With Big Tech and businesses increasingly targeting children in terms of advertising, marketing, sales, data mining and surveillance, NewTechKids encourages parents, caregivers and teachers to start thinking more critically about how technology impacts children and teens. We are one of the supporters of the Dutch Code for Children's Rights in the Netherlands. Drawn up by the University of Leiden and the Waag and commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Code outlines 10
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Recently, the Washington Post published an interesting article titled 'This School Took Away Smartphones. The Kids Don’t Mind.' It was about Buxton School, a small boarding school in Massachusetts which has banned smartphones from campus. Teachers have also agreed not to use theirs. Everyone has been given a Light Phone, a minimalist phone which is only used for essential communication. So far, teachers say that students are more engaged in class and students say the ban
Read moreThe best, most future-proof skill that parents, caregivers and teachers can impart to kids is "learning how to learn" and mastering different ways of learning. As such, NewTechKids is organizing 'Try It Out' workshops on Saturday, January 15th and Sunday, January 16th for kids ages 8-12 at the Amsterdam Public Library. The workshops will take place each day from 13:00 - 14:30 and 15:00 - 16:30. Spaces are limited. Register here. During these workshops, we'll
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 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 proud to support PreparationTech in promoting its Black History Month 2021 video interview series featuring Black role models doing impactful things in and with technology. During the month of February 2021, PreparationTech will publish daily video interviews which celebrate inspiring Black people, including: Arlan Hamilton, who while homeless, founded a venture capital firm which finances tech companies run by Black people, people of colour, women and members of the LGBTQ community Ackeem Ngwenya,
Read morePreparation is Power! Especially for parents and caregivers, teachers and school guidance counselors helping guide kids in their study and career paths. NewTechKids is pleased to announce that we are supporting PreparationTech, a new online video platform which explores how technology is transforming study, training and work in every industry, field and discipline. (Deborah Carter, our founder, is the Managing Director of this non-profit foundation.) It showcases the personal stories of a diverse and inclusive group
Read moreLike computer science and programming, math is a polarizing subject. People either like it or they don't. At least that's what most people think. Thankfully, people like Dr. Jo Boaler, a professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, is busy challenging kids and teachers who don't like math to view it differently. Jo and her team at YouCubed, a non-profit startup, are busy transforming math education by developing new math teaching methods, lessons and teaching resources
Read moreAnother 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
Read more"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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