Meet the schoolboys spearheading flipped learning
bicycles, but what's so cool about this is that they can learn and explore with a friend someone that’s exciting and fun to be with,” Simon explained. The following year, in 2016, Simon teamed up with his younger brother Aidan to build their website. This project turned into a fantastic journey, fully supported by their schools. As the boys learned new skills themselves, they shared those skills with whoever tuned in to watch their videos. The kids watching can see themselves in Simon and Aidan and feel confident that they will be able to learn whatever the boys are teaching! Aidan has become every teacher’s classroom assistant
By Rosie Clarke, Editor
Three years ago, two young brothers built a website. Today, 14-yearold Simon and 12-year-old Aidan are running that website as the home of a fully-fledged learning resource they call ‘TubeTorials’. Designed to mimic YouTube tutorials, an extremely comfortable learning environment for most children, TubeTorials turn Simon and Aidan into digital technology classroom assistants where they teach other kids how to code and master STEM skills like animation, stop motion, web design and engineering. Sure, two young people might be able to make YouTube videos but creating content that will integrate well into the NZ curriculum is another matter altogether, right? Well that’s where their dad comes in. Kevin is a STEM teacher here in New Zealand with experience teaching five to 15-year-olds. He helps them with “the teacher stuff”.
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School News recently had the chance to interview Simon and Aidan about their passion for all things digital tech, and the awesome learning resource they’ve created for schools around the country. Back in 2015, Simon sparked the idea for TubeTorials when he came up with a simple way to teach a group of children 3D Printing. After teaching himself to use TinkerCad (a free online
3D design and 3D printing app), he decided to record a series of videos that would teach others how to make and print different characters they could customise. Teaching by video, Simon was following the learning path that most kids look for when they go online.
TubeTorials aim to solve the problem teachers face when trying to effectively support a whole STEM classroom of children at the same time. For teachers, encouraging students to work independently can feel virtually impossible, but with a flipped learning programme like this, the virtual element makes it happen.
“Many children all over the world go online and watch another person explore worlds, fight dragons and build jet-powered
Meeting the needs of the classroom as they progress their learning in a fun, challengebased environment, Simon
Simon sparked the idea for TubeTorials
TEACHING RESOURCES
Term 1, 2019 | schoolnews.co.nz