November 16 was our Social Studies Dept. Meeting in the Makerspace. Looking ahead we've got Greek City States, Industrial Revolution and World War 1 primed for Minecraft.Edu. Mike installed a trial of it on a desktop/server and our Coding Club tried it out last Friday. I've put in the order, but I don't know if it will go through soon enough - and I don't know how to control it! We're going to be doing GREEN SCREEN with 6th grade for Roman Museum first though so I have a couple weeks before we'll be playing Minecraft.Edu to learn.
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Got a quick email the even before from Dr. Storch. I had offered the Makerspace as the place she could allow her students to create Chinese characters since we have tempura paint and paint brushes the week before and she was taking me up on it! All went well and below are pics of the experience. Ms Brandes brought her Life Skills 1 & 2 to the Makerspace to complete their section on Learning Styles. The students had completed surveys to discover their preferred learning style; auditory, visual or tactile. In the Makerspace, they were charged with creating something and explaining to the class how their particular learning style benefits them in the classroom. Below are photos of the experience. The tactile tables were Playdough and "junk". The visual were the drawing table, (dry erase) and tempura paint. The auditory were laptops with YouTube and LMMS, a free make a beat application. Audio Visual gave us GREEN SCREEN. (Great seller, that Green Screen!) Genius Hour & a full schedule have found me a full 20 days or more without posting. We're on Thanksgiving Break now. I've brought the 3D printer home to print the Genius Hour designs. This was our third session and finally - yes, finally the students got on to Tinkercad and some designed their first piece. My group stayed in the Media Center because the Makerspace was being used by Mr. Thornton's fishing group!! - Imagine, fishing in the Makerspace! Mr. Thornton's student teacher is with UNCG and has benefited from the Makerspace there. He created a fishing lure and so he and Mr. Thornton had their group designing their own using Tinkercad. It was very fulfilling seeing an idea come to fruition.
Full engagement at Coding Club this afternoon. Mike came again from UNCG to lend a hand (aka Lead) Coding Club with Arduino. Several new students were on site - one missing due to grades... Simon was successful creating flashing lights and is looking forward to creating "police lights" next week. Others played with Makey Makey playdough (left over from Mr. Shu's class) and Scratch. While I lead the Makerspace movement, I am so unknowledgeable about Science and circuitry! Others make the connection between what students are accomplishing and the Science & Technology behind it - getting them to think forward. Feeling in need of some learning. I thought Makerspace would be a challenge to integrate in Social Studies & Language Arts, but a breeze for Science - and Math, but we've had so much more buy in with our ELA and SS. Little with our Science. Example - this past week: Monday & Tuesday, Ms Cordell had her students come to the Makerspace to be introduced to Green Screening based on the SE Hinton novel, The Outsiders. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday was the big debut of Scratch + Makey Makey with Mr. Shu's classes. Lots of minor tech issues, but overall a success! Students created a point of view with 2 dramatic irony examples based on Flowers for Algernon or Enders Game. It was exhausting, but hopefully meaningful. I'll follow up with a Today's Meet & Survey next week to see. We're meeting with Social Studies Dept. on Nov. 16 to discuss integration possibilities.
Many thanks to Paisley Middle School for surplusing 3 Smartboards and 1 Promethean Board.. Oh, and 3 ladibugs!. Pics below of our adventure, Ms. Webb, Mr. Teague, (his truck), and I scored BIG! We've already installed one Smartboard in our ESL teacher's room. Next stop.. Ms. Menten - 6th grade! Here is the first of several posts to come on Mr. Shu's project. The reason I made 12 balls of playdough this past weekend. First off, links to YouTube videos I created so I could remember to cover all the important points and still be free to work the room to confirm students were headed in the right direction. The first; how to create a Scratch Account and create a basic 2 step operation to play/record sound. Click on the Scratch Pic below to view a basic YouTube video instructing the step-by-step process. And click on the next pic to view the short Makey-Makey instructions to connect with the Scratch programming above.
If you've been following the story, the Idea Paint we used on the purloined Science tables has been chipping and looking awful - glad we had to return them now! So, we were awarded a grant by the Kernersville Chamber of Commerce to buy more paint - but that was before we discovered how awful it looks. As an alternative, we've purchased a showerboard, $12. Lowe's Home Improvement, and glue (I've written about this earlier I know!) Here are first pictures. Still waiting to get approval from the Chamber to buy this alternative.. Fingers crossed!
Final Products from students' Shoe Box Projects in Ms. Brandes' class. Three Students designed furniture to be printed on our Forge Creator Pro 3D Printer. |
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March 2016
KMS MAKERSPACECreated through the generosity and affiliation with UNCG and its Transforming Teaching Through Technology Grant, (T4), Our KMS Makerspace will offer our students creative ways to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in learning at Kernersville Middle School. Categories |