General Info
The Secretariat of Digital Policies, in collaboration with the Department of Education, promotes the Bitbot program to promote the extracurricular offer of activities in the field of programming and educational robotics in Catalonia (STEAM actions). It was created on 2016, as a unique initiative that aims to increase interest and vocations in the field of ICT, and improve the digital competence of young people.
The Bitbot program includes the catalog of educational programming and robotics activities in Catalonia , the holding of talks in schools and organizations, and a training service for monitors who want to conduct and develop educational and leisure activities in the fields of programming and educational robotics .
At 2019 the Bitbot program was integrated into the STEAMcat plan, the general plan of the government of Catalonia created to integrate all STEAM promotion policies.
Applicability and Audience
Details
To improve the digital skills of young people and promote the growth of technological vocation
The ICT sector in Catalonia, and throughout Europe, has a serious shortage of professionals. Therefore the Government of Catalonia has proposed to promote careers in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and for not losing the opportunity to fill more than 50% of the 1.5 million new jobs that will be created in Europe by 2020 in this sector.
Bitbot.cat is structured around four areas:
- Creating a catalog and a schedule of extracurricular activities in robotics and programming.
- Defining training programs and certification of monitors in robotics and programming, in collaboration with Citilab Cornellà.
- Talks and workshops for associations of families of students and teachers, in collaboration with the FAPAC.
- Promotion and dissemination of competitions and awards in the field of programming and robotics.
It also included a trainning opportunity: the course for educational programming and robotics instructors taught as part of the Bitbot program is a complement to the training of leisure instructors currently offered by leisure education schools.
This training was conceived as an introduction to technology for all those people who want to accompany young people and children in carrying out leisure activities in the fields of programming and educational robotics. It lasted 20 teaching hours and was structured in two blocks of 10 hours: introduction to programming and introduction to robotics. It was evaluated with the accomplishment of a work that requires an approximate dedication of 10 hours.
These courses were offered in person (5 sessions of 4 hours) and part-time (2 sessions of 4 hours and the rest of the non-face-to-face training). In any case, 30 hours of training were recognized for all those people who accredit at least 75% of the attendance / participation in the course.
People or entities that want to be part of the BitBot catalog must register on the website https://activitum.cat/login-bitbot/
Once registered, they can enter the information regarding their proposals. The activity will be shown in the website: http://politiquesdigitals.gencat.cat/ca/tic/bitbot/cataleg/
Then, citizens can seach the propossals using the searching tool, that allows to filter by:
Keyword
Type of activity
Age
Languages
Months
Price
Frequency
Functional diversity
Location
Trainers interested in taking the trainning opportunity must register here:
http://smartcatalonia.gencat.cat/ca/actualitat/agenda/formulari-cursos-de-formacio-bitbot/
This policy aims to stimulate the offer of activities by the entities and supplier companies through the dissemination and communication of the offer exists. Creating a specific web section, which includes an activity search engine, is key.
In a complementary way, the technological training action for trainers and providers of extracurricular activities is complementary but is key to the success of this policy.
In this case, the policy was organized by the regional government, but also an entity, company or a group of them could implement it.
No system has been planned