We can all agree that we need to include STEM integration into our students' education. The hard part is figuring out how to best and most effectively do that. Though we have been talking about STEM for a while I feel like it's often thought of as an unrealistic goal and something only really tech savvy teachers could even begin to understand and relay to their students. Even as a "tech" person I often found myself questioning if I could effective speak on the subject and share that information with teachers and students.
Enter my amazing co-integrator, Anita Moose (@amooseIT), with a plan to provide quick and easy professional development to math teachers on ways to integrate STEM into their existing teaching and open the door to using the robotics coach (@amshanson) and tech team as supports in making it happen. You can review the brief presentation below, but the main focus was on using two tools we have readily available to teachers: Lego Mindstorms are great robots for teachers and students of all skill levels to dive into robotics. The activity we used to get teachers an idea of how robots could help teach math is the very simple "Closer" activity which has students guess how many rotations and how much power is needed to get the robot closet to an object. There are many modifications and adaptions that can be done to make the math more challenging or complex and address several different concepts such as place value, measurement from standard to metric, estimation, multiplication, ratios, degrees, geometry vocabulary: diameter, radius, circumference, proportions, variables, graphing, statistics, interquartile range, graphing, Pythagorean Theorem, and systems of equations. Check out more details with the links from the presentation and interject some awesomeness into your math class! If you read my last post you already know about my love affair for Ozobots! These little guys are such an easy and fun way to dive into the basics of robotics and block coding that I guarantee you could be up and running with a class in 15 mins or less! We showed teachers a really simple lesson they could do to cover geometry concepts, but there are many other lessons out there to teach things like Slope Practice, Calculating Areas of Common Geometric Figures, Determining the Value of π with Ozobot and a Stopwatch, and Make a Multiplication Algorithm. Ozobots lessons don't just cover math topics so be sure to check out their educator portal and search for a variety of topics you may be teaching that can be spiced up with some robotics! That's it! With this simple presentation and links to resources and roughly an hour we had exposed teachers to a few quick and easy ways to become STEM educators themselves and not have to add more to their already overflowing plates, but simply rethink how they could teach concepts they were going to do anyway. One last piece that really added some authenticity to the whole process was having a couple of robotics students come talk to the group and help show them how to use everything. Seeing students who were already engaged and capable of using these tools effectively really hit home with the teachers in attendance. Hats off to Anita for taking the lead and making this a priority for our schools and backing up her thoughts with actions and support. Feel free to use the resources shared in this post and share any other great ways you are doing STEM in the comments below!
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Another year, another chance to get students and teacher excited about computer science and coding during #CSEdWeek! This year we reloaded many of the activities we used previously because of the success we had with them, but we did some exploring and took our use of Ozobots to the next level and were extremely happy with the results.
We decided to use a push-in model this year to try and bring fun, engaging activities right to the classroom and give teachers the experience of how CS can be implemented in their classes for a variety of subjects. We made this effort because in previous years we only offered lunch time activities and stations in library which resulted in teachers not being present when students were engaged and participating making those classroom connections tough to make and try and continue the momentum throughout the year. For those of you not familiar with Ozobots they are great little devices to take students from basic introduction of coding all the way through more complex block coding sets. We currently have a class set of Evos which are the slightly more robust version that include a few more bells and whistles as well as the ability to update firmware. The Ozobot website has an amazing resource of lessons you can search through (grade-level, topic, standard) to really take advantage of their capabilities from the basic color coding through the more complex Ozoblockly coding.
Ozobots start simple with color-based coding using markers and paper. The colors you need are black, red, green, and blue which allow you to create paths for the Ozobot sensors to follow. Colors can be combined to create simple codes for speed changes, directions, timers and fun moves like tornadoes or zig-zags! We used the color coding function as a way to introduce coding and the Ozobots to younger grades (K-2) and had them create code paths that spell out their names or initials.
Though this is the second year we have had the Ozobots, this was the first year we dove into using the Ozoblockly coding aspect of them and frankly, we were blown away at how easy it is to get started and have students do simple to complex programming in such a short amount of time. Loading the code can be done across multiple different devices including our favorite, Chromebooks, as it just takes a series of flashing color lights read by the Ozobot sensors. We had our older students (3rd-8th) use the Ozoblockly coding to guide their Ozobots through a maze of their own creation and program their bot to move from one point on a grid to another to combine the coding practice with identifying points on a x and y-axis.
We had such great success and engagement with the Ozobots during #CSEdWeek that my fellow integrator, Anita Moose (@amooseIT), and I are currently creating schedules to continue push ins with classrooms in all three buildings and allowing for Teachers to request specific topics and standards for us to plan around to make the best use of the Ozobots integration into a teacher's curriculum. If you have had similar success or other great experiences with the Ozobots please leave any feedback in the comments below.
How did you celebrate Computer Science Education Week? In the third consecutive month with a tech week to celebrate (October - Digital Citizenship Week, November - Media Literacy Week, and December - Computer Science Education Week) my fellow integrator, Anita Moose (@amooseIT), and I were pretty fried after organizing the first two and not sure how to get back up and excited for this huge event. Anita proved to be key to getting us motivated and excited by rallying the troops and reaching out to our middle school coding classes. She then matched them with elementary classes K-4th grade to share their knowledge of basic coding with some fun unplugged and digital activities. In addition to having students teach students, we held lunch sessions in the middle and high school with Ozobots, Osmo, and hour of code activities on the Chromebooks.
Our most concentrated effort was having coding and CS centers on rotation in the elementary school library with the help of our amazing librarian, Lisa May Howard (@aeslib) and AES G/T teacher, Julie WIlle (@jpwille). Using Bee-Bots, Pro-Bots, Ozobots, and code.org activities, every single student in the elementary got exposure to a variety of coding and CS concepts throughout the week with time to play, explore, and problem-solve.
The three buttons below will give you access to each of the resource documents Anita and I put together for teachers to use during and after CS Education week. We included videos, unplugged resources, and online activities.
Though we are getting more traction at including coding and CS (Computer Science) in students' everyday curriculum, it was still important to provide a specific focus on these topics to create excitement for pursuing these topics from the students and teachers. The underlying goal of each of the weeks was to encourage teachers to keep using the concepts throughout the year for a more comprehensive understanding and use. That's why we created resource documents for each topic (Digital Citizenship, Media Literacy, and Computer Science), to provide consistent access for teachers and allow them to go back at their convenience and use when applicable. The hope is that these weeks will soon be showcases of the great work already being done throughout the year. Please share any great resources you've used for this week or successes you've had.
Computer Science is one of the hottest topics in education, but why? Why is everyone pushing so hard to make CS an integral part of every student's education? As a "tech guy" I am clearly on board with the need to have more Computer Science in our schools both as specific classes and integrated into other subjects, but technology is such a small piece of all the skill set that go into CS. As many other advocates will tell you the benefits of CS for students goes far beyond the obvious of preparing students for a new and emerging work place, complex problem solving, math skills, design thinking, project-based learning, creativity, and team work just to name a few.
Looking to find ways CS can be instituted and integrated into our own school, my fellow integrator and I attended a Colorado-based Computer Science Task force that brought together many great minds from across the state in various fields in and out of education. Though we learned a lot and made many great connections with people who are doing great things, one thing that became abundtly clear was that there is no one road map to getting computer science accessible by our students.
Many districts are doing some great things, like St. Vrain, which has established an amazing Innovation Center that allows for students across the district to really have a meaningful experience with STEM education by partnering with industry to help get students working on real-world projects to solve real problems. Cherry Creek also has a great STEM program that helps produce students who, as explained by one Google employee, have several of the necessary skill sets, including algorithims and structures, that Google looks for in their own engineering interns. These are just among a few schools in Colorado that are making great strides in CS, but how can we create consistency and follow-through in all our districts to give each and every CO student a chance to experience computer science?
This will take work locally, statewide, and nationally to get CS the recognition it needs and deserves to push decision-makers and constituents to help prioritize computer science in our education system. One way to help get the word out is to support the CS Education Coalition which partners with Code.org to try and secure federal funds to support CS Education in our schools. At the state level creating or joining a CS taskforce is a great way to get a room full of people together who are all motivated to make CS a priority for schools and your department of education. Locally can be the most effective and not very complicated. Getting students exposed to CS with a Code.org, Scratch, Code Academy, Tynker, or Apple's Swift Playgrounds account can get the ball rolling and help make students' particpation in CS week and the Hour of Code fun and easy.
This year my fellow integrator and I made a big push to get district-wide participation in CS week. We put together a plan (2016 CS week schedule/agenda) that included lunch activities, intro classroom lessons, and classroom resources for teachers to use whenever convenient.
Our goal was to have unplugged and computer-based activities to give students a chance to experience the basics behind CS and enjoy the bells and whistles of fun online learning activities on sites like Code.org to spark their interest in CS. We started by meeting with all the building principals and giving them an overview of our planned activities as well as resources and videos classroom teachers could use independently throughout the week. Then we gave brief overviews to the staff at their weekly building meetings. Having the administration and staff on board was so important to starting a trickle down effect to get students excited and engaged. Our French and Coding teacher (quite the combo!) at the middle school, Diane Godfrey, set-up two web calls with engineers from Google and Intel which we ran through Youtube live to enable other students and teachers a chance to watch the discussion anytime. AMS coding students facilitated and asked questions of the engineers for about an hour. This was such a cool experience that allowed the students to see some real world application of what computer science is today and what it might look like in the future!
The week was hectic, but the we were able to expose so many students in all three schools to basic elements and concepts of CS in fun and engaging ways. In addition to getting people involved during lunch, several teachers tapped Anita or me to help them run CS/coding mini-lessons. Our AES and AMS Librarians (Lisa May Howard and Teresa Cavaleri) helped kids get on Code.org and Scratch. HS math teacher, Kiffor Berg, taught his students about binary numbers and their relation to CS and how to program their graphing calculators. The goal is to continue to carry this momentum throughout the school year and into the planning process for courses to be offered in the coming years. If the demand is high enough then specific CS or coding courses can be offered in all our buildings and hopefully classroom teachers will continue to use CS to help teach other subjects.
The journey to getting computer science in our schools is only just beginning. The excitement is building and I think most educators realize we are doing our students a disservice if we don't help them learn the skills that will set them up for the newly emerging jobs and careers that haven't even been created yet. So what's the big deal with computer science? The big deal is that we are not doing enough to help our students and if we don't adapt our schools and curriculum to match the times we are living in then we are hurting them just as much as if we decided not to teach math, science, english, or social studies. If you have had any experience with promoting CS in your own district or on a state or national level, please leave any comments below.
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About EvanDirector of Technology for Traverse City Area Public Schools. Level 2 Google Certified Educator. Former Tech Integration Specialist and 4th grade teacher at Aspen School District and Spartan for life! Go Green! Categories
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