We often tell our students that technology, whether devices or software, wasn't invented in a day. The phone, TV or gaming console that they use was developed over years by multiple people and is still being improved upon now. All invention processes start with protototyping. Inventors create a quick and dirty object and then test and refine it. There's often a lot of failure involved and inventors need to develop resilience to keep trying and
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Playing 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
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Another great resource for teaching technology literacy to children is the 'Zerus and Ona: Adventures in the Binary World' book series developed by Miriam Tocino. Miriam is a software developer, coding teacher, illustrator and author based in Amsterdam. The inspiration for her book series came three years ago when she had her son and started thinking about how to introduce him to the world of computers. She uses characters called Zerus and Ona which are based on binary 0s and
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"I personally hate to code. I understand how beneficial it is but to me, if engineering was projected as coding and robotics, it wouldn't be something that suits me." In this PreparationTech interview produced by NewTechKids, Danielle Geathers, a third-year Engineering student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the first black, female President of the Undergraduate Association at MIT (student government) in 159 years, advises parents, teachers and school counsellors to focus on teaching
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Deborah Carter, NewTechKids' Founder, Director and occasional teacher, was recently featured in a special supplement about technology and child welfare on February 26, 2020 in het Parool, one of the Netherlands' major newspapers. In it, she shared her experience and opinions on topics ranging ranging screen usage, gaming and how to teach kids about computer science, programming and robotics to engage a more inclusive group of students, including girls. Read article in Dutch. Here's a
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During our Fall school vacation camp (October 21-25, 2019), kids ages 7-12 explored the theme of climate change while learning about computer science, programming, design and digital fabrication. NewTechKids' strategy was to highlight this topic which is on everyone's mind and constantly in the news, showcase how technology is being used to solve climate change problems, teach basic computer science concepts and challenge kids to design and prototype their own solutions. We partnered with Maakplaats021,
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On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, Deborah Carter, NewTechKids' Founder, will speak at the WiT (Women in Tech) Regatta in Amsterdam. She'll be participating in a panel discussion on the theme "Busting the Myth: Why Girls Don't Participate in STEM and How to Cruise Ahead". The panel will explore if it's true that girls are less interested in technology and pursuing technology-related studies and if so, what can be done to change this. She'll draw on
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From February 9-12, 2019, Amsterdam will host one of the most exciting events focused on new approaches to learning and education. Hosted by the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (the Amsterdam Public Library) in partnership with the eLearning Industry Group (ELIG), the 'Brave New Learning' conference will bring together experts from around the world to tackle four main themes: 21st century skills, learning by making, learning communities and augmented learning. NewTechKids Workshop: 'How to Raise a Tech
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Ten days left until NewTechKids' 'How to Raise a Tech Innovator' evening class for parents on January 30th. The class takes place from 19:00 - 21:00 at the central branch of the Amsterdam Public Library. Register now! We thought we'd share some interesting findings from the registration information provided by parents who will attend the class. 100%: parents of boys (The fact that no parents of girls have signed up for the class is unfortunate.
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For more than four years, NewTechKids has focused on teaching computer science bootcamps to children ages seven to 12. We're very proud to have been one of the first companies to focus on this age range in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands. But we're moving into a new era where we need to take active steps to influence and re-shape the technology industry we have. For us, this means taking a long, hard look at
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