Digit<all> is a charity that was founded in February 2022 with the aim of providing digital skills training to young people. Since its inception, Digit<all> has reached 81,050 young people and has ensured that they have developed their digital skills in an active way. The charity provides training and resources to teachers and community leaders, as well as direct workshops to young people in their school or within their local community. We are seeking funding to continue our mission of empowering young people with the digital skills they need to succeed in today's world. With your support, we can reach even more young people and help them develop the skills they need to thrive. Please consider donating to Digit<all> today and help us make a difference in the lives of young people across the country by raising the importance of nature and their future digital skills.
Find out more about Digit<all> on our website
Our motivation is:
- 3% of females say a career in technology is their first choice
- 65% of young people will be employed in jobs that currently don't exist
- 11% of boys and 28% of men in the UK are classified as obese
- 9% of girls and 29% of women in the UK are classified as obese
- 90% of jobs in the next 10 years will require some sort of digital skills
- Physical activity has beneficial effects on the brain's structure and function, while concern has mounted over high rates of childhood obesity
- Physical activity has been found to relate to performance across: perceptual skills, intelligence quotient, verbal tests, mathematic tests, memory, developmental level, and academic readiness in all ages from 4-18 years
The team at Digit<all> includes CEO, Peter Marshman, previously an assistant headteacher and computing lead in secondary schools and known for his work developing self-efficacy in girls with computer science. Peter is also the Code Week ambassador for the UK, and passionate about increasing the number of young women taking roles in technology and computer science. Matthew Hewlett, the Community and Education Lead at Digit<all> is known for his leadership of computing at both primary and secondary level and work develop strategies and resources with a focus around climate and nature.
Birdwatchers' Code - a micro:bit adventure
Digit<all> has worked with some local schools to create a fun and active STEM experience where young people code micro:bits (a small wearable programmable device), search for species of native birds and transmit their results to each other over radio transmission. They code their solution, collect, collate and analyse the data found and compare this against data from other schools and communities to build a picture of the wildlife in their local community. The children involved in the project will be aged between 9 and 11 years.
The project will enable
· Children aged between 9-11 to code physical computing devices and count bird populations in their local community, transmit and analyse the data highlighting the importance of tracking bird populations.
· The workshops will enable young people to be digitally active – to code inside and explore outside by transmitting signals through collaboration and teamwork.
· The materials will be adapted so that they can be downloaded by teachers and community leaders to use anywhere in the UK, significantly increasing the reach.
· Online 'train the trainer' sessions will be provided for teachers and community leaders who need specialist training to deliver the workshops.
The impact:
· 4800 young people across the UK.
· 200 young people in face-to-face workshops.
· 80 teachers/community leaders across the UK through online professional development.
· 12 teachers in face-to-face workshops also acting as professional development
How the money will be spent:
The charity hopes to raise £5,160.00 to cover:
· 60 micro:bit portable programmable devices for coding workshops
· Project coordination, management and delivery
· Transport for trainers to visit schools
· Production of teaching materials including videos
· Material design and website hosting, training booking application
· Administration for communication with schools and financial admin
· Advertising and marketing for wide UK reach
We are seeking your help to inspire young people to use technology for good, develop their digital skills, and understand the importance of tracking populations of wildlife in their community. With your support, we can provide young people with the skills they need to analyse data and make predictions to identify interventions. By empowering young people with digital skills, we can help them become active participants in society and the digital economy. Let's work together to achieve this goal and make a difference in the lives of young people.
The project legacy:
The project will provide a lens on nature and wildlife, specifically the birds that live in the UK, for young people who are the future defenders and protectors of these species. They will get to know these species from past generations and use technology to log, communicate, analyse data, and build skills and knowledge to help identify changes in population along with the links to climate and seasonal change. This will be carried out through fun activities coding the micro:bit programmable device, learning coding and data science. As children will be coding small wearable devices and then taking them outside in teams, and transmitting data, they will be working together, collaboratively, to build a picture of bird frequencies and species as school and wider local communities.
Environmental sustainability will be built into the project as the data collected will be shared with each school and future schools that engage with the programme and resources so that they can make sense of populations in their area against other areas of the UK and of course, over years, they will be able to review their own data and spot trends over time. As they will be coding inside and exploring outside, the children will develop their wellbeing, taking technology exploration into nature, helping them to see the importance as they grow older of being digitally active and developing this message for future generations.
As the children get to know more about UK bird species they can take this learning forward, influencing others, appreciating nature at home and building communities with these values showcased to younger children.
What will happen when the project ends?
The rich resources made will be available on the charity website to be downloaded by the many schools and teachers that the charity works with which continues to grow. As more schools and community groups use the resources with young people, the collected data sets, hosted by the charity, will grow, providing even more rich data analysis to take place through the use of the CODAP application for data science.
After the project, the charity will continue to host 'train the trainer' online events for teachers or community leads that may need additional training to have confidence to deliver the sessions in their schools and communities.
Images and videos of the schools activities with young people, along with those captured by the charity working in local schools, will be shared on the charity website over time to provide a collection of inspiring media which will encourage other schools and community groups to promote the use of technology for monitoring and exploring nature.
It is expected that in the initial year 4,800 young people across the UK will have been actively involved in the project. We expect in the following two years to have involved a further 6,200 and 7,600 young people respectively.
Through our 'train the trainer' sessions, which will also be recorded, the charity will encourage teachers and community leads to become trainers themselves, using their local community groups and networks, to further widen the reach of this project.
Why is Digit<all> well placed to deliver this project?
The charity has reached over 80,000 young people and 1,763 teachers and community leads in the last year through technology-inspired STEM and coding activities. The charity has a strong network of skilled volunteers, who have worked with young people for over 10 years, and have both the technical knowledge, pedagogy, and enthusiasm to ensure experiences in front of young people are engaging and enjoyable. The charity has already asked schools if they would love to be involved in the project, and the response has been overwhelming positive, especially due to the nature of primary schools struggling to deliver coding activities that have relevant context, are fun, and engage and enable young people to code inside and explore outside with coded wearable devices.