Yarra Plenty Regional Library goes Virtual!
The wonderful librarians at Yarra Plenty Regional Library sat down to let us know how their club was going during Covid. Read on to hear about the awesome at-home Code Club sessions. And get in touch if you’d like to share a story from your club! — Nicola, Code Club
Scratch Code Club has been a popular program at Yarra Plenty Regional Library since we began offering sessions in 2017. Interest had steadily grown which allowed us to add Intermediate and Advanced sessions for our keen coders to continue on their creative coding. We had built up such great momentum, it was really disappointing to have to cut off all programming in March when COVID-19 hit. At that point, it was a matter of getting our heads around working from home, Microsoft Teams and trying to figure out how we could deliver programming virtually to our communities.
Virtual Code Club was one of our first online programs launched in May. We began taking bookings for weekly sessions through our library website and participants would then receive an MS Teams invite with project details and eSafety information. We did encounter technical issues along the way but our creative little thinkers have been amazing and have adapted well, sometimes even teaching us a thing or two.
Some children would set up a second device so that they could view the MS Teams project screen and work in the Scratch website simultaneously. Our coding staff have been great at supporting each other so that one person can run the session and another can assist students in the Teams chat.
By our last session at the end of November, we had a small cohort of about 10 coding regulars. We worked through many of the projects on the Code Club Australia website and were excited to try out the new Agricultural and Wellbeing projects.
Our little Code Clubbers continue to amaze us with their imagination, creativity and their ability to take a project and put their own unique spin on it. They take great pride in their creations and are always keen to share their projects with the group.
This year has shown us just how adaptable we library staff and our little coders can be. We look forward to being able to run sessions in person again and continuing to offer virtual code club as well!
By Aviva Elijah — Yarra Plenty Regional Library
