InnEdCO18 - STEAM with Eric Carle

Session 1, Day 3: STEAM activities with the books of Eric Carle. I will have a new class next year for each grade level (elementary school) where the students can choose their elective on Wednesdays for 9 week quarters. Essentially it's a 9 day course. I'm having the students complete STEAM challenges on these days and setting these activities to Eric Carle's famous books works perfectly (I'm also a librarian 😁). I love the idea of connecting STEAM activities to their favorite books or books that they choose.

Shared Google Drive folder of resources: bit.ly/steamcarle

Hungry Caterpillar:
1) build a caterpillar - set constraints on size & weight
     -build cocoon to hold caterpillar - materials =
     -hang cocoon
2) Bloxels Game
     -caterpillar has to grow and change into a butterfly
     -has to have one of the food for coins
     -has to have an enemy
     -background must have Eric Carle signature Smiling Sun

The Very Busy Spider
1) Sketch a Web
     -Dash and Sketch Kit to draw spider web or use Lego connectors
    -pipe cleaners to make Dash a spider
    -works with app or Chromebooks

The Very Quiet Cricket
1) Makey Makey and Scratch
    -design an activity based on the story
    -could be a game or an animation
2) Little Bits Project
     -create a chirping cricket or a character that lights up
     -make sure to setup expectations for students to work with circuits

The Very Lonely Firefly
1) Light up firefly
    -little Bits circuits to build a firefly
    -play do and paper to make firefly
    -power, slide dimmer, pulse, wire, bright LED for circuit
2) Chibitronics Firefly
   -construction paper, copper tape, LED sticker, coin cell battery, binder clip, simple circuit template

The Very Clumsy Click Beetle
1) Flip your Beetle
    -make flipping beetles
    -cut oval shape from paper or card stock
    -decorate
    -glue clothes pin to backside & bottom of beetle
    -keep track of landings & try different shapes & sizes

Donor's Choose STEAM project

In my library and technology program, our K-5 students work tirelessly to think critically and solve problems. We do this through STEAM projects and the engineering process. When the students work through the engineering process, one of the steps includes searching for possible solutions to their problem. With the help of these STEAM books and resources, my students will have the opportunity to discover possible solutions through printed materials.

I've witnessed first-hand the excitement of my students when engaged in the engineering process.

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) projects provide an excellent opportunity for cross-curricular projects where students apply all disciplines into their projects. They are willing to read as much as they can about the problem they're trying to solve. They'll apply mathematics to their problem by measuring and drawing items to scale. With the help of these materials, our students will continue this engagement through the engineering process.

LINK TO MY PROJECT: https://goo.gl/id5X9i

Donor's Choose

It's that time of year again!! For the beginning of the 2016-17 school, Donor's Choose will match any donation given to your project.

If you aren't familiar with Donor's Choose, you can create a "project" to be funded by private donors. The "project" can include numerous educational materials including technology, books, supplies, etc. Then, you share your project on social media, email, or a website, while donors can discover your projects through the Donor's choose website.

Here's my most recent project: Tools for Our Makerspace

LittleBits and Design Thinking ISTE2016

It's the third and final day of ISTE2016. For my first session, I'm attending:

Creativity, Innovation, and a "LittleBit" of Design Thinking

LittleBits website

I recently received 4 sets of LittleBits from a Donor's Choose project and am excited to see how other educators are using them. They're essentially small circuits that piece together. Students can build all sorts of things with them.

Little Bits Design Challenge:
-students work collaboratively with LittleBits to create something that makes the world better

Design Thinking:
1) Exploration (empathize & define) -- where do you see problems? Can you define it?
2) Ideation (ideate) -- brainstorming
3) Prototyping (prototype) -- building their first model
4)Modification (test) -- testing and making changes to the prototype
5) Sharing -- could they share beyond the classroom? video? podcast?

Design Thinking => Constructivistm (makerspaces) => Inquiry-based learning

My thoughts:
Design Thinking can work in almost any classroom, content-area, or grade level. In literacy, students can take a stance, research their stance, write an essay explaining their stance, rewrite after constructive criticism, and share it with the world through a blog. The more time spent around the exploration and ideation process the better. Students need to become comfortable with asking questions and thinking deeply on how to answer those questions. This will, hopefully, foster life-long learning in our students and give them the confidence to be curious explorers.

Extra Resources:

NASA Partners with LittleBits Electronics on STEM Activities 

Design Thinking for Educators

New littleBits Education helps schools integrate STEM/STEAM

Design Thinking: Lessons for the Classroom

Case Study: Design Thinking STEAM School

Free Money for STEAM

Welcome back from Spring Break!!! We even had a couple of snow days before the week off school.

Here's an excellent opportunity a colleague shared with me from Erin Klein's blog (Kleinspiration). It's the Citgo Fueling Education Sweepstakes and is looking to fund teachers having students work through STEAM challenges. Many of these teachers purchase their materials for STEAM challenges and the Citgo Fueling Education Sweepstakes can help with funding.

3D Printer

Interested in purchasing a 3D printer? ISTE Connects supplies a helpful article on what to look for when purchasing a new printer. They even offer a few models to get you started. A really excellent resource for anyone wanting to get into 3D printing but aren't sure where to start.

Pixar In a Box -- free animation course

Pixar Animation Studios and Khan Academy paired together to create a program to teach students the basics of animation: Pixar in a Box.

According to Khan Academy, "The course covers different animation-related topics each of which comes with ‘a design focused lesson appropriate for grades 5+, followed by a math focused lesson which is grade specific.’ The topics included are :

• 'Environment Modeling: Explore how realistic blades of grass are modeled using parabolic arcs.
• Character Modeling: Explore how clay models are transformed into digital characters using weighted averages.
• Crowds: Explore how swarms of robots were created for WALL-E using combinatorics.
• Animation: Explore how animators bring characters to life with the help of Animation curves.
• Sets and Staging: Explore how virtual sets are constructed using geometric transformations.
• Rendering: Explore how pixels are painted by solving systems of linear equations."

STEM/STEAM Projects

With the creation of our Makerspaces projects, and, fingers crossed for grant money, our new STEM/STEAM lab next year. I'm digging for STEM and STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, ART, and Math) projects and resources. Edutopia has an extensive collection of resources whether you're looking for STEM, STEAM, or Makerspaces projects. Great resource!

STEM websites

As a technology teacher, I have a ton of students interested in makerspaces and coding. My goal is to collect as many resources as possible for both students and parents. Information Week posted an article covering 8 STEM websites students can use. I've had them work on a few including code.org but am excited to see the other ones as well.

Sphero -- Connected Toys

I was just introduced to Sphero by our 5th grade science teacher and my teaching coach. Basically, it's a sphere about the size of a baseball/softball, and a user can program it to move through a FREE iPad app. If you have students into coding, they love the Sphero!