Dr. Nina Bresnihan

OurKidsCode research is committed to providing a secure evidence base for best practice in supporting parental involvement in children's computing education, thereby contributing to greater diversity in the field. We achieve this by providing meaningful STEAM learning opportunities for families with primary-aged children. From 2021-2024 we had a particular focus on rural communities where access to such initiatives is often limited. We are continuing that work and expanding our focus to other under-served communities.

This funding supports the further expansion of the OurKidsCode project by supporting communities throughout rural Ireland to establish and run family-run coding clubs. A partnership with the Department of Rural and Community Development, provides access to over 300 Broadband Connection Points, local expertise and further funding for training and delivery, thereby embedding the programme into rural communities and providing opportunities and support for self-sustaining family STEAM activities. The infrastructure established will also be available to other providers, greatly increasing the capacity to deliver STEAM Education across Ireland.

Our Pytch programming environment, created with support from SFI Discover, is a system to help learners at a crucial stage in computing education. The transition from block-based programming to text-based programming is widely recognised as a challenge to learners and educators alike. Pytch's unique insight in addressing this difficulty is the preservation of the Scratch-style programming model within a Python programming environment. Our results from phase 1 indicate that we have a novel, powerful approach that can support learners more effectively than existing systems. At the same time our user engagement has revealed the need to expand the platform, in two senses, which we propose to address in Phase 2. First, we will scale up our evaluation of the core environment, among an increased geographic breadth, and diversity of users. Emerging feedback will continue to steer development, improving Pytch"s ability to support educators and learners of all types. Second, we will scale out the scope of the offering. As progress is being made in bringing computer science and coding into earlier stages of the national educational system, the blocks/text transition problem is pressing, and needs a holistic solution. Learning materials and support features built around the core Pytch environment will result in a classroom-ready framework to ease the learning pathway across this difficult transition point. Our initiative will design this framework in a co-creation process with educators and learners, ensuring that the necessary supports to retain learners in the STEM pipeline will be in place exactly when they are needed.

The Pytch project aims to improve takeup of Computer Science (CS) in Ireland by smoothing the transition from 'beginner' programming environments to the mainstream tools used in later years and in industry. It will do this through the development of a new environment which brings a familiar Scratch-style programming model to the Python language. Beginner-oriented block-based programming environments are popular for introducing learners to computing and are widely used in both formal and informal settings. There is considerable evidence that students suffer a significant drop-off in engagement and confidence in their programming ability in the transition to text-based tools such as Python. Pytch will support learners at this crucial stage, where they often turn from viewing coding and CS as a fun, creative activity to seeing it as a drier and more difficult 'subject'. Learners will be able to continue using much of what they have learned through successful introductions to programming with Scratch as they move on to programming in Python. Pytch will achieve this by: (1) providing a browser-based environment that supports writing engaging multimedia content in Python, (2) retaining the Scratch programming model of Sprites and events so learners need not immediately learn an entirely new programming paradigm, and (3) providing a complete online environment, including tutorials, and other supports.