As a middle school computer science teacher, I tell my 8th graders learning how to code helps them prepare for a world of work that doesn’t exist yet. Some students had experience using free coding activities for kids before stepping into my classroom while others were brand new to programming. Throughout the year, I loved…
Coding
How to Teach Coding and Robotics to Middle Schoolers
This post is sponsored by Wonder Workshop In the past few years we’ve seen growing emphasis on STEM education and rightfully so. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “over 800,000 new STEM jobs were added to the U.S. economy” between May 2009 and May 2015.” “Computer occupations made up nearly 45 percent of STEM…
How to Teach Kids to Code with Let’s Start Coding
This post and giveaway is sponsored by There’s no doubt that there’s a need for today’s generation of kids to develop confidence in and mastery of STEM skills as we look towards the kinds of jobs that will be a part of their future but one challenge that many parents face is getting their kids…
Ways Kids Can Create Content to Learn New Skills During Summer Screen Time
This post includes affiliate links Summer is here and if you’re already facing battles managing screen time in your home, take a moment and ask yourself what your child is doing when they’re in front of the screen. It’s one thing if they’re consuming content, it’s another if they’re being productive. Screens can be fantastic…
Female Teams Compete in #WITDemoDay and Share Solutions to Inspire Girls of Color to Learn to Code
This is a sponsored post Yesterday eleven groups of women and their male allies presented technology solutions that were designed to support women and girls in tech as part of the first ever Women in Tech #WITDemoDay. Teams were asked to create products that would inspire more girls of color to learn coding and inspire…
2015 Microsoft #ImagineCup World Final Winners
What if all of your hard work came down to a single moment? For many of us, success is gradual and certainly this is true for each of the 33 teams who competed in multiple rounds of competition before arriving in Redmond, Washington last week for the global competition known as the Microsoft Imagine Cup…
Join Microsoft #ImagineCup 2015 World Championship LIVE Today at 3 pm ET / Noon PT
Today is the day where the top technology projects in Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship categories battle it out for the glory of being the Imagine Cup 2015 World Champion. Join in via the live webcast to see the three top teams battle it out before a panel of judges that includes Thomas Middleditch, star of…
An Inside Look at the 2015 Microsoft Imagine Cup #ImagineCup #MSFTImagine
As Plato said, “Necessity is the mother of invention” and yesterday Emily and I got to see amazing inventions during the first day of the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition where 122 students on 33 teams from around the world presented their ideas in the fields of Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship. As they competed for the top…
Seattle Bound for the 2015 Microsoft Imagine Cup Global Competition #ImagineCup #MSFTImagine
Do you have a technological advancement that can help solve the world’s problems? This week 33 teams from around the world are converging at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington to showcase their original projects that have brought them to the Imagine Cup World Championship. Up until this point, these teams of four students, ages…
How to Get Kids Interested in Coding & 7 Free Resources That Teach How to Code
This post was written as part of a compensated partnership with Microsoft Over the weekend I sat down, flipped through The Washington Post, and was immediately drawn to a piece in the Opinion section titled “Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous.” Obsession? Dangerous? STEM? I can’t say that I ever thought that those…
