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
Featured Posts
Will your child survive the automation economy?
Recently, we have seen more and more evidence that jobs typically done by humans are now being automated. From self-driving cars under development by Uber, Lyft, GM, Tesla, Ford & Toyota to automated kiosks being rolled out at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Panera. Research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Economics Professor, David Autor, shows that middle-skill jobs like bookkeeping,...
How Learning to Code Can Help Develop a Growth Mindset
In 2014, Carol Dweck published findings based on two decades of research on growth versus fixed mindsets amongst individuals and organizations. Her research found that those who believe their talents can be developed over time have a growth mindset while those who believe their talents are innate gifts and therefore stable across time have a fixed mindset. Individuals with a growth mindset tend...
Let’s get girls excited about coding again!
Although, it may be hard to imagine given the current gender disparities in computer science, women have not only played a major role in the development of the field but also continue to exhibit leadership and product development innovation in technology-driven companies of the future. Amazing Contributions by Women in Computer Science In the mid-1800’s Ada Lovelace wrote the instructions for ...
Chicago Public Schools Mandates Computer Science Graduation Requirement for Class of 2020
On February 24th, 2016, the board of education for Chicago Public Schools unanimously mandated computer science as a graduation requirement for the Class of 2020. The context behind the decision is based on data that estimates a gap of 1 million job openings by 2024 versus colleges/universities that graduated approximately 40,000 students annually (2015). Structurally, the way the graduation re...
What We Saw @ The Consumer Electronics Show: Cool New Education Technologies
Digital Adventures had an opportunity to visit the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year. This annual show brings together nearly 200,000 industry professionals, journalists, researchers and the general public to learn about the latest and greatest products from a wide-variety of manufacturers. From connected cars to virtual reality, there were a number of very cool technologies on d...
Happy 2016 - 2015 Year In Review
2015 was a big year for Digital Adventures. We opened the doors to our 1st learning studio in the Village of Wilmette and received such a positive reception that we began planning for our 2nd location in the Village of Oak Park. Below are some facts that we hope you will find interesting about our 1st several months in our North Shore Location. We are looking forward to building upon our succes...
4 Key Benefits to Learning Coding In a Classroom
Digital Adventures utilizes an instructor-led, classroom-based model for our coding classes for kids.There are 4 key reasons why we believe this approach is beneficial for our students. Getting Unstuck One of the biggest obstacles when learning a new subject, like coding, is how to get unstuck when faced with an unforeseen challenge. Without the ability to quickly understand where one went wro...
Use a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich to Introduce Coding to Your Kid
When you provide a computer with a set of instructions (lines of code) to execute, the machine does not have the ability to interpret context or ask questions to gain additional clarity like we humans do; the computer simply does exactly what it is told. To illustrate this concept, we are going to have your child (programmer) write down the instructions to make-a-sandwich and the parent (comput...
Why Learning to Code Matters
In 2011, Marc Andressen wrote a popular article in the WSJ entitled 'Why Software Is Eating The World'. In the article, Marc argues that large sections of the global economy are set to be overtaken by software enabled solutions/companies. More recently, Code.org has projected that by 2020, 1 million computer science jobs will go unfilled because we aren't graduating enough students from our uni...
Why Coding Is Your Child's Key to Unlocking the Future via Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-coding-is-your-childs-key-to-unlocking-the-future-1430080118------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the Author: Omowale Casselle ([email protected]) is the Co-founder & CEO of Digital Adventures. Prior to Digital Adventures, Omowale led the development, launch & management of an intera...
Our approach to teaching coding to kids
My first exposure to coding was as a freshman in college. I had registered for an Intro to Computer Science course and was excited to learn more about the wonderful world of technology. During our first lab session, we were asked to open a text editor and instructed to type lines of code from the textbook. While I certainly got better at typing, it didn't make me very excited about learning ho...
Coding - The New Language of Business
Throughout history, language and communication are what has helped separate human beings from other creatures. It is our ability to communicate that has enabled us to design, develop, and launch amazing inventions. Yet, there is one language that isn't widely available for study. That language is coding. Over the next several years, we are hopeful that coding/programming will be introduced into...
HELLO WORLD!
This is the start of a wonderful adventure. Thanks for joining us! We will use this space to keep our parents and early learners updated on what's going on with Digital Adventures.