By: Over the past several years, Digital Adventures has worked to develop an education technology platform designed for kids who we believe are the emerging technologists that focuses on teaching our students to build with technology independently so they could one day change the world with their innovations and inventions.
While, we’ve had great success in terms of the number of students we’ve worked with, the feedback we’ve received, and the outcomes we’ve generated; we are always looking for opportunities to improve and enhance our product. In fact, one of our core values and something we are always striving for is continuous improvement.
Beginning this fall, we are launching an entirely new product, Brain Sports, that we believe will make the experience at Digital Adventures even better.
Brain Sports as part of our competition track will incorporate the best elements of sports (training, competition, community) into an educational framework for our computer coding and engineering design classes that will further enhance our ability to teach kids how to build with technology.
Training
One of the best parts about sports and a principle that we will be leveraging heavily is the concept of developmental based training exercises in order to enable students to reach advanced levels of competence and expertise in their technology education.
Think of this as running laps or sprints to develop endurance for a wide variety of sports so that towards the end of the game, you are able to draw upon your reserve of energy and lung capacity that was built over time to win the game in the 4th quarter. Or, doing a series of muscle training exercises to improve your strength and capacity to hit the ball further and to key areas of the field in baseball.
Within Digital Adventures, our in class training program will be focused on aspects that are beneficial to improving student performance in computer coding and engineering design and may include practicing solving a Rubix cube to improve their logic or improving their words per minute in typing so they can complete their code faster or reading several lines of code to quickly identify bugs or errors or flowcharting the project on a whiteboard in advance of building to build fluency in algorithm design.
We also will incorporate our skills map and data analytics platform into our practice and training program to have students revisit concepts that they may not be as fluent in and working to have them get stronger in areas that they have already demonstrated competence in.
Competition
We believe that competition is a meaningful and helpful part of the journey for teaching kids to learn how to independently build with technology so they can one day change the world.
Whether it’s a first t-ball game or a varsity homecoming game, sports has done a great job at integrating competition in the form of games into the development of young athletes.
One of the best parts about competition is that it enables parents and participants to get a view of developmental progress relative to a peer group. This could be as simple as scrimmaging your teammates towards the end of a practice, playing a fun game like HORSE, or a playoff game against a bitter rival.
Insight into developmental progress also provides a benchmark for what one is doing well and what one needs to improve upon.
And, let’s face it competitions are fun to participate in and fun to watch. One element that we believe is important is that students continue to have fun while learning.
However, we believe that competition shouldn’t just be done because we think they are interesting. Instead, competitions must be consistent with the milestones and activities that are important to the overall development of the participant.
As a result, Digital Adventures is going to be introducing technology-themed hack-a-thons for our students to compete in at the end of every season - fall, winter, spring and summer.
During the fall season which begins October 1st, we will host our first hack-a-thon in December for 2 different tracks - Virtual Reality | Video Game Design & Awesome Machines | Robotics. The hack-a-thon will incorporate both individual and team based activities into an event that we think we be enjoyable for everyone.
Community
From the kids who play the game to the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and community members who attend the games to show support, one of the great aspects of sports is the community that develops around it.
Whether it is basketball, baseball, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball, golf or tennis, the community pushes the participating individuals and teams to get better.
While there can be times where members of the community get beyond their skis by exhibiting poor behavior, the community is there to reign in these deviant behaviors and remind participants that being a good sport is bigger than the actual game being played.
The technology industry specifically has struggled with community-minded inclusiveness over the past few years. One of the reasons why we believe that this has occurred is that there isn’t an overarching values that has been developed. Most of technology has been focused on innovation and disruption. While this accurately captures the thinking and execution needed to move the ball forward, it doesn’t really address the broader framework within what happens as you prioritize outcomes above all else especially that of the human participants.
Sports is unique in that the values of teamwork, fairness, collegiality, and inclusiveness underpin at the very foundation the games that are played. We believe that this community-driven framework will be hugely beneficial in the development of the next generation of innovators and inventors so that all will feel welcome regardless of socioeconomic background, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation.
This also opens up the opportunity for other for-profit and non-profit organizations to partner with Digital Adventures in building an amazing educational environment for our future technology leaders.
Similar to how there were many different martial arts studios in Karate Kid. But, they were all able to come together during the competition to demonstrate their competence in the field of study.
We are very excited to see how Brain Sportscomes together over the next few months and are looking forward to your feedback on how we can further improve the experience for our students.
See you during our inaugural season which kicks off in October!