New Tech Kids | All posts

29 Mar 2015

TEDxAmsterdamED: amazing!

It's a wrap. Last Thursday, I gave my TED talk at the fantastic TEDxAmsterdamED event. This one day conference was dedicated to the theme, 'The Education (R)evolution', and asked the question 'Is revolution needed for education to evolve, or is the future of education already within reach?' My talk focused on providing primary school-aged children (4-12 years) with technology and programming education as a way to help them develop higher order (21st century) skills such as problem-solving, critical

15 Mar 2015

Developing Teachers is a Priority

By NewTechKids

Last week, NewTechKids' co-founders attended the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Conference in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Hosted by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the conference brought together Dutch and international teachers, school leaders, researchers, policy makers and government representatives. They shared the results of TALIS (a large-scale international survey involving 33 countries) and discussed new strategies for improving the professional development of teachers and the learning environments in schools. The

12 Mar 2015

Here’s to Failure

By NewTechKids

Nine out of 10 times, TechKids' workshops are amazing. Tuesday's workshop was not one of them. The workshop began with a recap discussion of the main parts of a computer and how they work together. The children had no problem recalling this info from the previous week. Our teacher then introduced them to Raspberry Pi computers, clarifying that no, they were not edible. The kids assembled DIY computer kits and plugged them into computer screens to complete some programming

17 Feb 2015

Raspberry Pi Units from Canada

By NewTechKids

We get by with a little help from our friends. Yesterday, NewTechKids took possession of a shipment of Raspberry Pi units, donated and shipped by the good folks at Car-San Manufacturing Limited, a company based in Kitchener, Ontario in Canada. Sandra French Martens, Sales Manager at the company and a high school chum of one of NewTechKids' founders, follows us on social media and made the offer. "As a woman in technology, I really like to see anything that

16 Feb 2015

NewTechKids Talk @ TEDxAmsterdamED

By NewTechKids

NewTechKids is thrilled to announce that Deborah Carter, its co-founder, will speak at the TEDxAmsterdamED event on March 26th at the new Theater Amsterdam. Under the theme "The Education (r)evolution", the event will examine the central issue: "Is revolution needed for education to evolve, or is the future of education already within reach? From the tiny shifts that make a huge difference to the ground-breaking movements shaking the system. We will explore The Education (r)evolution and the balancing

27 Jan 2015

NewTechKids visits BETT 2015

By NewTechKids

Last week, NewTechKids headed to London for BETT 2015. BETT is the world's largest education technology event and going there gave us the chance to see the latest in edtech, meet with the companies behind some of the teaching tools we use in our programs, and identify trends and new thinking. Here are a few of our observations. Keep Your Eye on the UK A big shout-out to the UK Department for Education and the

8 Jan 2015

Discovering Automation and Finite State Machines

By NewTechKids

NewTechKids chose the question 'What is a computer?' to kick off our 'Intro to Programming' Bootcamp yesterday. We started the first workshop by knocking our group of 7-9 year olds out of their comfort zone and challenging their belief that computers are just a screen, keypad and circuit board. They discovered that computers are all around us: traffic lights, turnstiles in the subway (metro), home heating systems and other things in everyday life. We then introduced them to concept of

17 Dec 2014

Programming with Lego Mindstorms

By NewTechKids

This afternoon's NewTechKids workshop brought the concept of programming to a group of 10-12 year olds in the best way possible. The workshop started with a lively discussion about robots and their different uses before moving on to a design and testing exercise during which the kids wrote programs (with pen and paper) to navigate through an obstacle course. In the process, they learned about technology concepts such as programming, automation, input-output, variables and composition.

4 Dec 2014

Teaching programming to 4-6 year olds

By NewTechKids

December 3, 2014 marked a milestone for NewTechKids. We gave our first workshop on programming and automation to our youngest audience yet: four to six year olds. (Although if you ask your children, they will most likely talk about the crafts and role play games they did. Check out this video of them in action.) After briefly discussing robots and what they can do, the children made their own robot heads, based on specific instructions from

30 Nov 2014

NewTechKids is Looking for Freelance Teachers

By NewTechKids

Picture the scene. You are wearing a cardboard robot head and doing your best robot impression to teach a group of Dutch and English-speaking kids technology concepts such as programming, automation, input-output and parameters. You didn't originally know how to teach these concepts but you planned the lesson with a certified technology teacher, did some online research to prepare for the class and planned activities to actively engage the children. Does this scenario a) make