Technology Education By Age
NewTechKids sees technology education as a means to help kids develop 21st century skills: problem-solving, critical thinking, logic, pattern recognition, creativity and communication. It doesn’t matter if children don’t create the perfect code, design a popular app or create a beautiful 3D printed product. We are happy as long as it’s obvious they are thinking, experimenting, designing, failing, collaborating and learning.
Most kids don’t receive any technology, programming or computer science education in primary school. This is slowly starting to change as countries such as the United Kingdom and Finland and cities like San Francisco are moving to make these subjects mandatory in primary school.
Here’s our approach to teaching the different age ranges:
4-6 Year Olds (Group 1 and 2)
NewTechKids’ programs for children in this age range focus on providing a solid foundation for digital literacy. We expose kids to computational thinking, systems thinking, programming and automation by exploring concepts such as programs, commands and algorithms. During our classes, they discover what a computer is, why it works the way it works, and how its parts work together.
We bring technology education to life through arts and crafts, games and play-based, team exercises. We embed design in our classes to encourage creativity while also encouraging collaboration and communication among the children. We teach in Dutch, English or both, depending on the languages that kids in the class speak.
7-9 Years Olds (Groups 3, 4 and 5)
NewTechKids’ programs provide kids in this age range with digital literacy tools, with the goal of teaching them to think like technologists. We expose them to the theory and concepts behind technology, programming and computer science in order to develop their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. We teach concepts such as computational thinking, systems thinking, logic, pattern recognition, input/output, feedback, algorithms and sequences, data (numbers and Booleans), variables and collections, loops, conditionals, event handling, design and testing.
We combine no tech lessons (paper and pen exercises and games) with technology tools such as LEGO Mindstorms and Raspberry Pi DIY computer kits. We lead the children through structured design processes to introduce the notion of prototyping, testing, iteration and reflection.
Our lessons are often structured as design challenges that students complete in small teams. This conditions kids to collaborate, define and share responsibilities, and communicate during design and prototyping processes. We teach in a combination of English and Dutch to expose kids to an international setting as well as technology vocabulary which is primarily English.
10-12 Years (Groups 6, 7 and 8)
NewTechKids’ programs for kids in this age range focus on teaching kids to think like technologists and understand the structures behind programming and computer science. Our classes are designed to teach programming and computer science as a way to solve problems and apply a certain logic when developing solutions. We challenge students to apply computer science theory to solve the challenges provided in classes.
Like our programs for 7-9 year olds, we teach concepts such as computational thinking, systems thinking, logic, pattern recognition, input/output, feedback, algorithms and sequences, data (numbers and Booleans), variables and collections, loops, conditionals, event handling, design and testing. But class activities are slightly more advanced and challenging.
We combine no tech lessons (paper and pen exercises and games) with technology tools such as LEGO Mindstorms and Raspberry Pi DIY computer kits. We guide kids through structured design processes to introduce the notion of prototyping, testing, iteration and reflection.
Our lessons are often structured as design challenges that students complete in small teams. This conditions kids to collaborate, define and share responsibilities, and explain their thinking during design and prototyping processes. We teach in a combination of English and Dutch to expose kids to an international setting as well as technology vocabulary which is primarily English.