A version of this post promoting summer coding and making activities originally appeared on Iowa Tech Chicks with additional Iowa City/Cedar Rapids-specific information. Coding Code.org: Short Hour of Code activities to longer multipart courses. Start by building snowflakes with Elsa and Anna from Frozen and work up to learning JavaScript and creating phone apps. CodeAcademy: started […]
MakerKids: A Makerspace for Youth in Toronto
September 10, 2013
On a recent trip to Toronto, after a day at Camaraderie Coworking I went to the basement to explore MakerKids, a makerspace for kids in Toronto. What a delight! In addition to classes, birthday parties and summer camps for kids, they have open separate shop times for kids, teens and adults. I was there during […]
OAKTech: Kids Teaching Seniors Technology
April 1, 2013
A new library class series, OAKTech, Older Adults and Kids and Technology. Fifth and sixth graders from the Lego League teams at Lemme and Mann are teaching monthly classes to older adults about Skype, Google Maps and iPads
STEM Program Ideas for Libraries
December 13, 2012
There are a lot of great STEM program ideas out there. In addition to ongoing Tech Club and CoderDojo programs, here are some activities I am considering for the months ahead. Top of my list – Squishy Circuits! How awesome is this idea from St. Thomas University?! By using batches of both sugar-based and salt-based […]
Coding Club Update
October 13, 2012
Today is the second meeting of CoderDojo at the library. The first CoderDojo was a hit with 18 students Grades 4-9 spending two hours busily learning HTML5 and even a bit of CSS3. The mentors threw them right into programming which seemed to work well. Quite impressive how much they accomplished on their web pages! […]
Tech Club Offshoot: Coding Club for Kids
September 10, 2012
Kids Tech Club will continue as it did last year (six-week sessions focusing on free online tools for image editing, animation, QR codes, etc.), but it has developed and revealed another need. Space, age restrictions and the students’ growing skills mean that a follow-up opportunity was needed. I surveyed the summer participants and learned that […]
Image Editing for Kids
June 5, 2012
I’m gearing up for the Kids Tech Camp in a couple of weeks. That means it’s time to sort through my bookmarks and favourite sites like Free Technology for Teachers and SMS Tech Club decide what new tools to incorporate into this session. The focus is on free, no-registration-required tools. Not because my library doesn’t […]
Kids Tech Club Winter Session
March 15, 2012
The second session of Kids Tech Club finished last week. Based on what I saw as well as feedback from both the kids and their parents, the kids had fun and learned a lot. Yay! Here’s what this session looked like including links to the tools we used. Week 1: Online Safety, Image Editing (using […]
Weekly Roundup: Kids Tech Sites, March 5
March 6, 2012
Want to see your face on a dollar bill? or Chinese yuan? or Norwegian kroner? Festisite Money makes it easy. I thought chainmail (from a Magic Thief program) was a good accompaniment to Norwegian money. This is the kind of easy-to-learn tool Kids Tech Club loves playing with if they arrive early. Kids are more […]
Cedar Rapids Mini Maker Faire Memories
February 26, 2012
A change of pace for this Sunday’s tech for kids post. Yesterday, along with some teen boys and another mother I went to the Mini-Maker Faire in Cedar Rapids. It wasn’t the scale of the big Maker Faires in San Francisco, Detroit, Kansas City, etc. you may have seen on PBS and in other media, […]