Today the Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched Code Club  World, a free online platform where young people aged 9 to 13 can "learn to make stuff with code".

In her blog post announcing the new educational resource, Laura Kirsop, the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s head of learning experience explained its motivation:

When we spoke to parents and children about learning at home during the pandemic, it became clear to us that they were looking for educational tools that the children can enjoy and master independently, and that are as fun and social as the computer games and other apps the children love.

To meet this demand Code Club World was created as an online environment offering as rich and engaging as a face-to-face extracurricular learning experience.

In Code Club World, young people can: 

• Start out by creating their personal robot avatar
• Make music, design a t-shirt, and teach their robot avatar to dance!
• Learn to code on islands with structured activities
• Discover block-based and text-based coding in Scratch and Python
• Earn badges for their progress 
• Share their coding creations with family, friends, and the Code Club World community

The Code Club World activities are mapped to the Raspberry Pi's Digital Making Framework launched in September 2021. It offers more than 250 free digital making projects, some of which have been translated into 30 languages, and which have been structured into a new format whereby learners embark on a learning journey that lets them gradually develop and demonstrate increasing independence. The new feature is that learning paths follow a 3...2...1...Make! pattern. Each path comprises six projects. The first three are Explore projects which introduce learners to a set of skills and knowledge. Next come two Design projects which provide opportunities for learners to practise these skills while expressing themselves creatively. In the Final Invent stage learners are asked to complete a project to meet a project brief for a particular audience. The idea is that as a result of working through a path, learners are empowered to come up with their own ideas and create solutions to situations they or their communities face, with increased independence.

There are currently three Scratch paths at increasing levels of expertise, one introducing Python and one that engages learners with electronics via both Scratch and Python.

Code Club World supplements the Raspberry Pi Foundation's existing coding clubs for kids to learn to code in non-formal settings. There are actually two such networks - Code Club originally launched in 2015 which now has over 13000 clubs in more than 160 countries for kids aged 9 to 13 and CoderDojos, a community of 2395 clubs in 117 countries for those aged 7 to 17. CoderDojo started in 2011 and joined forces with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2017.

The physical coding clubs rely on volunteers and the Raspberry Pi Foundation together with Future Learn has two 3-week free online courses for those wanting to get involved with, or even start a new coding club. See Prepare to Run a Code Club with Future Learn for more information.  

More Information

Code Club World

Prepare to Run a Code Club

Start a CoderDojo Club

Related Articles

Prepare to Run a Code Club with Future Learn 

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