Devoxx4Kids Boksburg Highlights – 21 April 2018 1


Devoxx4Kids Boksburg Highlights – 21 April 2018

16 children (aged 8-15 years, youngest being 6 years old) attended our very first Devoxx4Kids South Africa event on 21 April 2018 at Woodlands International College in Boksburg. They had an opportunity to get hands-on to learn how to build a basic website using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript (ES8).

There were 3 activities that the children participated. We started with the Hour of Code, an online Scratch-like learning platform where children play games and solve problems through programming blocks. Once they completed Hour of Code and received their printed Certificate of Completion they proceeded to Code Combat where they solved gaming problems/challenges by writing simple code in either JavaScript/Python.

After lunch, yes – the children were hungry and real developers code with Pizzas, the fun began. Every child created their own website in HTML5 writing their own stories, images as well as YouTube videos that they could present to their parents after the event.

At the end of the day, every child were awarded a Certificate of Completion & they took home their website with them. Overall, ALL the children LOVED the event and they all want to come back for the future events.

Sometimes it’s difficult to put the fun into words so we created a video of what transpired. View the YouTube video below to see what we mean.

Survey: What do the children want to learn next?

We asked the children what they want to learn through a survey and this is the feedback from some of them:

  • Two learners wants to learn Java.
  • One learner wants to learn Swift.
  • Three learners wants to learn how to make games.
  • One learner wants to learn C++ (Brave child, adults are scared of C++).
  • One learner wants to continue learning how to make websites.
  • Five learners wants to learn Robotics.
  • Two learners wants to learn how to make their own apps.

These children are bright sparks and, as you can tell, by the above feedback robotics is the clear winner, then comes games and Java+apps.

A Big Thank You.

A big THANK YOU needs to be mentioned to the volunteers, the parents (who braved themselves to trust us with their children) as well as the school, Woodlands International College. Without their participation and support none of this would have been possible.

What’s next for Devoxx4Kids South Africa?

We are constantly creating fun materials to teach to the children for future events. Please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter so that you can be notified when we announce our next event.


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