OLIVER BROWN

GAWLER schoolchildren are looking towards their future by participating in the 2019 Commissioner for Children and Young People’s Digital Challenge.

The commissioner first announced the annual challenge in 2017 to give young South Australians the opportunity to prepare for the digital age of the future.

This year’s challenge is designed around computational thinking and basic coding, a key skill that will be essential for students in years to come.

Registered schools were given a timeframe between the beginning of first term and end of third term for students to complete four online coding challenges.

Gawler library officer for digital literacy Melinda Kennedy has been thrilled to see students embrace the challenge and coding.

She also runs the Microbit Club fortnightly during the school term at the Gawler Civic Centre for children interested in advancing their skills further.

Gawler & District College student Nathan Hynds, 13, signed up for the club due to his interest in game design.

While learning how to code at a young age may seem daunting, Nathan, who is participating in the 2019 Digital Challenge, said it is simpler than it sounds.

“It’s just easy to do… it was pretty easy to pick up,” he said.

Nathan has spent extra time working on his coding skills externally, participating in a holiday workshop designed to help students with this year’s challenge.

He said while he already had an interest in coding before starting the challenge, it certainly hadn’t diminished since.

“I would say I’m now a bit more interested… (the challenge) has been a fun experience to look at more careers in the future,” Nathan said.

Only a few schools in the Gawler area registered for the 2019 challenge, though other students have expressed interest in the program and what it teaches.

Reece Hawkins, 14, of Eudunda Area School said helping Nathan complete his online challenges made him interested in participating in the future.

“I don’t get to do a lot of that out where I live because we live in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“We don’t have a lot of resources to do this, so I actually think it would be pretty cool to do.”

The 2019 Commissioner for Children and Young People’s Digital Challenge finishes on September 27, though schools can already register for the 2020 challenge online.