Next week, NewTechKids will begin our second year of teaching digital literacy programs at Wereldwijs primary school in Amsterdam Southeast. We learned a lot from teaching all 650 students in groups 1-8 (ages 4-12 on average). We taught the youngest students in Dutch and the older students in a combination of Dutch and English. Here are some of our takeaways: Our youngest students are using apps which should not be legally available to them. Students
Read more
Yesterday was hot in Amsterdam! It rose to 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) in the classroom where we teaching and there is no air conditioning. We had planned a digital literacy lesson for four classes of students ages 6-8 focused on software: how the app store works and the role that branding and logos play in online usage. Students were supposed to use iPads to make a series of sketches during a series of
Read more
NewTechKids is honoured to have kicked off the second edition of a Maker education initiative in Amsterdam called 'Plusklas voor Elk Kind' (Gifted Class for Every Child). Spearheaded by the Mokum Maakcoalitie, a group of maker education organizations led by the Amsterdam Public Library and its Maakplaats021 team, the initiative provides all students in groups 5, 6 and 7 at the Burgemeester de Vlugtschool with a year of Maker classes. This school is located in Amsterdam
Read more
NewTechKids is collaborating with Metis Montessori Lyceum, a high school in Amsterdam, to plan a student trip to Silicon Valley in February 2023. Thirty-five students in Metis' Coderklas will be visiting Big Tech companies as well as companies in different industries which are being transformed by technology. Students will visit Google, NASA, Blue River Technology and other organizations where they will meet leaders and technologists. This is another great way in which students can learn
Read more
NewTechKids is excited to join an expert research group which is exploring how critical making (maker education tied to the ability to evaluate the consequences, implications and ethics of technology) encourages students to be active and informed digital citizens. The project is being spearheaded by Waag, a Dutch futurelab which critically examines technology, develops technological and social design skills, and encourages social innovation, in partnership with the Rathenau Institute, a Dutch research institute which researches
Read more
Nothing makes the NewTechKids team happier than showing the world what our students invent during our classes. This week, our classes for primary school students focused on space exploration, largely because the topic really ignites the imagination of kids. Plus, there's tons of great multimedia content to excite them: movies, video games, books, etc. We kept our class challenges pretty broad and provided a scenario that like Matt Damon in 'The Martian' movie, they have
Read more
NewTechKids is honoured to have been chosen to develop the agenda for the Erasmus+ sponsored program welcoming 50 Danish high school students to the Netherlands in early October. These students are studying business and retail at EUC Nordvest, a school which provides innovative vocational education in northern Denmark. During the 'Destination Amsterdam' visit, students (ages 16, 17 and 18) from EUC Nordvest, will learn how Dutch innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability and culture are re-shaping the
Read more
This week, NewTechKids had a dream gig: taking over two classes of primary school students in grades 7 and 8 at the Montessori Kind Centrum Zeeburgereiland for three days and teaching a project-based, computer science bootcamp. We were participating as a member of the Mokum Maakcoalitie, a network of organizations in Amsterdam dedicated to Maker education, which is coordinated by Maakplaats021 and the Amsterdam Public Library. NewTechKids and five other organizations took over teaching responsibilities from the
Read more
NewTechKids is pleased to be partnering with PreparationTech to help recruit tech companies in Amsterdam to offer three to five day internships for high school students at Ignatius Gymnasium in Amsterdam. The internships, for students ages 15-17 (groups 4 and 5), will take place in early May. Internships can be at technology companies or organizations whose primary focus is something else but rely on technology to produce, communicate, deliver content and serve customers. Focus areas
Read more
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
Read more