UQ student awarded for bringing technology closer to kids

A University of Queensland (UQ) postgraduate student has been recognised for inspiring kids to embrace technology through robotics.

UQ Information Technology PhD student, Marie Boden, was awarded the PhD Career Start Award in the recent Women in Technology awards for sharing her knowledge and passion for technology with more than 4500 school students and 500 teachers during the past five years.

Besides working on her PhD project, Ms Boden is the coordinator of UQ’s School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) Robotics and ICT Connect workshops for school students and teachers.

Ms Boden uses robots as one of her teaching tools in UQ’s Robotics workshops and said that they were a very effective tool to get school students interested in technology through hands-on experience in developing and programming of robots.

“Our workshops help kids to develop problem solving skills and also enhance their interest in the ever evolving field of technology,” she said.

Integrating technology into classroom education is one of Ms Boden’s big passions and as part of her PhD research, she hopes to evaluate how intelligent software can be designed and integrated to fit within a collaborative classroom.

“It is my goal to share my knowledge with school teachers so that they have the technology skills to enhance their classroom teaching and the interest in technology to pass onto their students,” Ms Boden said.

“I am honoured to receive an award for doing something that I love and I now feel that I have an even bigger responsibility to influence teachers and children to understand the importance of technology.

“I never get bored of technology, every day there is always something new for me and the kids to learn.”

UQ’s Robotics and ICT Connect workshops are run during the school holidays and for school groups during term. For more information about the workshops.

For more information, please visit www.uq.edu.au/ict/activities-for-schools.

Media: Ms Marie Boden (0434 874 416, marieb@itee.uq.edu.au) or Ms Izzy Koh, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (07 3346 7696 or i.koh@uq.edu.au)