Begin your journey to digital empowerment

Gain useful new skills today from any of the activities or courses on this page:

FREE CODING LESSONS FROM GOOGLE’S WORKSHOP

Grasshopper provides free intuitive JavaScript coding lessons – learn to make cool stuff like a website or an app – https://grasshopper.app/

LEARN TO SPEAK ROBOT – GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Commissioner Connolly’s Learn to Speak Robot challenge will get you started with the absolute basics using Code.org’s Hour of Code, Code Club Australia and others – https://commissionersdigitalchallenge.net.au/digital-thinking/outside-school/beginners-guide-for-outside-school/

KHAN ACADEMY COMPUTER SCIENCE

Computer programming and computer science courses that are free and for everyone from the non-profit organisation, Khan Academy – https://www.khanacademy.org/computing

LEARN TO CODE FOR FREE

A well-stocked library of free courses ranked into beginner, intermediate and advanced from non-profit organisation freeCodeCamp – https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/450-free-online-programming-computer-science-courses-you-can-start-in-september-59712e77635c/

HACK, REVERSE ENGINEER, BREAK AND DECRYPT!

PICOCTF is a challenge hosted by Carnegie Mellon Cylab where older children can reverse engineer, break, hack, or decrypt to solve the challenge. Access to materials is available outside of challenge dates. Most suitable for ages 14 years+ – https://picoctf.com/

SCRATCH

Scratch is a creative learning community to create stories, games, and animations using well-known free introductory block-based coding language, Scratch – https://scratch.mit.edu/about/

SPACE TO DREAM

Try out Commissioner Connolly’s Space to Dream challenge to get familiar with the process of design thinking – the backbone of digital success – and the same process professional engineers and designers all over the world use to solve real problems. In this challenge you can design a gadget for someone your age who is ‘Moving to Mars’. Designs can be hand-drawn or created using free 3D design tools from Makers Empire – https://commissionersdigitalchallenge.net.au/design-thinking/outside-schools/

STANFORD UNIVERSITY DESIGN SCHOOL: DESIGN THINKING BOOTLEG

A free intro course from the birthplace of design thinking, Stanford University, on getting started with design thinking – https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg

MAKER CHALLENGES FROM JOHN SPENCER

Maker Challenges using everyday items by award-winning design thinking educator, John Spencer:

• Design a city for superheroes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHXk7yMS1oU&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=8
• Design the ultimate tiny house – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_P-N3EFIc&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=5
• Design a drone delivery system – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fPxa2rpeg&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=3
• Create an arcade game – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4am6dNDQVz4&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=4
• Invent a creature that lives inside an active volcano – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-l3zpxRbbc&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=7
• Invent a sport using these random items – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLKa2weeajI&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=11
• Divergent thinking challenge – ‘what would you make with this?’ –
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeX1ClTtaps&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=6
• Explore your own genius – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COF-bqZuE-I&list=PLzDOGMsmDvetek2wQR1xyCD0SG6ekGU4c&index=13

GAME STAR MECHANIC

Use the free version of this web site to play games, deconstruct them and to design, test and improve your own games using systems thinking – http://gamestarmechanic.com/

PARABLE OF THE POLYGONS

Explore this interactive playable post on the shape of society by Vi Hart and Nicky Case which demonstrates how small and seemingly harmless choices can lead to a harmful world – https://ncase.me/polygons/

FACEBOOK’S DIGITAL LITERACY LIBRARY

An online course covering the topics of: Privacy and Reputation, Identity Exploration, Positive Behavior, Security and Community Engagement – https://www.facebook.com/safety/educators

ONLINE & SMART

Find out more about how to safely take part in-game chat, how to avoid scams, how to think about your digital footprint and loads more from the NSW Department of Education – https://www.digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au/students-articles

BE INTERNET AWESOME

Play Google’s interactive game, Interland, to gain digital literacy and citizenship skills – https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland

KHAN ACADEMY ‘MEET THE PROFESSIONAL’

Get insight into the kinds of opportunities computer science can give you –https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/meet-the-computing-professional

Play A Part In Groundbreaking Scientific Discovery – Help scientists map a neuron!

Mapping sections of neurons used to be a way-too-time-consuming task for neuroscientists – but then the process was gamified and members of the public are invited to learn to play the game start mapping! By joining this movement you will work together with AI to ‘help map the connectome’. Eyewire gameplay helps neuroscience by giving researchers data to help them find out how neurons connect and network to process information – https://eyewire.org/explore