Jacksonville Youth and Teens Attend International Tech Conference
WordCamp 2019
Elisha – William – Elijah – Aida – Janae
Janea 4th grader, Elijah 6th grader and Elisha 11th grade student
in the Duval County Public School system are passionate about
using technology to reach their goals in life. They attended the
national and international WordCamp Orlando conference and
participated in the KidsCamp web development portion.
Each are involved in technology events outside of school and love
being part of the WordCamp open source community. Janae a
veteran WC and KidsCamp conference attendee has been to
several conferences, twice in Jacksonville, Fl, Asheville, NC,
Greenville, SC including twice at WordCamp Orlando.
Elisha a new member of the digital community joined Aida Correa
of LoveBuilt Life, LLC and William Jackson of My Quest to Teach to
attend and learn. Elisha is an avid gamer and into programming
and coding.
He has attended several other tech conferences and even selected
as a speaker at TEDxFSCJ Salons speaking on how tech offers
opportunities to youth of color to be business owners, entrepreneurs
and solo-preneurs. Attending EdCamps, WordCamps, the national
and internationally recogized Florida Blogging and Technology
Conference for several years.
The growing presence of youth, teens and young adults is showing
that young people are serious in their goals and aspirations to be
involved in technology as influencers, content contributors, digital
innovators, animators and intellectual thought leaders. They want
to be business owners as well.
Technology has increased its influence growing in its influence both
good and bad so youth, teens and young adults must take advantage
of all learning opportunities to prepare them for current and future
careers. Following these young people can be found on the hashtag
#thatwordcamplife #myquesttoteach #lovebuiltlife
Elijah a middle school student had the opportunity to speak with
Coders, Programmers to help with his direction in life and for his
career interests. Middle school is key for students because there
are so many distractions they need mentors and taught skills that
will help them to grow to be critical thinkers, thought leaders and
start considering the areas they want to travel and engage in.
Elijah a 6th grader into tech, learning where he fits in and
what his dreams are.
DCPS school system has embraced many new
instructional strategies that embrace technology. Students are
being taught to be critical thinkers, digital leaders and problem
solvers. Elijah is a new generation of digital future leaders that are
being trained to be the future leaders for this nation and the world.
They are mentored by Aida and William, as they Aida and William
travel speaking at WordCamp conferences in Canada, Central
America and across the nation youth, teens and young adults need
to be engaged, involved and participating.
Janae, Elijah and Elisha share why youth should attend tech and
WordCamp conferences.
Elisha, “teens should attend WordCamp and tech conferences
because of the social networking opportunities and you never
know who you’re going to meet. There is a great variety of people
that can help you get where you want to go.”
Elijah,” it is a good place to learn about technology and good
experiences to learn new things, design a web sites and gaming
experiences.”
Janae, “girls should want to go because it is fun and there are so many
nice and cool people there to learn from.”
The growth of youth attending is widespread locally, nationally and
internationally. Careers in STEAM and STEM are demanding tech skills
from coding, programming, web development and other skills. Parents
must prepare their kids today for the future.
To follow these growing digital influencers
Janae https://www.instagram.com/thatkidwhoanimates/
Elisha https://journeythroughthemotherboard.wordpress.com/
Aida https://lovebuiltlife.com/
William https://myquesttoteach.com/