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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Super happy to announce our newest NewTechKids advisor: Phil Rynearson (aka Mr. Phil). Phil is a technology teacher in Early Childhood Education at the American School of The Hague in the Netherlands. He gained valuable experience as a classroom teacher for 17 years before devoting the last eight years to supporting students and teachers in finding authentic and empowering methods of integrating technology into school settings. He has worked in public schools in the United States
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On November 19, 2018, NewTechKids hosted a delegation of researchers from the Education departments of University of Helsinki, University of Turku and University of Tampere here in the Netherlands. During the meetings, we shared our pedagogy, teaching approaches and concept scaffolding strategies related to introducing technological innovation, computer science and programming to young primary school students. We also discussed potential research collaboration. As part of the visit, the delegation visited an international school where NewTechKids has
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NewTechKids is pleased to announce that we are continuing our collaboration with the American School of The Hague (ASH) to introduce computer science into the School's curriculum. During Fall 2018, we will be working closely with the School's primary education staff (IT Coordinator, Technology Integrationist and several classroom teachers) to develop a general framework for computer science education. This includes identifying important concepts to be taught, determining the order and learning format in which these
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NewTechKids is proud to be supporting our non-profit counterpart, Stichting NewTechKids, to kick off a teacher training program which begins on Wednesday, January 17th. Twenty-five teachers from Dutch and international primary schools in the Netherlands have been carefully vetted and selected to participate in this program aimed at helping schools introduce computer science, technological literacy and computational thinking to their students. Designed for teachers who have never taught technology or coding-related classes before, this training
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Deborah Carter, NewTechKids’ Co-founder, will give one of the keynote talks at IPON 2018 on February 7th. IPON is the Netherlands’ leading conference/trade show devoted to innovation in education and ICT applications and services. The event showcases teaching methods, learning materials and tools, hardware and software. In 2015, Deborah gave a widely-acclaimed TED talk about the importance of introducing computer science and technology education as mandatory subjects, beginning in primary school. At the time, a documentary
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Like most technology education academies, NewTechKids struggles to attract equal numbers of girls and boys to our programs. There are a lot of reasons for this. Most of the time, parents don't even present computer science and programming activities as options for their daughters. They conclude that computer science 'isn’t a fit' for their daughters although it's often 'perfect' for their sons. Girls themselves have told us that learning about technology is hard and often
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Calling all trailblazer teachers! Do you want to join a community of primary school teachers from Dutch and international primary schools who will be among the first in the Netherlands to introduce computer science and computational thinking lessons in their schools? Stichting NewTechKids (NewTechKids' non-profit counterpart) is offering a select group of teachers the opportunity to attend a FREE teacher training program. (Normal price: 2000 euro plus 21% BTW per teacher.) Designed for teachers who
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NewTechKids has been invited to contribute to VHTO’s new teacher training initiative, DigiLeerKracht. The initiative will focus on providing free training and support for primary school teachers in the Netherlands who are interested in teaching computational thinking in the context of programming. The initiative aims to train 2000 teachers from 2017 - 2019. The initiative is supported by Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google. VHTO is the Dutch national expert organization focused on the participation
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In our quest to introduce computer science and technological literacy education in primary school, we often hear the same excuse as to why this is difficult to impossible: teachers already have enough on their plate. Introducing a new subject will overwhelm them, causing their overall teaching to decline in quality. So many countries find themselves in the same position: we know that we need to prepare children to function in a world filled with technology
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