Parents, teachers and caregivers often ask NewTechKids' team members how they can prepare kids for a world of pervasive technology which is shaping almost every facet of life. They want to give their kids the best opportunities for success yet are overwhelmed, confused and don't feel well-equipped because they did not grow up in a tech-driven world. This causes a lot of anxiety so here are our top four tips for preparing kids for an
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Can computers and AI create original art? What is better: art made by humans or art made by machines? Why? These are some questions you can discuss with your child(ren) while teaching them about Artificial Intelligence (AI) found in real life. To give a specific context to the discussion, play around with some of the free AI art generators which are available online. An AI art generator is a computer program which generates images based
Read moreNew year, new opportunity to broaden the scope of our technology education programs. While we can't announce the full details, we'll let you in on a secret. NewTechKids will be teaching a new digital literacy program to all classes at an Amsterdam primary school next year: groeps 1 to 8 (kids ages 4-12). Digital literacy is an important part of a solid primary school education. We love the definition of digital literacy given by Hiller Spires,
Read moreIt's challenging to prepare your child(ren) to be successful in a world where technology is constant and rapid. Literally every field, industry, training and study path and career is being transformed by technology, whether it's digital skills, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence or IT. NewTechKids has compiled this list of concrete actions parents, caregivers, teachers and mentors can take to help kids acquire the future-proof knowledge, skills and thinking they'll need to enjoy a
Read moreNewTechKids has wrapped up our computer science and robotics bootcamp for high-potential teens from Amsterdam southeast, a low-income, largely immigrant community. According to one of our teachers, it was "one of the best classes" he's taught over his seven year career at NewTechKids. The magic ingredient? The kids themselves. Every Sunday, these kids rode the subway for 25 minutes to the Library, often accompanied by their parents and group mentor. Many came early and they
Read moreAt NewTechKids, we are taking the COVID pandemic very seriously and have therefore decided to adjust our teaching conditions. As we have received some questions from a few parents, we would like to clarify the reasoning behind our choices. We teach in large, well-ventilated rooms. We have used an AI program to generate a socially-distanced floor plan for tables and chairs. Often, we take kids’ temperatures when they enter our classes and ask kids to
Read moreThe School of Humanity is organizing another 'Jobs of the Future' online bootcamp for kids ages 14-18 on Wednesday, December 15th from 14:00 - 15:30 CET. Register here. *** Last weekend, NewTechKids' Founder Deborah Carter observed an online bootcamp for high school students ages 14-18 organized by the School of Humanity. During the session, teens from around the world explored the theme of 'The Jobs of the Future'. The School of Humanity is an exciting startup
Read morePlaying to boys' interests starts early, sadly often in coding and computer science classes at the primary school level. The temptation is to focus on diving into the ultra-geeky, more masculine activities to showcase all of the cool stuff you can do with tech. Race car robots. Monster robots. Space warrior robots. Etcetera. But that's exactly when teachers make the biggest mistakes in terms of excluding many girls who are yet to discover the magic
Read moreNewTechKids is thankful to Adyen, the global payments platform, for its generous donation of refurbished laptops for use during our tech education bootcamps. We will use them to bring computer science education to more schools, libraries and childcare centres. Deborah Carter, Founder and Business Director of NewTechKids, says "Adyen's donation comes at the perfect time. We were due for an upgrade as we've been using the same computers and tablets for a number of years.
Read moreThis summer, NewTechKids collaborated with the Amsterdam Public Library and Maakplaats021 to make our summer camps accessible to children from low-income families. As part of the City of Amsterdam's Midzomer Mokum event series, we taught a series of six, weekly tech bootcamps for kids ages 8-12. With funding from the Library, we offered heavily-subsidized places to kids with a Stadspas, a card which helps people with low incomes or on state pensions access arts, culture and
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