From the past and present, to those still to come in the future, countless remarkable achievements have been made by Black individuals who have chosen to move to the beat of their own drum. Music and sound can be tools to tell stories, to express ourselves, to promote change, to celebrate, and so much more. So take some time this month to make your own music with your young coders and start dancing.                

Of course, choosing to dance is not the same as choosing to devote your life to the equality and freedom of all people. But it reminds us that you can incite change by choosing to do what is right, even when you feel like you’re the only one moving to the music. It won’t be long before you see change and meet people you resonate with, and a new sound will develop in which everyone can find their rhythm.

So join us this month as we explore the power of code and music to celebrate Black History Month.

Projects to help you find your rhythm

We’ve selected three of our favourite music-related projects to help you bring a joyful atmosphere to your coding sessions this month. All of the projects are in Scratch, a programming language that uses blocks to help young people develop their confidence in computer programming while they experiment with colours and sounds to make their own projects.  

Drum star | Scratch

Find your rhythm with this clicker game where you earn points by playing the drums in different venues. The project is one of our Explore projects and it includes step-by-step instructions to help young creators develop their skills, confidence, and interest in programming. This makes it a great option for beginners who want to get started with Scratch and programming.

Music maker | Scratch

Code to the beat of your own drum — or any instrument you like. Use this project to create your own virtual musical instrument and celebrate a Black musician you admire. For young people who have some experience with Scratch, they may enjoy expressing themselves with this Design project. Our Design projects give young people support to build on their experience to gain more independence coding their own ideas.

Binary hero | Scratch

Can you keep up with the beat? Prove it in this game where you play the notes of a song while they scroll down the screen. You could choose to include a song associated with a moment in Black history that is meaningful to you. This project is a great opportunity for young people to expand their programming knowledge to create lists, while they also test their reaction skills with a fun game.

For young creators who want to create projects that don’t involve music or sound, check out these projects which can help you to:

• Code a book about an inspirational figure in Black history (Scratch)
• Design colourful patterns inspired by Black cultures (Python)
• Create a mood board webpage to share ideas of what Black History Month means to you (HTML/CSS)

Let us know how you’re celebrating Black History Month in your community on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram all month long!

Black stories to inspire you to move

• Training teachers and empowering students in Machakos, Kenya

Learn about our partnership with Team4Tech and Kenya Connect, with whom we are empowering educators and students in rural Kenya to use the power of coding and computing to benefit their communities.

• I Belong in Computer Science: Salome Tirado Okeze

Meet Salome, a computer science student from the UK who shares her experiences and advice for young people interested in finding out where computer science can lead them. Salome was one of the first people we interviewed for our ‘I belong’ campaign to celebrate young role models in computer science.

Research to help set the tone  

We believe that creating inclusive and equitable learning environments is essential to supporting all young people to see computer science as an opportunity for them. To help engage young people, especially those who are underrepresented in computer science classrooms, we are carrying out research with teachers to make computing culturally relevant. Our work promoting culturally relevant pedagogy in educational settings in England has been impacted by projects of many US researchers who have already contributed heavily to this area. You can learn about two of these projects in this blog post.

Educators who want to find out how they can use culturally relevant pedagogy with their learners can download our free guidelines today.

We would also like to invite you to our monthly research seminar on 7 February 2023, when we will be joined by Dr Jean Salac who will be sharing their research on Moving from equity to justice in computing instruction for youth. Dr Salac’s session is part of our current series of seminars that centres on primary school (K–5) teaching and learning of computing. The seminars are free and open to everyone interested in computing education. We hope to see you there! 

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That’s why we encourage you to join us in celebrating Black History Month with the help of free, specially chosen coding and computing education resources. We’ve got something for everyone: whether you’re a learner, an educator, a volunteer, or any lover of tech, everyone can participate.

For learners: Celebrate Black History Month with free coding resources

This month, we want to empower young people to think about how they can use code as a tool to celebrate Black history with innovation and creativity. We’ve designed a project card listing the perfect projects to jumpstart young learners’ imagination: 

There are projects for beginner coders, as well as intermediate and advanced coders, in Scratch, Python, HTML/CSS, and Ruby plus Raspberry Pi.

For educators: Support Black learners and their communities

We’re working on research to better understand how to support the Black community and other underrepresented communities to engage with computer science.

Take some time this month to explore the following resources to make sure we’re growing into a more diverse and inclusive community: 

• Culturally relevant pedagogy guide: We’ve worked with a group of teachers and researchers to co-create a guide sharing the key elements of a culturally relevant and responsive teaching approach to curriculum design and teaching in the classroom. Download the guide to see how to teach computing and computer science in a way that values all your learners’ knowledge, ways of learning, and heritage.

• Equity, diversity, and inclusion research seminar series: For six months in 2021, we hosted monthly seminars with invited speakers who research how to make computing education diverse and inclusive. For example, check out the recordings of the talks given by Prof Tia Madkins, Dr Nicol R. Howard, and Shomari Jones on equity-focused teaching; and by Dr Jakita O. Thomas about engaging Black girls in STEM learning.

For everyone: Listen to Black voices

Uplifting Black voices is one of the best things we can all do this February in observance of Black History Month. We’ve had the privilege of hearing from members in our community about their experiences in tech, and their stories are incredibly insightful and inspiring. 

• Community stories: Yolanda Payne
  • Meet Yolanda Payne, a highly regarded community member from Atlanta, Georgia who is passionate about connecting young people in her community to opportunities to create with technology.
• Community stories: Avye 
  • Meet Avye, an accomplished 13-year old girl who is taking the world of robotics by storm and works to help other girls get involved too.

Happy Black History Month! Share with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram how you’re celebrating in your community.

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This week, we’re introducing young people around the world to coding GUIs, or graphical user interfaces. Let them tune in this Wednesday at 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST for a fun live stream code-along session with Christina and special guest Martin! They’ll learn about GUIs, can ask us questions, and get to code a painting app.

For beginner coders, we have our Thursday live stream at 3.30pm PDT / 5.30pm CDT / 6.30pm EDT, thanks to support from Infosys Foundation USA! Christina will share more fun Scratch coding for beginners.

Now that school is back in session for many young people, we’ve wrapped up our weekly code-along videos. You and your children can continue coding with us during the live stream, whether you join us live or watch the recorded session on-demand. Thanks to everyone who watched our more than 90 videos and 45 hours of digital making content these past month!

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September is wellness month at Digital Making at Home. Your young makers can code along with our educators every week to create projects that focus on their well-being. This week’s brand-new projects are all about helping young people concentrate better.

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite parents and kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new projects, videos, and live streams every week.

This week’s live stream will take place on Wednesday at 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST at rpf.io/home. Let your kids join in so they can progress to the next stage of learning to code with Scratch!

If you’re in the USA, your young people can join Christina on Thursday at 3.30pm PDT / 5.30pm CDT / 6.30pm EDT for an additional US-time live stream! Christina will show newcomers how to begin coding Scratch projects. Thanks to our partners Infosys Foundation USA for making this new live stream possible.

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In our free code-along video this week, six-year-old Noah codes his first Scratch project guided by Marc from our team. The project is a digital stress ball, because our theme for September is wellness and looking after ourselves.

Follow our beginners’ code-along video now!

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite parents and kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new live stream every week.

Our next live stream will take place on Wednesday 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST at rpf.io/home. Let your kids join in so they can progress to the next stage of learning to code with Scratch!

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Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can find out how to create web pages with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new videos every week.

So get ready to contribute to the World Wide Web:

Let’s create web pages this week! Watch our video to get coding now.

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session and ask us all your question about the World Wide Web, the internet, and web development.

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Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can build a Raspberry Pi robot buggy with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new videos every week.

So get your Raspberry Pi, wheels, wires, and breadboards ready! We’re building a robot:

Let’s build a robot together this week!

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session with Estefannie from Estefannie Explains it All to ask us your questions about robots and build something cool with Adafruit’s Circuit Playground.

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Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can do stop motion and time-lapse animation with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code along with us and our new videos every week.

So get your Raspberry Pi and Camera Module ready! We’re using them to capture life with code this week:

Check out this week’s code-along projects!

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session to make a motion-detecting dance game in Scratch!

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Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can explore the graphics side of video game design! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code along with us and our new videos every week.

So get ready to design video game graphics with us:

Check out this week’s code-along projects!

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session to make a Space Invaders–style shooter game in Scratch!

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Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can recreate classic* video games with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code along with us and our new videos every week.

So get ready to code some classic retro games with us:

Check out this week’s code-along projects!

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session!

* Be warned that we’re using the terms ‘classic/retro’ in line with the age of our young digital makers — a LOT of games are retro for them ?

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