We are opening our blog this week, as we continue to develop and expand our website. The purpose of these passages will be to communicate our didactic priorities, views on technological advancement and longer, more detailed descriptions of our upcoming plans/ events.
CodeCraze, LLC is a small maker space devoted to coding instruction, robotics and expression through technology. We also offer web design and web hosting for local merchants, artisans, writers and others desiring a dynamic online presence. We are family run and fully independent of any learning institution or marketed curriculum. As former university faculty members, we have established exactly what we desired for our own children- a space to explore, dream, build and share! We value education first and hope to give our students the tools and skills needed to gain confidence in their expression. In our small classes of similarly aged children and blossoming adults, we push the why factor. Whether we are building tiny motorized robots or working through the code for a new app, our focus is on why this task is important for the moment and how it is applicable to other settings. For example, in our robotics instruction, we may talk about construction and sensors and how they communicate with small programs that we have written to instruct our bots, but we also look at how sensors are critical in real life car production, and how Tesla can produce self-driving cars.
As a mother, I do not want my children to believe that technology is magic. I do not want them to play video games and simply accept that when we want things, we order on Amazon. This disassociation from the process of creation leads to blind consumption, and quick assumptions that really smart people sit somewhere in big business and make things to make us happy. I choose to push my children to build themselves, take apart, look inside, reconstruct and challenge themselves to understand how computers and machines work. I also believe that this is my responsibility as a mother on the cusp of the greatest technological revolution seen in modern times. How can I send my children off into a world where jobs long valued as ‘safe’ career tracks will suddenly cease to exist without at least giving them the foundation to hold their own and be leaders in this emerging economy?
My husband and I have lived abroad for the past twenty years. We have observed a rapid transition occurring across Europe and the Middle East, that brutally tears societies into influencers and followers. Jobs for manual laborers are disappearing. While this shows our advancement, the reality is that robots are an excellent replacement for most repetitive tasks that employ the majority of our society. We are learning that they are also excellent in situations that are dangerous or just plain uncomfortable for human workers. Ironically, even teaching and face-to-face interaction is becoming antiquated. As we turn toward online learning platforms and robotic assistance, what careers will be financially rewarding and secure in the next ten, twenty or thirty years? My response would be, only those areas where people cannot be replaced by machines. There will be no security in complacency. Police are replaceable. Firemen and soldiers take on unnecessary risk. Being a handy mechanic is no longer sufficient in automotive repair. Taxi drivers, cashiers, factory workers and airport personnel will soon be entirely expendable.
This is not meant to be any indication of what I value or desire. I only wish to report what I view as indisputable fact. My children will only have a secure future if they are empowered to innovate and create. I do not expect to produce the next Elon Musk, but I do know that innovators are the leaders of every new generation.
CodeCraze, LLC is here to provide the equipment and instruction necessary for creating tech-savvy builders and innovative dreamers. We offer Summer Camps and regular instruction in Python, JavaScript, Scratch and WordPress. We feature robotics instruction and participation in nation-wide competitions with VEX IQ. We also build with LEGO EV3, Raspberry Pi and Arduino. We do not subscribe to a proprietary curriculum, but have built our courses to embrace an open-source shared community platform. Our goal is have each of our students build and explore with minimal cost and maximum freedom to share and extend their projects from home. Again, we are committed educators interested in skill provision in a fun and safe learning environment. I hope you will join us: Dream it. Build it. Share it.
Brooke Luetgert
