So much of 21st century education often involves getting your students to unleash the creativity they did not even know they had. The challenge is getting them to access it on a daily basis. The solution might be to have them collaborate—daily, nightly, or pretty much whenever possible. Two heads are better than one and collaboration is a crucial 21st century skill.
Finding a simple robot arm that is affordable but still complete enough so that more than one could be used in the classroom might seem tough. After a large number of requests rolled in, Bentz sought funding for a fleet of equipment with which to produce his affordable, 3D-printed robotic arms. Thus, the LittleArm was born.
In 21st century education, teachers try to prepare students for a world with technology, hands-on work, and the unknown. Most teachers know about the importance of equipping students with the hard and soft skills they will need in the “real world” and it’s usually their lack of strong resources—not their quality of instruction—that interferes with this challenging process.
Here at Eduporium, we have been lucky enough to acquire our very own version of one of the most advanced robots in the world—a little bot called NAO. NAO is about two feet tall and voice activated. We’ve had it around the office for a little while now, and although we’ve seen a little of what NAO is capable of, we were eager to dive in and see some more.
The Holiday Season is a time for selflessness and gift giving to let those in our lives know how much we care about them. As our focus has always been on education, however, we sometimes tend to go a little overboard in recommending that parents get their kids gifts that combine fun and learning—and there’s nothing wrong with that!
COJI is a small robot designed to teach the ideas of coding to children as young as four years old by using Emoji-based commands. The idea behind this language is that faces and images are easy to understand for young children. The display screen that makes up COJI’s face depicts one emoji and the emoji-based coding language is pretty fun.
The annual Computer Science Education Week put on by Code.org serves as a yearly reminder of the importance of coding and Computer Science education in contemporary K-12 schools. Expected to be the literacy of future generations, coding has become an extremely important skill to have and creative Hour of Code projects are very helpful.
Puzzlets is a unique product designed to introduce the youngest students to problem solving and inspire curiosity through technology. The Puzzlets themselves come in a kit that connects to a Bluetooth-enabled device and create the conditions for an unusual kind of play: an interactive video game controlled by a group of physical toys.
Its potential is enormous and the learning opportunities it helps create are astounding. Some teachers, however, shy away from trying it because they assume that it’s too complicated or too expensive. The truth is that it’s outrageously easy to use and extremely affordable—even for educators. So, does VR have a future in K-12 classrooms?
Thames and Kosmos makes and distributes over 100 hands-on science kits designed to engage students in high-quliaty STEM learning with real-life experiemnts. For today’s Eduporium Experiment, I looked at one kit in particular: The Robotics Smart Machines set—a 230-piece toolbox designed to teach the basics of engineering and robotics to kids.
