hi everyone my name is Jennifer Turley
and I’m the CEO of maker kids and today
I’m going to talk about technology
therapy childhood is the most formative
stage of life life is like a golf swing
where small millimeter changes made at
the outset of your swing can have a vast
impact on the trajectory of where your
shot ends up yet today more than ever
children are struggling with mental
health issues at the same time there is
an abundance of Technology out there and
parents are trying to figure out how
their children can use technology in a
healthy and balanced way families
teachers and mental health professionals
are working tirelessly on how to resolve
these issues today I’d like to share a
number of surprising outcomes that we’ve
come across
I run a company called maker kids which
teaches coding robotics and minecraft to
thousands of kids through camps and
after-school programs when we got
started with this years ago the idea was
to teach kids skills to set them up for
careers in STEM science technology
engineering and mathematics and to fill
the gap for stem workers that Canada is
facing but what we started to realize
with the kids were getting much more out
of the programs not just technical
skills it was positive mental health
benefits that they carried with them to
their schools homes and throughout their
lives and children’s mental health
professionals started recommending us to
their clients because of the positive
results that they’d seen with their
patients I think that where this came
from was that we embedded lessons on
mindset and interpersonal skills
throughout our curriculum with the idea
that it’s kind of hard to make an
ambitious technical project if you’re
not able to have a positive mindset
collaborate with others and get help
from others so for example we lead
exercises that teach kids that it’s okay
to fail and that sucking at something is
the first step towards being kind of
good at something we use minecraft as a
tool to teach kids nonviolent
communication and social skills we use
robotics and code
to build confidence and change-making
abilities and in all of our programs we
run exercises that help kids build a
positive relationship with technology we
are surprised at how effective these
exercises were with kids and parents
have continued to report improved
behavior academic performance
self-confidence creativity and social
skills right now there’s a lot of
different types of therapy out there
that exist music therapy art therapy
drama therapy and play therapy but I
think there’s room for a new form of
therapy that in today’s day and age
might be one of the most effective forms
of all and that’s technology therapy I’d
like to give a couple of examples of the
outcomes that we’ve seen and any
identifying details about the kids have
been changed and these are not real
photos of them one of the children who
came to us hadn’t spoke to adults other
than their parents for years Africa
unfortunate incident at their school
with a coach they came to one of our
minecraft classes and they were so
engaged and distracted in what they were
doing that they let their guard down and
raise their hand to ask one of our adult
instructors for help with something
their mother was in tears she told us
that it was the first time her child had
spoken to an adult other than their
parents in years another child who is on
the autism spectrum had never been able
to attend a camp or after-school program
because he found it very
anxiety-provoking to be in an
environment like that he came to our
weekly robotics program and we worked
with his family so that each week his
mom was able to move from sitting in the
lobby to sitting in the coffee shop
downstairs the next week to sitting a
block away to then being in their home
across town he was able to attend more
of our programs and camps and also
became somewhat of a leader in our
programs then he started attending other
camps at other places as well imagine
what sort of impact this might have on
his life another child had ADHD and his
mother told us that his meds were off by
the time he finished school and she was
never able to find an after-school
activity that engaged him enough one day
I came into the class
to find his mom crying she told me that
this was the first time she’d seen her
kid paying attention in an after-school
activity while off his meds he was
having so much fun playing with robots
and electronics that he had no problem
staying engaged imagine the impact this
might have now the family realized that
he could pay attention to lots of things
without meds another child was
disengaged at school he just wasn’t
interested but he was interested in
building cool robots and coding video
games we taught him how in order to code
you need to know math and writing after
all then you can calculate how many
times you want your character to bounce
up and down for example and so on
suddenly school became a lot more
interesting he became more engaged at
school and improved his marks imagine
the impact this might have on his future
another child had apraxia he had
difficulty speaking and a limited
vocabulary range for his age he came to
our Minecraft programs for a year and
through this and reading and going
through minecraft tutorials online he
actually developed an above average
vocabulary range for his age imagine how
this could change his life now I’d like
to share some numeric outcomes with you
in recent surveys parents have result
have reported the following results
after their child participated in a
Meagher Kids program a hundred percent
increase in self-confidence seventy-five
percent improvement in social skills
seventy-five percent increase in
creativity and seventy two percent
increase in computer skills we’re proud
that families have reported improved
behavior mood and academic performance
in terms of behavior a number of kids
come to us whose parents tell us that
they have severe behavioral problems at
school but we don’t see any of these
present at maker kids I think this is
because we treat them like adults and
they live up to that secondly they’re
having fun and finally they’re in the
presence of really cool tools that they
can use to make really cool stuff
something I’m really proud of is we’ve
started to get more and more kids coming
to us who have mental health diagnosis
such as Asperger’s autism
ADHD and severe anxiety and parents are
telling us that they’re using our
programs as a form of high-tech arts
therapy where the kids both act and feel
better during and after the programs now
this isn’t to suggest that the more
technology you use the better the key is
an environment where kids can use
technology in a healthy social balanced
and productive manner I think we’re
seeing such great results because high
tech making allows you to express
yourself to feel power to develop social
skills and to be recognized for
creativity in an area that isn’t
normally recognized like arts writing
and music are some key principles that
we follow and that I’d like to leave you
with are the following it’s ok to fail
learn by doing and celebrate making not
just what you’ve made in conclusion I’d
like to invite you to consider not just
art therapy or music therapy but also
technology therapy and imagine how this
might impact our lives in the future
thank you [Applause]
and I’m the CEO of maker kids and today
I’m going to talk about technology
therapy childhood is the most formative
stage of life life is like a golf swing
where small millimeter changes made at
the outset of your swing can have a vast
impact on the trajectory of where your
shot ends up yet today more than ever
children are struggling with mental
health issues at the same time there is
an abundance of Technology out there and
parents are trying to figure out how
their children can use technology in a
healthy and balanced way families
teachers and mental health professionals
are working tirelessly on how to resolve
these issues today I’d like to share a
number of surprising outcomes that we’ve
come across
I run a company called maker kids which
teaches coding robotics and minecraft to
thousands of kids through camps and
after-school programs when we got
started with this years ago the idea was
to teach kids skills to set them up for
careers in STEM science technology
engineering and mathematics and to fill
the gap for stem workers that Canada is
facing but what we started to realize
with the kids were getting much more out
of the programs not just technical
skills it was positive mental health
benefits that they carried with them to
their schools homes and throughout their
lives and children’s mental health
professionals started recommending us to
their clients because of the positive
results that they’d seen with their
patients I think that where this came
from was that we embedded lessons on
mindset and interpersonal skills
throughout our curriculum with the idea
that it’s kind of hard to make an
ambitious technical project if you’re
not able to have a positive mindset
collaborate with others and get help
from others so for example we lead
exercises that teach kids that it’s okay
to fail and that sucking at something is
the first step towards being kind of
good at something we use minecraft as a
tool to teach kids nonviolent
communication and social skills we use
robotics and code
to build confidence and change-making
abilities and in all of our programs we
run exercises that help kids build a
positive relationship with technology we
are surprised at how effective these
exercises were with kids and parents
have continued to report improved
behavior academic performance
self-confidence creativity and social
skills right now there’s a lot of
different types of therapy out there
that exist music therapy art therapy
drama therapy and play therapy but I
think there’s room for a new form of
therapy that in today’s day and age
might be one of the most effective forms
of all and that’s technology therapy I’d
like to give a couple of examples of the
outcomes that we’ve seen and any
identifying details about the kids have
been changed and these are not real
photos of them one of the children who
came to us hadn’t spoke to adults other
than their parents for years Africa
unfortunate incident at their school
with a coach they came to one of our
minecraft classes and they were so
engaged and distracted in what they were
doing that they let their guard down and
raise their hand to ask one of our adult
instructors for help with something
their mother was in tears she told us
that it was the first time her child had
spoken to an adult other than their
parents in years another child who is on
the autism spectrum had never been able
to attend a camp or after-school program
because he found it very
anxiety-provoking to be in an
environment like that he came to our
weekly robotics program and we worked
with his family so that each week his
mom was able to move from sitting in the
lobby to sitting in the coffee shop
downstairs the next week to sitting a
block away to then being in their home
across town he was able to attend more
of our programs and camps and also
became somewhat of a leader in our
programs then he started attending other
camps at other places as well imagine
what sort of impact this might have on
his life another child had ADHD and his
mother told us that his meds were off by
the time he finished school and she was
never able to find an after-school
activity that engaged him enough one day
I came into the class
to find his mom crying she told me that
this was the first time she’d seen her
kid paying attention in an after-school
activity while off his meds he was
having so much fun playing with robots
and electronics that he had no problem
staying engaged imagine the impact this
might have now the family realized that
he could pay attention to lots of things
without meds another child was
disengaged at school he just wasn’t
interested but he was interested in
building cool robots and coding video
games we taught him how in order to code
you need to know math and writing after
all then you can calculate how many
times you want your character to bounce
up and down for example and so on
suddenly school became a lot more
interesting he became more engaged at
school and improved his marks imagine
the impact this might have on his future
another child had apraxia he had
difficulty speaking and a limited
vocabulary range for his age he came to
our Minecraft programs for a year and
through this and reading and going
through minecraft tutorials online he
actually developed an above average
vocabulary range for his age imagine how
this could change his life now I’d like
to share some numeric outcomes with you
in recent surveys parents have result
have reported the following results
after their child participated in a
Meagher Kids program a hundred percent
increase in self-confidence seventy-five
percent improvement in social skills
seventy-five percent increase in
creativity and seventy two percent
increase in computer skills we’re proud
that families have reported improved
behavior mood and academic performance
in terms of behavior a number of kids
come to us whose parents tell us that
they have severe behavioral problems at
school but we don’t see any of these
present at maker kids I think this is
because we treat them like adults and
they live up to that secondly they’re
having fun and finally they’re in the
presence of really cool tools that they
can use to make really cool stuff
something I’m really proud of is we’ve
started to get more and more kids coming
to us who have mental health diagnosis
such as Asperger’s autism
ADHD and severe anxiety and parents are
telling us that they’re using our
programs as a form of high-tech arts
therapy where the kids both act and feel
better during and after the programs now
this isn’t to suggest that the more
technology you use the better the key is
an environment where kids can use
technology in a healthy social balanced
and productive manner I think we’re
seeing such great results because high
tech making allows you to express
yourself to feel power to develop social
skills and to be recognized for
creativity in an area that isn’t
normally recognized like arts writing
and music are some key principles that
we follow and that I’d like to leave you
with are the following it’s ok to fail
learn by doing and celebrate making not
just what you’ve made in conclusion I’d
like to invite you to consider not just
art therapy or music therapy but also
technology therapy and imagine how this
might impact our lives in the future
thank you [Applause]
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