Wauneta-Palisade student Olivia Behrends and sponsor Jennifer Loker spent three busy days during November in Omaha taking part of the University of Omaha’s CodeCrush.
    Specifically for eighth and ninth grade girls, CodeCrush  immersed the pair in emerging Information Technology fields such as bioinformatics, IT innovation, music technology and cybersecurity
    Behrends and Loker’s first day started off with tours of The Startup Collaborative, software company Agape Red  and sports performance analysts Hudl.
    “At each company we were able to tour their office spaces and had a question and answer session with employees,” Loker said.
    Students wrapped up their evening attending App Inventor and building their own apps.
    Students finished their apps Thursday morning before attending Digital Forsencics.
    Digital forensics covers the recovery and investigation of material found in digital devices.
    During that time, Loker and the other teachers were busy, starting off with learning about a program called TurtleStitch and ending with a session on Cybersecurity.
    “TurtleStitch is a coding program similar to Scratch, which is a program that I have slated to use in my classroom during second semester,” Loker said. During Cybersecurity, “we were able to simulate hacking a computer while also discussing other security issues and the importance of updating your software; computers running on older versions of Windows as well as those that have not been updated are much easier to hack.”
    One of the highlights of the trip for Loker was a discussion on digital data used by the automobile industry.

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