Make Create Educate

A Makey Makey is a board that can be connected to a computer as a replacement keyboard. It can also be used with Scratch.mit.edu to add voices, gaming controls and interaction with the computer. MineTap created by Shalise (yr 4) in a gifted makers program. Strap the velcro to your hands and allows her friend with cerebral palsy to play Minecraft The Makey Makey requires a completed circuit to operate. It can use any conductive material to complete a circuit including: Wires People - skin to skin contact Playdough - high in salt Foil Copper tape Tap water Living things eg: live plants/flowers Trouble shooting When troubleshooting it is important to only change one thing at a time and check the circuit after each change. This will ensure you don't introduce new problems. Create by Katie (year 2) in a gifted makers program. Audio Tour of Paris each part has an interactive point. The circuit isn’t working Check the light turns on when you...

I recently purchased this most amazing book. Rubber Band Engineer by Lance Akiyama. The purpose behind the purchase was to find some quality projects that had instructions and pictures to learn new techniques with construction. I know you can find them on Pinterest , but many sites have great pictures but lack instructions or quality instructions. Wanting to explore construction with predesigned projects that worked I have found this book to be exactly what I needed. The first project was an opening box using pneumatics. I enlisted the enthusiasm of a year 5 child to gage the difficulty of the task. During construction I was required to assist with measuring accurately, sourcing the glue gun and glue sticks and holding the duct tape. While the box looks complicated it went together so well I found I am " Just as smart at a 5th Grader ". A visual procedure for the project. The box is made from 6 15cmx15cm squares of cardboard. These are then covered with coloured ...

Updated September 2021 ----------------------------- The curriculum is overloaded, how to integrate new technologies and coding without adding additional content. The key is to integrate the ideas. This lesson took 2 hours and we completed it in one 2 hour session. Ensure you have equity with access to all tasks eg: boys don't dominate the using the technology while girls colour. Observe your students as some may need encouragement to do the coding and connect the Makey Makey. They may need some concrete scaffolding eg: provide them with a sample of code. Incomplete poster that shows the beginnings of lifecycle. Goal: Create a poster that illustrates the lifecycle of a tomato. The poster could be used to cover any outcomes or lesson ideas.  My Prelearning: 3 lessons Research on lifecycle of tomato Art lesson - still life on how to draw a tomato Design the Code - talk through with the students how to plant their code. When I press space Stop all other sounds Play ...

Significant Challenges Impeding Technology Adoption in K-12 Education See Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , of this series on the Horizon Report 2015 Difficult Challenges: Those that we understand but for which solutions are elusive  Personalizing Learning: The move toward personalised learning has been discussed for many years. Previously termed Student Centred Learning, there is much research discussing this concept for many years.  1990 , 1997 , 2000 . Another term that impacts on personalised learning is differentiation , where we make adjustments to cater for the needs of all abilities in the classroom. The evolution of personalised learning has been made more possible by technology.  Personalised learning challenges the traditional educational paradigm. For this model to progress we need to modify teaching pedagogies from traditional methods of imparting knowledge to teachers facilitating learning. This will require cultural and attitudinal change from teachers...

Important Developments in Educational Technology for K-12 Education See  Part 1 ,  Part 2  of this series on the Horizon Report  2015. Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): BYOD empowers students to work with their own devices to produce content any time. The most important element of this development is the provision of stable, fast school wide wi-fi. The internet needs to be as open as possible. Blocking Youtube and similar sites with educational content makes the use of tools very difficult for teachers and students. Educators should have more input into what is blocked on school sites to ensure they can utilise BYOD to is full potential.  The common argument against this approach is inequality. To overcome inequality schools can: allows students to use mobile phones and iPods using a school based wifi - while not ideal this gives access to technology to more students and reduces some inequality.  make banks o...

Current Trends in Education. Each year the Horizon Report  releases a summary of current and future trends in education. Many of the topics that feature in the report are discussed frequently by educators on Twitter and Google Plus. Key Trends Accelerating Technology Adoption in K-12 Education  Long-Term Impact Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in K-12 education for five or more years Rethinking How Schools Work: How do we reinvent the traditional classroom and the school experience? Pedagogy such as project based learning are already implemented in many schools. How do we take these pedagogies and remove restrictions such as timetables and bells. Schools like Delaney College in Granville, NSW, Australia have begun to implement a new approach to school using project based learning across year 7. Shift to Deeper Learning Approaches: The report includes examples of how schools are implementing different methods to achieve deep learning. A practical approach would be f...

Personal Interest Projects (PIP) A personal inquiry project is a research project where the topic is driven by student interest. This term I have had the pleasure of taking over a year 10 IST class. With reports and assessments completed I decided to trial a PIP with a secondary group. I will be dedicating the next few posts to how the PIP progresses in a secondary setting. The theme that was set for the term by the previous teacher is "The future of technology".  Communication All communication, links and the assignment sheets are delivered via Google Classroom. Introduction I introduced the unit by giving a guided tour of our school makerspace . It has: Oculus Rift Makerbot Digitiser Makerbot 3D Printer Makey Makey Little Bits GoldieBlox Leap Motion Chromeboxes Formatted Desktops Old computers to pull apart We watched and discussed the future of technology from the perspective of the mid 1900's through to the current day. Jetsons S...

Association for Independent Schools IT Integrators Conference 2014 Two days of connecting and information information about  computational thinking,  makerspaces,  coding,  the Australian Curriculum, and  inquiry learning. Now for the hard part, to take what I have learnt and implement it. For future reference I have decided to summarise my experience of the conference. There were lots of amazing speakers unfortunately I could not attend as many as I would have liked. This is the first part of a series of posts about the conference. The Twitter feed #AISITIC14  an amazing wealth of resources, links, quotes, pics and a small amount of silliness. An AIS conference is not complete without  +Amanda Hogan   ‏ @hogesonline  sketch notes. She has graciously given me permission to use her summaries as a part of my blog. Grok Learning - James Curran  +Grok Learning   @GrokLearning What a great keynote. He spoke on the im...