Wellington, NZ – AkoTech, formerly known as Codecamp, has announced the release of the beta version of its learning platform, which teaches children and teachers how to code with virtual robotics. The company’s new immersive, AI, and gamified coding platform offers interactive lessons designed to simulate real-life robotics experiences, including a personal AI learning guide called PAIGE and her new friend Steve.
As technology continues to evolve, it is essential for children to learn digital skills, such as coding, at an early age and the earlier they start, the less of a hurdle it becomes to tackle STEM topics later. AkoTech is dedicated to inspiring and empowering the next generation of technology and STEM professionals, and we are excited to announce the launch of our new platform.
“Our mission at AkoTech is to make coding education accessible and enjoyable for children and teachers,” said Peter Duncan, Director at AkoTech. “The release of our beta platform is a significant step forward in achieving this goal. We believe that teaching children how to code robotics not only helps them understand technology but also enhances their problem-solving and critical thinking skills as well as learning how Artificial Intelligence works.”
Ako, which means “to learn or co-learn” in Maori, reflects our commitment to providing a fun and interactive learning environment that helps children and teachers develop important problem-solving and critical thinking skills, as well as increased creativity and collaboration. Coding and computational thinking is now a compulsory part of the New Zealand primary and intermediate school curriculum and teachers need to be supported. Our platform comes with a teacher’s dashboard and all 120 of our challenges are mapped to the NZDT curriculum, making it easy for children and teachers to learn how to code and easily see their progress.
AkoTech is also expanding its presence throughout New Zealand, offering licences to run our holiday and after-school programs for primary and intermediate students. These programs do not require any coding knowledge, only a passion to help children succeed.
“We are thrilled to be growing into more areas around New Zealand,” said Duncan “Our holiday and after-school programs provide a unique opportunity for children to learn and grow in a fun and interactive environment, and we are excited to offer these programs to more communities throughout the country.”
With the inclusion of PAIGE and Steve in the AkoVerse, children and teachers will start to understand the concept of Ako, which can be used with computers also, so that both human and computers can learn from each other together. PAIGE acts as an AI guide learning from Steve, while Steve is a student who interacts and learns from PAIGE and both become smarter with problem solving the AkoVerse together.
AkoTech Limited, a leading provider of coding education for children, has been teaching fundamental programming skills to children aged 5-13 in central New Zealand for the past six years. The program has recently been improved to cover the whole of New Zealand, and now AkoTech is seeking licensees to use their teaching instruction tools to teach children in their own areas.
According to Peter Duncan, the originating Director of AkoTech, “Teaching children how to code has significant benefits, not only in computer skills but also in life skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking , communication and creativity. A high percentage of the course attendees who complete the course are successful, for example one of our students has transitioned from being a student to instructor and is now on their development team and has helped create and train PAIGE our AI. Teaching children and young adults transferable skills and coding is a valuable and rewarding experience, and becoming a licensee of AkoTech is an excellent opportunity to make a difference in our children’s lives while also earning a secondary income.”
AkoTech has recently been approved to offer its more sophisticated programs to secondary schools and will announce these soon. Licensees are now being sought for 80 defined areas, in which coding is not a prerequisite, to help upskill our children and teachers and interested potential licensees are encouraged to visit the AkoTech website or contact Mr. Duncan by telephone for more information.
As part of the AkoVerse Beta launch, AkoTech are offering a free trial and in person support to all New Zealand schools for teachers and their students.
For more information about AkoTech and our coding programs for children, please visit www.akotech.nz or contact us at 021 713714 or peter@akotech.nz