Our event is not a competition. It is a festival. That means every student that participates is a winner. Students don’t have to compete, they cooperate. There is no stress to win. Perhaps, that is why every year nearly 6000 students in 16 cities all over Greece, collaborate, create and present their digital work. It is also a free, open to society event and tens of thousands visit it.
Computing at School Festival brings together students and their teachers with University students and teachers, Research Institutes and related NGO’s for the same good reasons:
- to celebrate children’s digital creativity and
- make children comprehend their world and build their own digital future
That’s why in the Festival, apart from presentation of students’ work, there are also workshops, demos, few speeches and various other fun learning activities.
Computing At school Festival in Heraklion (ira.digifest.info) took place from 11 to 13 of April 2019. More than 1000 students created and presented their computing projects. Apart from students’ presentations and demos, some very interesting and unique STEM learning activities took place:
Make a Game (for) 2 Workshop: Families, through playing ancient board games from all over the world and through creating new ones, were trained in soft skills and computational thinking. By Dr. Dimitris Grammenos, Principal Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas
Escape The S.T.E.M Version 2019, Innovative Escape Rooms for students. Experiential learning and Internet of Things in STEM Education. By computing teacher Leonidas Papadakis and his colleagues. Official website : http://escapestem.org/. Prezi : http://prezi.com/o_ril8be56jm/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
Machine Learning for kids Workshop: Students were introduced in Machine Learning using machinelearningforkids.co.uk tool and coding with Scratch to train and communicate with IBM Watson AI System. By computing teacher Elpida Lagoudaki.
Code Hunting: A game based on the classic “treasure hunt” scheme, in which teams of players compete against each other reaching locations and solving coding puzzles as fast as they can. http://codehunting.games/. Localized for Greece and organized on behalf of the Computing At School Festival in Heraklion by computing teachers John Diamantakis, Alexis Tzormpatzakis and Ioanna Zikou
RadioLab: Students were introduced in FM radio broadcasting and internet radio streaming using raspberry pi, arduino and other hardware parts. By computing teacher Spiros Vasilakis. http://radiolab.pliroforiki.info
We believe that we have shown that there is a way to foster project-based learning and creativity in STEM Education using curriculum activities along with extra-curriculum activities. We believe that the students that participate in the Festival through computing curriculum and project-based learning:
- become digital competent
- understand the digital aspects of our world better
- acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes for a positive and sustainable development of technology
- develop attitudes of a responsible citizen
