As we quickly and without warning pivoted to Distance Learning on March 13, 2020, it weighed heavily on my heart that all my plans for innovation TK-8 would halt abruptly. I knew that no matter what distance learning looked like we MUST keep innovation going for our students. Therefore, my counterpart and friend, Marla Rosenthal and I dove into creating these Thematic At-Home STEAM Distance Learning Resources we could share not only with our schools, but our districts and beyond. We are very happy to share these freely because we want to spread innovation and we know as educators, we are absolutely Better Together! Click on the links below for the lessons, feel free to modify for your own classrooms, schools and districts, and keep innovation happening in every students' education!
I truly enjoy our after school Lego Robotics Club! The collaboration, across-age friendships, the critical thinking, and hands-on practice in computer science and engineering...it's so impressive and I wish it could be done during the school day. However, due to the amount of time to build and our Innovation schedule, it works best as an after school club. Historically, I have had more girls involved and it made me so sad we just had a handful this Spring. My plan was to market it and showcase to future students (girls and boys) but we were cut short due to COVID19. So these are the few highlights of my rad little innovators who quickly surpassed my computer science/robotics knowledge and impressed me beyond words!
Oh, how I LOVE Adobe Spark! SO when I get to work with my older innovators (13 yrs & older) I bring out all the cool #edtech tools I can't with my Tk-6! NOTE: If your district agrees to terms, you may be able to use with your youngest innovators! For now, read below and check it out for yourself. Adobe Spark and Canva are my favorite graphic design/creation tools.
What do you do when your local Girl Scouts troop reaches out for help in earning their 3 Robotics Badges!? You can NOT say no to Girl Scouts (I mean....come on) so you whip up a super fun 2 Day after school class!
These Innovative girls learned about robot parts, how robots can help us solve problems then launched them into a quick rapid prototyping DesignThinking Challenge in our Makerspace! Next, they collaborated with a Thanksgiving Dinner Challenge to teach Dash to be a very good robot and eat his dinner :) Click on the links below to modify for your own Girl Scouts and/or students!
After teaching my TK-8 students in all things innovation the past 4 years, I knew I wanted to step up MY game by bringing them into the Augmented and Virtual Reality world. I knew I would need devices so I reached out to a local company and convinced them to donate the old phones that were just laying in that drawer waiting for student innovators to learn! Once we got 10 Samsung Galaxy and 10 iPhone 6 devices, we were off and running!
Please see below to access my AR/VR presentation, resources, and read all about how our student innovators learned and created through the amazing CoSpacesEdu!
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A huge part of my job is teaching teachers & students how innovation (tech, coding, robotics, making, design thinking ,etc) doesnât have to stand alone.
In fact, I'm kind of passionate about proving how curriculum and content can be incorporated so easily in all innovation & vice versa! :) Click on the links for resources and read below to see some of the many ways we weave innovation through the curriculum!
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