#magicMoments from Girls Learning Code Day!

Learners enjoyed participating in Girls Learning Code Day so much so that they wanted to share their experience with our community!

Our main feature is from Carla Ramos, who joined us in Calgary with her 11-year-old God Daughter, Alexis!

Meet Carla + Alexis! 

I am Carla Ramos, 28-year-old Marketing Communications & Design professional building my business, Spectacle28 Creative, and planning to study web development in the near future. I registered my 11-year-old goddaughter, Alexis Jaeda Lomada, for the workshop. We attended the Calgary: National Girls Learning Code Day Collaborative Game Production workshop on May 13th at the new STEM Learning Lab building.

I, myself, have attended several Ladies Learning Code workshops and I find that I gain new knowledge and a deeper interest in learning to code each workshop, so much so that I am planning to enroll in an online program to learn web development this Fall. I noticed that Alexis was spending her free time building drag-and-drop websites on Wix and I immediately thought of taking her to a Girls Learning Code Workshop. This has now been her third workshop!

My husband is a software developer and I find that his teams almost always have 0 female representation. Being defined as part of the “minority” community my entire life, arriving in Canada with my immigrant parents 23 years ago taught me how important it is to have your identity represented in all aspects of life. I wanted for Alexis to be exposed to the concepts behind coding and gain a basic understanding of how computers/games/websites are programmed to function. I wanted for her to leave the workshop with more questions to satisfy about coding.

Alexis was amazed that lines of words are what makes a game or website work, and she grasped so many new concepts, like the X and Y axis! She was thrilled to show off her honey bee game to her family when she got home. Alexis and I shared a very special “AHA!” moment while we were both working to debug an aspect of her game that wouldn’t function as she had meant it to. When Alexis found the source of the error and corrected the code, she saw that it fixed her game and literally screamed in joy!

For adults with curious young ones in their lives, there is nothing to lose and so much to gain from exposing your child to computer literacy skills. I have been amazed with the complex concepts that my 11-year-old goddaughter is able to grasp. She has so much fun and meets new friends each workshop.

The instructors, speakers and, mentors all serve as inspiring testaments to the benefit of being a female coder, and have all been very friendly and helpful. Girls Learning Code has been an extremely valuable resource for myself and my goddaughter, whose interest in coding continues to grow with each workshop.

Meet Jane & Charlotte

My niece Charlotte, 11, is a very naturally talented artist and loves building new designs in Minecraft. As a budding computer scientist myself, I know what kind of exciting future is ahead of her. When I heard about #glcCodeDay I knew we had to take full advantage of the opportunity! I knew that the kid could draw but I was amazed to see that her talents on canvas translate to multi-dimensional art and perspective. I struggle to draw a stick person but she whipped out an angled elf queen in no time! It was a wonderful experience and we look forward to the next Girls Learning Code initiative.

Meet Edward & Nevaeh

I had the pleasure of instructing for Girls Learning Code Day and I was so happy my daughter was in the class. As a father I try to show my kids that they shouldn’t have fear of “getting it wrong” because it’s the wrong answers that guide us to the right answer. When I do projects with my kids I lay out a plan and I will often hear “Ummm… How do you know that will work?” and I usually reply “I don’t, but we can only find out by trying.” With code, I’m a firm believer that if you’re not breaking things, you’re not learning. This is the face of a girl that discovered the joy of getting it wrong. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to be part of it.

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Want to be a part of next year’s #glcCodeDay? Learn more at www.girlslearningcodeday.com and join the mailing list to be notified of next years’ event!