{"id":6949,"date":"2019-04-26T19:32:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrington.uri.edu\/?p=6949"},"modified":"2019-04-26T19:32:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:32:32","slug":"gslis-hosts-coding-nights-for-local-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/library-and-information-studies\/2019\/04\/26\/gslis-hosts-coding-nights-for-local-families\/","title":{"rendered":"GSLIS hosts coding nights for local families"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Olivia Carle<\/span><\/h6>\n

Valerie Karno, professor and director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (GSLIS), has used an Infosys Foundation C3 Grant to bring coding nights to public libraries and families in Rhode Island. <\/span><\/p>\n

Karno was first invited to to attend the invitation-only Infosys Conference in Silicon Valley, where she applied for the Infosys C3 Grant, a collaborative grant meant to be used with another attendee. While at the conference, Karno met Executive Director of Family Code Night, John Pierce, with whom she decided to partner.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI suggested to John that we partner and bring family coding events to public libraries,\u201d Karno said. \u201cI thought it would be so terrific to do family code events with parents or caregivers and their kids at public libraries. So, we applied for this grant and won.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With this grant, GSLIS, in collaboration with Family Code Night, Infosys, and the state of Rhode Island, brought family coding events to three public libraries across Rhode Island, including Cranston Public Library, Providence Community Library, and Central Falls Adams Library.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe events were geared for kids K-6 and their parents. The idea was that you instill early coding skills for families, so they really stick. The parents learned as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students did not actually program computers with code. Rather, they learned foundational skills. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they were doing is the foundational building blocks of coding, through fun puzzle solving together. It was really fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Karno stressed the importance of having knowledge of coding skills in today\u2019s digital world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become increasingly important to understand how to code and understand the logical processes involved with coding in this digital moment,\u201d Karno said. \u201cBy giving students, kids, and their families, these skills early on, what you\u2019re doing is giving them a leg up in the world, because eventually they really need to know how to do these things. So, this is a great way to start, by embedding it in the family setting – everybody gets on board.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The grant is targeted toward underprivileged, diverse communities to reach families who don\u2019t readily have access to these kinds of coding programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love this grant because its a collaboration between industry, academia, the state, and libraries,\u201d said Karno. \u201cSo, it\u2019s very novel for all these groups to work together to create something wonderful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valerie Karno, professor and director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (GSLIS), has used an Infosys Foundation C3 Grant to bring coding nights to public libraries and families in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1338,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library-and-information-studies","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}