Humans of Code Week – Marina Zacharia, Leading Teacher Greece

Publication date: September 2, 2022

By Marina Zacharia, Leading Teacher Greece

What sparked your interest in coding / Code Week?

I simply love technology and robotics and try to implement them both in all the subjects I teach. Code Week gave me the opportunity to communicate with other code fanatics and spread my coding love to other teachers.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to learn / teach coding?

Let’s Code!!!

What do you like most about Code Week?

As a Leading Teacher in Greece, I enjoy collaborating with other teachers. Together we try out all the crazy ideas I have for coding activities. After all, Coding is fun for both students and teachers.

What are the top three reasons why everyone / kids should learn how to code?

Coding in Kindergarten is fun and interesting. Young learners love games and hands-on activities as they have curious minds. Exploring code aligns perfectly with these capacities, and it helps children build their sense of curiosity, problem-solving skills, trial and error abilities and their love of STEM.

How can interested people contribute to Code Week?

Everybody can contribute by designing their own activities. They can be plugged or unplugged activities, with or without robots. The most important thing is to come up with themes where kids can practice to think and act like coders in a low-pressure and highly entertaining interactive environment.

Which project/activity related to Code Week are you most proud of, and why?

“Crack the Code” was my favourite Code Week Project. The goal was to use Pixel Art to teach our students coding in a fun way. The activity was simple but spread like wildfire through the schools of Europe, more than 800 teachers joined our Facebook Group and registered an event in Code Week 2021.  Our group provided instructions, help and guidance to new members. Also, it was a close community where everyone could share ideas and emotions. We created a public padlet to upload our results, and after the activity, it was filled with amazing ideas. Schools used this as a repository of activity sheets for in the classroom. Hundreds of coded drawings were uploaded, all full of enthusiastic messages for their fellow students.