NewTechKids believes that it’s important to find new ways to teach computer science which bring out the creativity in children. That’s why we love to integrate arts education into our computer science programs.

We were super thrilled to teach two teacher training workshops today as part of the cultural education event organised by MOCCA, an education advisory organization based in Amsterdam.

During the workshops held at Theater Meervaart, we taught our ‘Intro to Coding and Computational Thinking’ class to primary and secondary school teachers as well as professionals representing educational organisations, museums and cultural institutions. We taught them about computer science concepts such as algorithms, commands, coding and automation.

What a breath of fresh air to see how this crowd of people – who are used to design processes, experimentation, testing and iteration – dived right into the challenge of designing robot heads and writing their first code. As one teacher commented in the feedback session afterwards, “What a great way to teach teachers the main concepts behind coding without complicated technology!”

Exactly!

P.S. Our favourite robot head design was the Eberhard (as in Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam’s Mayor). The design integrated a variation of the St. Andrew’s cross, a symbol of the city of Amsterdam.