Wednesday 16th September saw the return of the Microsoft CoderDojo in Dublin after the Summer break. I attended in my capacity as Irish Ambassador for EU Code Week. The evening kicked off with a presentation from St. Oliver's very own Cian Bohan. He presented his new app Safewalk. There's no stopping this young man - I hope he remembers us when he's living the high life in Silicon Valley. 

Next on the agenda was a workshop from Derk Breen, author of 'Scratch for Kids'. Derek entertained the kids and mentors with his wacky workshop. He showed us fab features in Scratch, such as 'Vector Graphics'!

Check out our photos of the night below!

This is the link where you can enter The Graduate Quiz to win trips to Strasbourg. 

Five students from St. Oliver's have won the prize in the last three years. We have also been lucky enough to win a free trip to Euroscola in Strasbourg for the whole class! Our prize was sponsored by The Ombudsman for Children and we won through a competition on the European Parliament in Ireland website. 

Huge congrats to Sarah from Transition Year who has won a trip to Euroscola in Strasbourg! Sarah is the second student to win a trip this year and the fifth student from our school to win overall (Not to mention the full class trip we also won!).  Have a great time Sarah and Hannah. 

Here are our presentations on some European Legends ... 

I spoke to attendees at the Refresh Boyne BBQ night in Bru about EU Code Week...

We were fortunate enough to have a past pupil, Barry James, visit us in St. Oliver's and talk to us about the importance of STEM in real life. The TYs loved the experience and were especially grateful for the pizzas and goodies! Thank you so much Bord Gais Energy. 

Huge thanks to everyone who supported EU Code Week 2014! Below are photos from events supported by ...

CoderDojo
Domino's Pizza Ireland
Microsoft Ireland 
Bord Gais Energy

and a ridiculous amount of teachers, schools and ETBs. You'll find more photos here. 

The Excited Digital Learning Festival took place on the 30th May 2014. There were a lot of highlights but meeting Lord David Puttnam certainly topped them! I was also thrilled to speak on the same panel as Marty Mobile ;) Minister Ciaran Cannon and the three rockstars, Sophie Healy Thow, Emer Hickey and Ciara Judge, were inspirational to say the least. 

You can check out my interview with VP Neelie Kroes below too. 

   I recently spoke at the 
   CoderDojo Conference in 
   Sligo. I spoke about EU Code 
   Week and the importance of 
   women in ICT.  
   

    #DojoCon2014

Ms. Cullen was a judge at the CoderDojo Coolest Projects Awards in the Helix. As usual, she was promoting all things CODE! You can see her interview with RTE Digital below. 

I was only delighted to give a Keynote at the ICT in Education conference that took place in Limerick IT recently. I spoke about EU Code Week and European Studies. 

Vice President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, visited us in Ireland on 6th May 2014. As one of her Young Advisors, I had the pleasure of meeting with her and Minister Ciaran Cannon in Leinster House. I also accompanied her to the Wayra premises in Dublin - very funky premises if I may say so myself!

 

This is the Littlewoods advert that has caused so much controvery. Please have a look at the advert and leave your opinion in the comments section. 

Is it stereotypical? 
Is it sexist?
Does it portray women as housewives who measure their success by how successful their husband is?
Or is the debate a bridge too far?
Are people going overboard?

We met with VP Kroes in Brussels over the last few days. We shot our promotional video for EU Code Week! It is disgustingly embarrassing but I'll post it since it's for a good cause ;)

CODING IS FUN!

On Friday the 7th March, five tired girls got the 6.30am train to Dublin to represent their school at Accenture's celebration of International Women's Day. Their teacher (me - Ms. Cullen!) was already waiting for them in the RDS. I was there to take part in the 'Destination Digital' panel discussion. You can see the videos of that discussion here. 

The day began very early with a delicious breakfast in the RDS. Accenture Ireland seriously spoiled us! There were stands set up around the hall with some seriously cool gadgets, including a 3D printer and Google Glass. Arnotts were promoting their personal shopping experience (something I'll definitely take up in the future!) and kindly gave us a €25 voucher (already spent). 

The celebration began with a bang thanks to the wonderful sounds of Accenturephonics. We were also treated to musical bliss from Julie Feeney (She's impossibly beautiful!). 

The day featured two panel discussions and an interview with Liz Waters, CEO of An Cosán. Ann O'Dea (CEO of Silicon Republic), Miriam O'Callaghan (Presenter & Journalist RTE) and Keelin Shanley (Presenter RTE) hosted animated and probing discussions throughout the morning. 

Other speakers included Bill Liao (Co-founder of Coderdojo), Prof Orla Feely (Head of Electronic Engineering UCD), Aideen Howard (Literary Director, Abbey Theatre), Prof Brian MacCraith (President, DCU), Prof Sinead Ryan (Head of Maths, Trinity College), Julie Sinnamon (CEO, Enterprise Ireland).

The morning came to a close after a discussion with the three superstars of the BT Young Scientists Competition: Ciara Judge, Emer Hickeyand Sophie Healy-Thow. The girls have even promised to visit us in St. Oliver's Community College soon!

The five girls representing St. Oliver's - Muirenn Mulholland, Nikita Mulready, Irene McDonnell, Lucy Towers and Rachael King - did us proud as always. They were delighted to get personal career advice from Bill Liao. He was extremely generous with his time and advice. 

The wonderful morning was organised by Eithne Harley and Paula Neary, party planners extraodinaire, Accenture. 

                                Ciara's blog on her trip to Euroscola
***Ciara won a separate trip to Euroscola and travelled the week before the rest of us!***

On the 11th of February 2014, I nervously drove to Dublin Airport to met up with 23 other students from around the country to fly to Strasbourg in France to the European Parliament. I had won a trip to the parliament as part of a civic awareness quiz called Gradu8 which my European Studies teacher informed me about.

Silicon Republic has just named Ms. Cullen one of Ireland's Top 100 Women in STEM! You can read more here.

 

What a hectic few days we've had! I don't think we'd change any of it for the world though ;-) We'll be writing a full report very soon but in the meantime, feast your eyes on these stats and pics. Feel free to leave any comments highlighting the best bits! You can follow our journey on Twitter through #stolstras

600 - number of students present at Euroscola
379 - number of photos Mr. Kirk took
199 - number of miles we walked
26 - number of phone calls to parents and school staff when our plane was cancelled
20 - number of chicken nuggets Marianne ate in one sitting
12 - average number of hours sleep over three nights per person
9 - number of pizzas eaten (3 hours after KFC & McDs)
8 - number of hours spent on trains
7 - number of 'Strasbourg' lighters Rachel tried to smuggle through security
6 - number of buses we took
5 - number of times Padraic & Jack visited the Chinese buffet
2 - number of times we nearly missed the train
1 - number of terror inducing landings
0 - number of balanced meals we ate

This week we had Ciaran O'Connor (movie maker extraordinaire) in filming in St Oliver's for the Europe Code Week follow up video. Ms. Cullen was talking about Europe's most successful Code Week country - IRELAND! We even got to feature in the video a little ;-) 

Last week was Europe Code Week so on Saturday 30th November, some of Louth's CoderDojos got together to form one giant Dojo! We had great fun and we demonstrated why Ireland came top of the league last week. Below are some photos from the event. Thanks to all the kids and mentors who attended! You guys rock ;-)