Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver

Providing Technology Skills through Battle of the Bots Competition

July 20, 2010

The Battle of the Bots competition, a robotics team competition, helps Club members build their presentation, programming and engineering skills and support members’ academic performance.

Launching a Reading Room for Teens

June 29, 2010

Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver’s Broncos Club branch opens a “Walmart Bright Spot” Reading Room

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver Members Win National Fine Arts Competitions

June 15, 2010

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver Members Chelsy Certain, 17, and 8-year-old Javier Casias had their work chosen to appear in Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s 2011 National Fine Arts Exhibit.

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Technology

Each of our eight Clubs is equipped with a technology center that offers daily activities and programs designed to develop member's skills in computer use and in specific technology applications, such as Microsoft Office. In addition, Boys & Girls Clubs offers city-wide digital arts, technology and robotics competitions and programming in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. The primary goals of BGCMD’s technology program are to provide youth with access to technology, develop members’ technical skills, promote workforce readiness by increasing career options for young people, and support members’ academic performance. Tech Boys

TechSperts Program: To become a TechSpert, members must complete 10 technology projects aimed to build skills in specific areas. The curriculum includes keyboarding, Microsoft Office Suite, internet research, hardware identification, graphic design and digital photography. TechSperts can advance to a new level each year by incorporating new functions and learning new skills in each project area. These members earn the privilege of working as teaching assistants in Club technology centers and becoming peer mentors.

Digital Arts Festival: The National Club Tech Digital Arts Festival, with the support of Microsoft and Best Buy Children's Foundation, celebrate the technology skills and creativity of Boys & Girls Clubs members across the nation and on U.S. military bases world-wide. In preparation for local, regional and national festivals, members at Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver participate in the following activities throughout the year to develop their artistic and technological abilities:

Graphic Design: Through interactive digital courseware, group, and individual activities, members learn artistic concepts and technology skills to create professional-quality print materials and animation.
Movie Making: Club staff work with members through the hands-on processes of screenplay writing, filming, and editing digital movies.
Music Making: Members explore a variety of digital music software applications and basic music theory, learning to write sheet music, mix musical loops, plus compose and record original songs.
Photo Illustration: Members take digital photos, learning about photo composition while exploring the effects of distance and angle. Then, members learn about digital photo manipulation, from basic editing tasks such as cropping and adjusting color and light, to advanced projects using image filters and layering.
Web Design: Members create simple, one-page Web sites, then advance to building more robust sites with page links, graphics, text ,and sound, learning important design lessons along the way.

NetSmartz is an interactive, educational safety resource from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Boys & Girls Clubs of America for children aged 5 to 17, parents, guardians, educators, and law enforcement that uses age-appropriate, 3-D activities to teach children how to stay safer on the Internet. Through these interactive modules, our technology staff help Club members learn how to safely communicate online, play games, conduct research and enhance overall awareness to prevent victimization and increase self-confidence whenever they go online. Visit NetSmartz.org to learn more about this program. Teens can visit NSTeens.org and kids ages 5 and up can visit NetSmartzKids.org to begin learning how to use the Internet safely.

Girls in Technology: A minimum of one hour each week is set aside for girls-only programming in the technology labs. Projects vary each week based on the needs and interests of the girls involved.

Special Events: There are a number of special events throughout the year, including the TechZilla Monster Extravaganza (a technology competition), Battle of the Bots (a robotics team competition) career-oriented field trips, and more.

Thank you to United Launch Alliance, our Technology Core Program Area sponsor for 2010.