On 29 September 2017 Micro:bit Educational Foundation’s CEO Zach Shelby visited University of Jyväskylä and gave a talk in Agora ICT-forum. Watch the full talk here!
“Get Creative, Get Connected, Get Coding! Micro:bit in Finland and around the world” – Micro:bit Educational Foundation’s CEO Zach Shelby’s talk:
The event was organized in the framework of University of Jyväskylä’s Researchers’ Night program at the Faculty of Information Technology as part of the “Kids Inspiring Kids for STEAM” Erasmus+ Closing Multiplier Event.
Background information
The Micro:bit Educational Foundation became an independent non-profit organisation in October 2016 to manage the BBC micro:bit project started by the BBC with its twenty-nine partners. The project gave away 1 million micro:bits, one to every 11 to 12 year-old child in the UK. According to UK studies, it is easier and more fun to learn computer skills using the micro:bit and 87 % of teachers said their pupils learned how to code with the device. Micro:bit Foundation is giving away thousands of micro:bits all over the world. The Foundation’s CEO Zach Shelby hopes that some day all schools will offer the best teachers in the world the opportunity to use simple teaching tools for coding and robotics to help create a positive impact on girls and also boys and pupils from rural areas.
Now, the University of Helsinki’s Innokas Network and the Micro:bit Foundation is running a cooperative project for a Finnish national pilot of the BBC micro:bit in fifty schools. The small and powerful micro:bit was already in use at fifteen schools around Finland. When the pilot has been launched this autumn, fifty more schools have joined them, 100 Finnish teachers have been trained and 2000 micro:bits were given away with the aim of developing and sharing best practices, aligned to the Finnish National Core Curriculum, for the teaching of programming and robotics.
Zach Shelby’s talk in the University of Jyväskylä was part of the multiplier event series of “KIDS INSPIRING KIDS IN STEAM” Erasmus+ project.