Malta Independent

More than 300 students actively immersed in MITA’s Coding Events

-

MITA’s Digital Outreach Team have participat­ed in this year’s EU Code Week by organising two days of activities for more than 300 students, coming from four local church schools. The events, organised between the 20th and the 21st of October, were characteri­sed by workshops on robotics and game developmen­t, together with talks about possible careers related to coding and ICT.

On the first day of activities which were hosted by Savio College, MITA’s team met with stu- dents coming from Stella Maris School of Gzira and from the hosting school. The event lasted about five hours and was well attended by over 100 students. On the next day, the event was hosted by St Augustine’s College in Pietà, where students from St Monica’s School of Gzira joined in as well. In this case, there were another 220 students who participat­ed in the event.

All activities conducted during the two days were well received by both students and teachers. The students’ energy and enthusiasm was felt by everyone present; as well as their curiosity into the subject. The activities were designed to allow the students to become fully immersed and engaged into the tasks they were working on; and appreciate the significan­ce of coding.

The EU Code Week is an initiative which has an aim of promoting coding as a means of giving life to ideas, by using a person’s creativity and the collaborat­ion between different people from all over the world. This year marked the 4th edition of the EU Code Week and was organised between the 15th and the 23rd of October. Last year, this event attracted over half a million people across Europe who attended to 7,700 coding events in around 46 countries.

For this reason and because it forms part of the Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Commission is supporting the EU Code Week, while promoting digital skills such as programmin­g to different target groups. The idea behind these activities is to expose programmin­g to young, adults and elderly people and show them how to bring ideas to life with coding.

As technology is increasing­ly shaping our lives, it is essential that we understand how it works and how we can use it in our best interests at work and leisure. The EU Code Week is intended to promote the skills that are required, while helping us to be more creative and collaborat­ive with other people who are creative like us.

Jacquie Cremona Crossey, MITA Digital Outreach

Vaccines are intended to help you remain physically healthy. In the same way, the ‘antivirus’ is like the vaccine as it helps keeping the computer healthy in its operation.

The software which negatively affects your computer is called ‘malware’ – malicious software, a term which includes a variety of viruses, worms or Trojan horses. This refers to any type of malicious software which your computer might get infected by. The reasons of getting this malware vary considerab­ly, such as USBs sharing from one computer to another; downloadin­g software or films from unknown servers from the Cloud; by surfing from one URL to another; receiving emails from unknown persons and opening attachment­s from emails.

Those who enjoy infecting other people’s computers are known as ‘cyber attackers.’ There are at least four openings which the malware may attack in your computer, namely executable files; scripts; macros and the boot sector. However, with the help of an anti-virus in place and properly updated, together with the proper measures of safety, you should keep at bay from virus and various attacks.

 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Malta