Shimira Williams at TekStart Program Wants Her Students to be Tech Creators

Image courtesy of Mrs. Eboni Morris

Shimira Williams, who teaches at a home-based afterschool program called Tek Start on Pittsburgh’s east end talks about her views on technology and how she wants to teach it to children as young as kindergartners from a different point of view, that is: as creators; “I want my kids to learn to be producers, not just consumers of technology. And I wanted to teach them how to build technology and use it to extend their own interests.”

Now more than ever digital media offers new opportunities for children to be media creators, but is the relationships with Shimira and other adults where the encouragement, modeling, and mentoring happens, that is when technology’s potential is best realized.

Read more about Growing the Innovation Economy, One Young Technologist at a Time from The Fred Rogers Center.