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
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 ...
Something important was MISSING at Parent-Teacher Conferences
This week, we had parent-teacher conferences at my children’s school. During parent-teacher conferences, we go through what is going well and what could be improved with my kid’s educational journey. Typically, at my kid’s school, there is a conference during the fall and spring. It’s always good to have 30-60 minutes to spend with my kid’s teachers. Thankfully, both of my kids are doing well ...
Hey Ivanka, Here’s The Blueprint for Making a Maker
Recently, the administration led by Ivanka Trump announced that they would annually commit $200 million to increasing access to high quality STEM education. The primary goal of this funding is to better prepare students for the high-paying jobs of tomorrow. The main gap that this funding is trying to solve for is the lack of access to computer science coursework within schools along with the di...
Amazon Should Select Second City – Chicago – For 2nd HQ
Amazon recently announced that they are seeking a home for their second headquarters – HQ2. In the request for proposal (RFP) , Amazon plans to hire up to 50,000 employees with an average annual compensation of more than $100K within 10-15 years. From a capital expenditures standpoint, Amazon plans to spend $5B on this new headquarters. This means that the city Amazon picks as their next home w...
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...
Keeping our Tech Talent in Chicago
We’re facing a generational crisis in our city. For the second year in a row, Chicago is the only one of America’s ten largest cities to see it's population decrease. Residents are leaving the entire Chicagoland area en masse, mostly for the Sun Belt states. The Chicago Tribune has found various reasons for this shift, including taxes, state budget issues, crime, the unemployment rate and weath...
Disrupting Your Child's Education
One of the most popular concepts when it relates to company performance is how they think about and integrate disruptive innovation into their business model. Many companies both large and small claim to be disruptive. In this post, we will consider disruptive innovation from an education perspective related to what kids are currently learning & how that content may be important to the futu...
Artificial Intelligence - Teaching Machines to Outsmart Humans
Over the past few weeks, there have been numerous articles on the topic of artificial intelligence: · For Superpowers, Artificial Intelligence Fuels New Global Arms Race – Wired· IBM Just committed $240 million to the Future of Artificial Intelligence – Futurism· Elon Musk: Artificial Intelligence battle ‘most likely cause’ of WWIII – USA Today· Elon Musk & M...
I wanna be like Mike!
When I was a kid, Gatorade came out with this popular commercial entitled, “I wanna be like Mike”. In the background of the commercial showing Michael Jordan making some unbelievable moves, the words that played were –‘sometimes I dream that he is me, you’ve got to see that’s how I dream to be, like Mike….if I could be like Mike’. Michael Jordan was an amazing, once in a generation, sports phen...
Inventing the future
Millions of children around the country are returning to school; these new beginnings inevitably cause us to think about their future. As we see them off, we realize that they are a little older, a little wiser and full of enormous potential. As parents, guardians and educators, we also spend a lot of time thinking about how we best prepare our children for success. Not only do we think about ...
Beware the naysayers.....
Earlier this week, an article came out in the Globe and Mail entitled, “Coding for kids: another silly fad”. The author argues that while coding is the basis for giving instructions for a computer that most of us do not have to learn it any more than you have to understand an engine to drive a car or indoor plumbing to use a toilet. The writer then goes on to argue that the technology industry...
Inspired by Kids, Powered by Parents
“I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.” – Whitney Houston At Digital Adventures, we are fortunate to be in a position to prepare the next generation to have a big impact using technology as their platform. In the process, they will help make the world a better place for all of us. As we continue to build the business, I thought it would be good to re...
Learning to code is no accident
Since founding Digital Adventures and working with hundreds of kids on thousands of projects, we’ve discovered a fundamental truth; kids just want to play and build cool stuff they can show off to their friends and family. Our educational approach is based on accidental (or incidental) learning, and is designed to facilitate a dual purpose – enabling kids to have fun while they are learning. Ac...
10 Tips to Keep Your Kid Safe Online - Part 3
In this series, we will highlight 10 tips to help start the conversation around protecting our children in a digitally enabled world. The 1st part of the series focused on screen time, browser history checks and social media monitoring. In the 2nd part of the series, we will dig into being aware of illegal behavior, cyber-bullying and virus protection. For the 3rd and final part of the series, ...
10 Tips to Keep Your Kid Safe Online - Part 2
In this series, we will highlight 10 tips to help start the conversation around protecting our children in a digitally enabled world. The 1st part of the series focused on screen time, browser history checks and social media monitoring. In the 2nd part of the series, we will dig into being aware of illegal behavior, cyber-bullying and virus protection:Awareness of illegal behavior As the world ...