she added.

Students were then expertly guided through the workshop by Halls of Learning founder Hall, who steered an excited group through the basics of coding by engaging them in an activity used the coding techniques to create their own interactive stories.

As part of the Scratch Day drive, the Seprod Foundation will also be conducting follow-up sessions with teachers who participated in last year’s training, to ascertain the process they have made so far as well as to explore ways in which to maximise the use of the knowledge they gain.