The Digital Adventures Blog
For parents, educators and students to discuss tech education for kids, best practices for teaching coding & engineering design to kids & emerging technology trends
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Digital Adventures - You're Fired!
As we think about our privileged role in the development of the technical education of the next generation, our ultimate goal is for students and their parents to fire us. In order for us to part ways, we focus on 3 key areas while working with our students. Our goal is for our students to develop their independence in building with technology, understand how to make their ideas real and learni...
4 Tips to Prevent Summer Technology Learning Loss
As we near the end of the school year, teachers, students and parents are ready for a well-deserved break. However, between trips to the swimming pool and Popsicle purchases from the ice cream truck; it is important that we don’t lose all the progress that was made during the school year. Academic studies summarize summer learning loss as having the following characteristics: (1) students’ achi...
Debunking the 5 Biggest Coding for Kids Myths
Within the coding for kids space, we keep ourselves educated on the emerging narrative. While there are passionate believers that this is an essential skill that is worthy of investment (time & resources), there are also those who don’t quite believe that coding is something that should be taught to children. Below, we have compiled the biggest coding for kids myths. Background Reading: 1 ...
5 Great Gift Ideas for STEM Loving Kids
It’s that time of year again! Frosty mornings, holiday traditions, and extravagant holiday super sales. With the plethora of marketing madness, it can be challenging to discern ripoffs from real deals, especially when it comes to tech gadgets for our kids. At Digital Adventures, we have the privilege to utilize many established and emerging products while we build amazing projects with our stud...
A Bicycle for the Mind
Prior to the mass adoption of the personal computer, the co-founder of Apple – Steve Jobs, described his vision for the utility of a computer as being like a bicycle for the mind. Steve Jobs was a great storyteller, he found ways to connect the dots between this new technology that would eventually become commonplace with a mode of transport that many have very fond memories of. I think one ...
Coding Helps Democratize the Next Generation
In a recent Guardian article, Ben Tarnoff claims that the tech industry’s push to teach coding is driven mainly by the capitalist class trying to cut programmer wages. He makes some leaps to get there, and the logic doesn’t quite hold up. To be fair, I would at least agree with Tarnoff that most of the arguments thrown around for teaching kids how to code revolve around economic success. Appea...
Born to Create - The Next Generation of Creative Artists
Right now, entrepreneurship or more specifically tech-based entrepreneurship is definitely en-vogue. This glamorization of what is a really tough calling has been building for years with the current generation. From the pioneers in the field like Bill Gates (Microsoft) to the modern day champions like Mark Zuckerberg (Snapchat), Jack Dorsey (Twitter) and Elon Musk (Tesla); it seems like entrepr...
5 Tips to Prevent Summer Learning Loss
This is an exciting time for lots of parents and students around the country. Some students will complete pre-K/Kindergarten and enter elementary school. Others will finish elementary school and begin middle school. Another group will finish middle school and enter high school. Regardless of whether there is a major shift from high school to college or intermediate step that involves advancing ...
Designing the perfect tech learning environment
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, the children are now working as if I did not exist.” – Maria Montessori One of the areas that we think a lot about is how to design the perfect learning environment for kids to learn how to solve problems by leveraging technology-based solutions. While we don’t claim to have all the answers, we do believe that we have found a cou...
3 Easy Ways to Keep Your Kids Engaged with Technology
As parents, we want the best for our kids. My wife and I will do anything and everything we can to help encourage and develop our kids to reach their full potential. Oftentimes, this means having them experiment with a lot of different extra-curricular activities until they find something that fits. Since my children are either in elementary or pre-K, we don’t believe that you can meaningfully ...
Fostering a 'Creator's Mindset' for your child!
Note: This blog post originally appeared as a guest post on the Meez Meals blog.“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” – Alan Kay, Computer Scientist While there are some who are busy imagining how the world might become a better place. There are others who are actively engaged in the creative process of building innovative solutions to make a dent in the universe – turning their ...
Belief | A Key Element of Learning to Code
“If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” – Henry Ford In educational environments, the above quote should be amended to reflect the impact of the instructor belief on a child’s internalized belief in their capabilities. Over the years, researchers have taken on the important question of teacher’s expectations within the academic environment. It is estimated that 5-...
Learning to Code at 35 years old
Throughout childhood, I enjoyed learning especially about any and all things electronic. From remote controls cars to VCR’s, I just had to take them apart and learn about what was inside. This of course led to many broken electronics around my home because while I was skilled at taking things apart, I wasn’t so great at putting them back together. Thankfully, my parents didn’t impede my learnin...
Should Digital Adventures launch a Kids’ Coding Hack-A-Thon?
In sports-based activities, there is typically a portion of the week focused on practice or skill development that concludes with an exhibition (game). Since games have a binary outcome (win or lose), it enables participants to learn what they need to focus on during the following week in order to continue developing their skills. Over the course of the season, kids play a series of games befo...
Making a Maker!
Humans have an innate disposition towards innovating. Whether it is figuring out how to keep ourselves warm and cooking our food by building fire or reducing the time it takes to travel to distant geographies through the automobile or airplanes, we have become good at finding elegant solutions to difficult problems.In kids, it is especially enjoyable to watch the development of makers in action...