junior academic - JACKIE CHILD
g Codin rs e t t a M From Rally Car Driver to Teacher Librarian Teacher Librarian, Jackie Child, admits she is “a bit of a fiddler and a fixer”. This trait started early in her teaching career in England when she took up rally driving for Fiat and enjoyed stripping down engines and reassembling them. This is the motivation and love of learning that Jackie is now bringing to St Aidan’s and turning our Junior School Library into a unique and forward-thinking learning environment. Shortly after introducing the successful Makerspace program, together with fellow Teacher Librarian Megan Daly, Jackie is now teaching coding in the library. Makerspace is a place where people meet and use materials to develop creative projects and promote play, exploration and collaborate learning. Jackie became hooked on the Makerspace concept after she made a mini-robot at a seminar with a 3D printed case, a coin battery and wire. Now she is implementing coding – the language of computers into the library and with good reason. “Computers and digital technology are at the centre of every industry so it makes so much sense that we need to teach children the codes that make the world run.” Jackie says coding develops many skills that students use in everyday life. Learning, she says,
is a process not a product, and teaches students computational thinking – breaking down problems into smaller pieces to teach persistence and perseverance. The girls at St Aidan’s have already begun coding through interactive ‘lift the flap’ books, learning binary numbers by making bracelets and have written coding programmes to design a new droid for the Star Wars series. Jackie believes that this ‘new literacy’ will enable St Aidan’s students not only to use digital technology but to create programming solutions for the future. Jackie was excited to report “the girls love their time in the library and they are really embracing all the new programs that we have here. Girls aren’t naturally risk takers but these new systems are teaching them to break things down, take them apart and put them back together.” huddle I june 2016 21