Hackergal takes on 2017!
We are excited to share what we have in store for 2017!
We are now in the Public School Board! We have been operating since late 2015, launching two successful programs with private schools in Toronto. We are continuing to add private schools to our 2017 programming, but we always knew we could make an impact with the public board.
We experienced difficulty finding a way to partner with the public board, until we came across a champion teacher, Cameron Steltman. Featured in a CBC article discussing how he independently folds computer science into his class curriculum, we knew we had to get in touch with him! We scheduled a phone call with Cameron and discussed our goals. He quickly channeled our excitement and we knew we found a great champion to work with. This is what Cameron had to say about Hackergal:
I am so excited for the opportunity that Hackergal is coming to not only my classroom but to the Grades 6–8 girls in this and two other schools. This will be an amazing, authentic way for students to use the knowledge they have been developing over the course of the year in our class and to create a tangible product that they can be proud of. It create memories in them that I hope they will take as they begin to move along their educational career and allow the girls to see computer science as not only an option but one in which they will thrive. I am so excited for this chance and can’t wait to see how the students will take this opportunity and run with it! The world that these students will graduate into is so different than even the one we’re living in now, and it’s opportunities like this, that give them the skills necessary to succeed, learn, and thrive in that new world.
We are launching our public board pilot with three public elementary schools signed up to participate in the Hackergal Hackathon June 2017.
We hit a few roadblocks in coordinating our 2017 Hackathon. Varying technological capabilities amongst schools led us to consider various gaming platforms. We searched high and low for a platform that could support all capabilities.
We are pleased to announce that for our June 2017 Hackergal Hackathon we are partnering with Codesters! Codesters leads students through interactive projects coded with the computer science language, Python. We can’t wait to see what the girls create this year with Codesters.
Make sure to check back on our Community section to see the progress our of Hackergal Stars!
