This is the first in a series of posts on my experiences volunteering with Code Club at St Lukes Primary School in Cambridge. My first session is in two weeks, so this is just my impressions before I start.
First off, I love the idea. Coding is just beginning to gain traction in UK schools, and as a concept, using coders to teach has huge benefits for the students, teachers, and the volunteers themselves. I’m really looking forward to getting started.
Second, the website is excellent. Signup was fast and straightforward - I contacted one school in my area, who it turned out had just taken on another volunteer. After a couple of weeks I was notified about St Luke’s - I sent an email through the website and after a couple of emails and a phone call we were set for September. A great experience.
Third, I had a brief exchange with one of the founders over email - they contacted me about CRBs (a crucial thing to get right) and were friendly and approachable, another big tick.
Fourth, the materials look great. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to approach Python with ten year olds, but the materials are well made, attractive and the coding tasks seem engaging and interesting. I’ll have more feedback when I try them out, but for now I’m confident that I have some great content to deliver.
Finally, they have done a great job of publicising themselves. I’ve been surprised by the number of people that have heard of them, and their growth in terms of the number of schools on board in a little over a year is impressive. Write-ups in the press have been very positive. They had a good idea at the right time and have implemented it well.
I’ll write more about my experiences after my first session - if you’re running a club or have any advice, please do get in touch in the comments or through Twitter.
Paninis & PHP: Three Challenges I Faced In My First Dev Project
I’ve tried to fight it over the years, but there’s no use in denying it anymore. My name’s Andy and I am a web geek.
Since February this year, I’ve worked with Rob at Eco Web Hosting to help him find more time to work with on his Udemy courses. If you’re an Eco Web Hosting customer, you may have seen my name before.
If not, hello!
I didn’t come to The Complete Web Developer Course as a complete beginner to web development.
I’d made a few static HTML sites in my late teens and spent the last couple of years working in the hosting industry, though until now, my focus had been mostly on supporting and maintaining the platforms, rather than development on them.
My last job meant I needed to know how to read PHP to an extent, but that extent was the writing of
<?php phpinfo(); ?>(this creates a diagnostic PHP page that lets you check various limits and settings in PHP).I’d never developed a project of my own in PHP though.
Rob had always managed Eco Web Hosting through the customer control panel and directly in the back end database, but there’s only so long a business can grow without an admin system to manage all the data.
It was time for a CRM. Here’s what I’ve learnt from my challenges so far.
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