My Creative Learning Journey

*This is a submission for the [2026 WeCoded Challenge](https://dev.to/challenges/wecoded-2026): Echoes of Experience* <!-- Share your tech journey or stories you've witnessed in the industry. You may consider sharing challenges faced, triumphs celebrated, lessons learned, or insights gained. Your story should aim to inspire other underrepresented individuals or educate allies. --> <!-- Don't forget to add a cover image (if you want). --> <!-- Thanks for participating! --> > Come with me and you′ll be > In a world of pure imagination > Take a look and you'll see > Into your imagination > We′ll begin with a spin > Travelling in the world of my creation > What we'll see will defy explanation > -- _Pure Imagination by Gene Wilder_ It's been a hectic end of 2005 and beginning of 2026 for me. I had a choice in Fall 2025 * a) A stable return to tech career with Irish Public Jobs programme ([ARC](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/civil-service-assisted-return-to-career-programme-at-publicjobs-4318240365/)) for those who haven't worked for 2+ years, and it comes with 6 months work experience and an opportunity to continue the Higher Executive Officer ([HEO](https://www.publicjobs.ie/en/information-hub/capability-framework/higher-executive-officer)) role in an ICT department. It's a manager role but it's not starting from scratch. Stable, pension, but... to me stable means boring. * b) An extension to what I'm doing so far, education and outreach advocating diversity in tech, included in this extension was finding a way to make it sustainable to keep me going (and help pay the mortgage and bills). And two courses popped onto my plate, [Train the Creative Trainer](https://www.creativeskillnet.ie/course/the-creative-trainer-2025/) (2 month course with [Creative Skillnet](https://www.creativeskillnet.ie)), and [Creative Learning](https://www.ncad.ie/postgraduate/professional-development-short-courses/professional-certificate-in-creative-learning/) with [NCAD](https://www.ncad.ie) (2 month micro-credentials course). Both pilot courses.  Guess which one I went for in this fork in the road back in October'ish time, the red or blue pill. 😆 It was (b), of course I went for the riskier but more fulfilling option. 😉 For the former, it was a whirlwind, I only had 48 hours to apply and after being accepted... to commit to the first course... yip, you read that correctly. I saw the course in a newsletter on a Wed, deadline was the next day, so I submitted my application, and wasn't expecting a reply till following week... but a day later in Friday while I was in London for a narrative game design conference ([AdventureX](https://www.adventurexpo.org/)), I got offered a place and had COB that day to accept the placement! Plus the course was starting Friday the following week. 😱 The other course with NCAD, it was pushed back from Sept 2025 to end of Jan 2026. And guess what? When Train the Creative Trainer workshop ended on Friday, the course with NCAD started the next morning on Saturday.  It was non-stop from end of October till early March. But, it was all worth it! It was fate TBH, the theory of being trainer with structure (and how to handle evaluations) to how to engage your cohort of learners through creative ways and activities was very refreshing. It's like a reset for me, and one of my cohorts in Creative Learning welcomed me as an art student.  A bit of context here, my parents didn't allow me to go to art college after my Learning Cert many, many moons ago... and as with all teenagers, I thought my world was ending 😆.  But currently, I think this is my mid-life crisis, going back to art college; even though it's a short course, and very experimental where many of us were facilitators and domain experts in our fields, and we helped co-design this new course. Plus I was able to try out [Decker](https://beyondloom.com/decker/) for [a side note](https://whykay.itch.io/my-object) for my reflection journal. And I turned this reflection journal into the biggest zine I ever created. {% embed https://heyzine.com/flip-book/a5c963ac08.html %} I was surrounded by creatives, I was the only techie in the course. I learnt about critiquing, and more about supporting each other, empathy, and feeling safe... and that's in both courses. I feel that whenever I wanted to give feedback to other techies...  ...they feel I'm attacking them and their defenses go up.  It's the complete opposite being around and working with creatives.  I hope to bring creativity, art and tech together in my near future endeavours. I'm already involved with a design thinking programme (with 3D printing) for Transition Year students in the next couple of months. I'll be doing more [alt.ctrl workshops](https://www.gamecraft.it/news/2023/11/altctrlgamecraft-2023/) and hopefully jams (with exhibitions), art+tech collab projects, and most of my work will be with adults (although if it's with the libraries, I'll have to deal with little and not so little people, which are scary, but they do have the best ideas and inspirations). I've still lots of TODOs, like porting my [11ty](https://www.11ty.dev/) websites back to Django, tidy and re-organise my home office/maker room, finish my electronic projects, get started on DJ lessons on my DJ deck my husband bought me 2 years ago (time flies 🫣)... and figuring out this [MPC thing](https://www.akaipro.com/mpc-sample/) (which I heard was sold out the day we ordered it last week). Although related to the latter, I'm looking forward to going to [Superbooth](https://www.superbooth.com/en/) (synth festival in Berlin) in May.  And more related note... we attended a local synth community group called [Bloop Group](https://www.bloopgroop.com/)'s gig in town followed by their meetup. It was ah-mazing.  The gig especially with the invited Belgian guest who used art, tech (visuals) and music for a very live visceral experience. At this gig and the meetup a couple of days later, I have bumped into a cross-section of communities I'm in, tech/founder, Creative Learning, Maker, it was truly fantastic seeing this cross-section and cross-over of communities for modular synth music in a very friendly and inclusive environment. So yeah, it's been rather an interesting last number of months with plenty to plan and do in the coming months. I want to do more zines, more coding, more creative tech, more the fun & geeky things. And of course, ways to keep myself paid to sustain these activities if I want to reach out and advocate to the community. So holler if you want to collaborate with me or if you are looking for someone to do something fun, geeky and possibly a bit weird (but good).