Category: design
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Visualizing Off-Planet Habitats
My middle school computer programming students are continuing to work on our “Coding Mars” unit, in which they are using Minecraft MakeCode to simulate the 3D printing of structures and habitats which Icon of Austin, Texas, is under contract with NASA to do first on the moon / the lunar surface and (ultimately) on Mars.…
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Reflections on PD Hackathon 2023
Today I’ve had an opportunity to participate, facilitate, and volunteer as a judge in our fall 2023 Hackathon at our school, Providence Day School of Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the second time I’ve been able to be part of the Hackathon, and in this post I’d like to reflect a little about some of…
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Media Dominoes Fall
In tonight’s EdTech Situation Room webshow and podcast, I shared Storyblocks as my “Geek of the Week.” It is an amazing virtual media library for videographers, storytellers, and Storychasers. The Storyblocks website explains: Unlock access to our library of over a million royalty-free footage, template, music, and photo assets as well as an easy-to-use video…
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“Dance Off” Lego Robotics Challenge
My middle school robotics students are having fun and learning a lot, working through the freely available Carnegie Mellon Lego Spike Prime Robotics curriculum unit on “Movement.” I have 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in this class. Since some students always finish faster than others, I’ve created an optional “Lego Robotics Bonus Challenge” for…
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Reflections on Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy (Part 1)
This week I am attending a 4 1/2 day robotics workshop at Carnegie Mellon University, learning how to teach middle school robotics with the “Lego Spike Prime” robot platform. This is based on the Scratch programming language from MIT, which I love and have been using for over 10 years. In this podcast reflection (from…
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Podcast475: Lessons Learned Teaching During the Pandemic
Welcome to the first episode of Moving at the Speed of Creativity for 2021, now starting its 16th year as an educational podcast! This podcast episode features a conversation with Shelly and Wesley Fryer on January 3, 2021, reflecting on some of their lessons learned teaching elementary and middle school students during 2020, the first…