PAEYC’s Unconference includes hackathon, field trips to Google and more

A conference with field trips and a hackathon?

Call it the “unconference,” happening Nov. 15 and 16 as an innovative new idea from PAEYC – the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children. It’s being billed as an event “where educators and technologists can play together.”

Right now, you can go online to vote for your favorite app idea submitted by early childhood educators. The winners will be turned into open source apps by teams of tech developers and marketing professionals, to be presented at the end of this Unconference. Some of the app ideas will monitor kids’ school progress, manage the voluminous paperwork a teacher faces and help parents be a part of their kids’ education.

“Children today are digital natives, whereas the adults who care for children are digital immigrants,” says PAEYC’s Operations Director Cara Ciminillo. “We need to help bridge that divide. For some educators, access to digital media is their challenge, for others, it is both access and experience in integrating its use to strengthen their lesson plans in developmentally appropriate ways.”

The expected 200 participants will have a chance to choose among field trips to Google Pittsburgh, TechShop, the MakeShop at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, MAYA Design and other creative places. At the end, the day trippers and hackers will bring their experiences together for a final unconference happening.

Ciminillo says her organization hopes, in the end, to create “a diverse community of learners, representing early childhood educators, technologists, and innovators, who have an increased awareness of the importance of quality early childhood investments …”

The hackathon will take place at Google Pittsburgh’s East Liberty offices, while the field-trip participants will start and end their day at Rashid Auditorium in the Hillman Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Email here for more information.

Writer: Marty Levine

Source: Cara Ciminillo, PAEYC