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
Opportunity in every difficulty
“A pessimist sees the difficult in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill When we read quotes like this, we often want ourselves and our children to be more like the optimist. Oftentimes, this has to do with either how we’ve seen pessimists create such a negative environment in the workplace that often nothing can get done once someone has ...
Does technology development have a responsibility to be ethical?
For the past several months, news stories about the impact of technology on society have been front and center. From concerns about the addictive nature of smartphones from Apple and social media applications like Facebook and Twitter to the broader impact of technology on politics including the ability for the popular platforms to be manipulated or the possibility that gig economy tools like U...
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 ...
Jobs of the Future Will Require More Technology Acumen
Early in my career, performance reviews often included discussions on business acumen. As a classically-trained engineer, I often thought it was a bit of a stretch that I should be required to have a depth of knowledge in both engineering and business. However, employers do not have time for philosophical debates on what someone should or should not be expected to know; instead, they often focu...
4 Groundbreaking Black Panther Technologies & Launch Predictions
(Spoiler Alert: This blog post will highlight technologies included with the recently launched movie - Black Panther. If you haven't seen the movie, bookmark this page and come back and see us after you've watched the movie).Black Panther is set in the fictional east African nation of Wakanda. Wakanda is externally perceived to be a poor 3rd world country. In reality, it is the most technologic...
3 Great Lessons the SpaceX Rocket Launch Offers for Kids
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay This past week, SpaceX launched a test of their Falcon Heavy Rocket – the most powerful rocket in the world. By all accounts, the test was a huge success. In fact, you may have seen a video clip of the Falcon Heavy booster rockets synchronized return to land. You may have also seen that instead of the traditional concrete block t...
The Enduring Myth of Self-Teaching & Self-Directed Learning
Recently, I was reading an article entitled, “How this self-taught 14-year-old kid became an AI expert for IBM”. Curious, I clicked in to learn more about how anyone, much less a young kid, could self-teach himself a complicated subject like artificial intelligence. As it turns out, his dad was a computer programmer who began exposing his son to technology at a very young age (5 years old). Fro...
Making Sense of Screen Time - A Parent's Guide
It seems as if every other week, a new article or study is coming out providing guidance on the appropriate use of screen time for kids: Screen Time for Kids is Awful – And I Can’t Live Without It (Wall Street Journal), What if Children Should be Spending More Time with Screens? (Wall Street Journal) or Children are Tech Addicts - And Schools Are the Pushers (The Guardian). One of the biggest ...
The Future of Education - Innovator's Edition
It is often interesting to forecast future states. When will self-driving cars become commonplace? When will extra-terrestrial vacations become trendy? When will wi-fi work in every part of my house? These questions and ultimately future outcomes are closely tied to education. In a sense, education is the fundamental building block of future innovation. In 1967, Seymour Papiert and his team in...
Celebrating 50 Years of Teaching Kids to Code
During computer science education week, Google launched an interactive doodle to celebrate 50 years since the introduction of the 1st coding language for kids – Logo. As part of the interactive doodle, Google worked with a few internal teams along with an external partner, MIT who developed the very popular Scratch language. The Google doodle which uses a rabbit as a character seeks to emulate ...
2018 – Make the days, hours & minutes count
Happy New Year! For the past 2 weeks, my kids have been on holiday break from school. During this time, we have had an opportunity to spend a lot of time together as a family. From going to see movies out to teaching them about how economics work and even having them help out on a home renovation project, it’s been really awesome. As we kick-off 2018, the past 2 weeks have been a great reminder...
Future of Technology Predictions: 2028 Edition
As the end of 2017 concludes, it is often interesting to look ahead and think about what is to come. Oftentimes, around this time of the year, we get predictions for the subsequent year: 2018. However, at Digital Adventures, we thought it would be more interesting to look 10 years out when most of our students will begin to enter college or start their professional careers. So, without further ...
Practice is a key element of learning to build with technology
This week, I had the opportunity to attend my kid’s annual holiday sign at their school. During the performance, the audience was treated to songs with the band, orchestra and chorus. It was amazing! Both of my school-aged children are playing a new instrument this year. So, I want to rewind back to the beginning of the school year when they first received their instruments. At that point, it w...
Inventing the Next Big Thing
Over the last several decades, we have witnessed groundbreaking technological innovations that underpinned market leading companies. These companies were initially envisioned by teams of technologist who have a vision for the future along with the capabilities to make their vision a reality. What were the commonalities of these companies? Is there anything the next generation can learn from the...
The secret roadmap to asking your kids better questions
As a parent, you want to make sure that you're staying involved in your child's education, and that you're encouraging them to think deeply about the content that they're learning. Every parent has had the experience of helping their kids with homework, and wondering if they could be doing more. How great would it be to have a tool that supercharges these conversations with your kids? I want to...