New Tech Kids | All posts

17 Feb 2015

Raspberry Pi Units from Canada

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

16 Nov 2014

‘Tis the Season to Learn About Programming

By NewTechKids

NewTechKids is organising three after-school workshops during the month of December to teach children ages 4 - 12 the concepts of programming and automation. Robots will take centre stage to bring these concepts to life in the context of the holiday season. Usually our classes are organized in the context of a program but we've scheduled this individual workshops to enable parents and their children to experience NewTechKids and our teaching methodology. All workshops will be taught

31 Oct 2014

NewTechKids is off with its first class

By NewTechKids

On October 22nd, we organised our first NewTechKids workshop. The children, aged seven to nine, learned about the concepts of programming and automation. The kids explored how technological systems work in terms of input/output, controls, processes and programming. To bring the theme of systems thinking to life, we structured the class around a challenge: programming a robot to dispose of toxic waste before it leaked and turned everyone into zombies. Each child designed simple code for a

15 Oct 2014

NewTechKids at ISA’s EU Code Week Event

By NewTechKids

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. A friend put me in touch with her friend who works at the International School of Amsterdam (ISA). She was organising a 'Get Inspired by Tech' event at the school as part of EU Code Week. Before I knew it, I was on the roster as a mentor, someone who would give 'lightening presentations' of 10-minutes to 100 sixth graders about careers, opportunities and experiences in technology. Grabbing the attention of adults is a