NEWS$show=/search/label/news

Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.

REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review

Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family. There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for? We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.

GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.

PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project

Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.

STEM$show=/search/label/stem

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.

CODING$show=/search/label/coding

Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.

ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics

We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware. Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions. Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.

ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics

We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.

MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making

We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun. The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something. We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.

The Tessera - A Computational Thinking Game for Teens


The Tessera is a free to play online story-based educational game to teach computational thinking to teenagers. Computational thinking is the set of skills you need to go from a problem to a computer system that solves it. This is an important skill-set that is needed along with coding.

The game has a spookily atmospheric storyline which is communicated by Ada Lovelace. It has a Victorian steampunk aesthetic with fantastic graphics.

Note: The Tessera is partially funded by the National Science Foundation, and is a collaboration between teams at Brigham Young University, the University of Maryland, Tinder Transmedia, and the Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA.)


Trailer

 The Tessera - An Alternate Reality Game from Tinder Transmedia on Vimeo.

Review

The game is designed to be used in classrooms (or live sessions at the Computer History Museum) but can also be played at home.

I've played through quite a bit of the game and it's very well put together. It's difficult. Some levels are easier if you have a small team of players but thinking is required. The puzzles require logical thinking to solve problems within a limited time.

The game is designed for teens aged 13-15 and that seems about the right age, with it also being relevant to older players. My older son who is almost 11 enjoyed playing through part of the game with me. He was very capable of solving the puzzles once he understood what was required (and faster than me in some kinds of thinking!) but didn't want to repeat puzzles when the time ran out. Resilience is needed!

There's a chat feature where players can ask for clues if they get stuck and where you can find some hints if needed.

It's important to note that while the educational aspect of the game is deep, other aspects have not been neglected. The story is compelling and the graphics are excellent. As an adventure game (and I've played a lot!) it comes out pretty well.

Throughout the game you collect cards that tell you about important characters from the history of computing and technology. The creators have really made the effort to pull together a diverse set of influencers. We think it's important for young people to understand where today's technology came from so this is a great feature. (As a player, I really wanted to find all the cards and see who they had included!)

The game also requires you to go outside the game and find information in a few places which I really liked.

Does the Tessera teach computational thinking? Well, there's certainly plenty of pattern recognition and pattern matching, problem decomposition, efficiency, accuracy, algorithm design and logical thinking. This is actually the case in a lot of adventure games and escape the room style games. The computing link is much more explicit here with problems having a clearer link to techniques and concepts that are used in computer science. The game itself doesn't explicitly teach you computational thinking skills (though they can be introduced explicitly in a classroom setting with the game) but it definitely provides the opportunity to discover and practice them and importantly, to find out if you enjoy that style of thinking.

There's a Tessera Guide for Educators which explains the game and how to obtain additional resources for classroom use.

While coding is a useful skill, it's a small part of computing and it's great to see the increasing focus on computational thinking.

Website: thetessera.org



24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: The Tessera - A Computational Thinking Game for Teens
The Tessera - A Computational Thinking Game for Teens
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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children
https://www.techagekids.com/2017/09/the-tessera-computational-thinking-game.html
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