As we start the new month, let's first close the book on the previous one. Like we do every month, we have selected the latest educator to receive our technology grant. For September, we present the award to Lori Whitlow, who is a teacher at the Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, VA! In this work with her high school students, Lori loves helping them draw real-world connections with their projects. She's also in the process of figuring out how to start a makerspace somewhere in the school, which is certainly a great component of STEM education. We congratulate Lori on her selection as this month's recipient and we look forward to seeing how students in her school community benefit from some new tech tools!
At the moment, Lori has some rough plans for turning an empty room into the school's official makerspace. She wants to create student-centered, accessible, and collaborative learning opportunities, which all mesh perfectly with maker education. In fact, she's considering modeling the makerspace after a college library or a maker studio to create a real-world feel. Since these students are approaching their college years, this definitely seems like a worthwhile strategy for extending their classroom experiences!
Even before she and her colleagues have their official makerspace set up, however, Lori has been creating STEAM opportunities for her students. She's seen coding and related knowledge truly inspire students and knows these skills often place them on a terrific trajectory. From some previous coding classes, she's seen how students learn invaluable skills, like persistence, problem solving, or creativity. Giving them a space to tap and bolster their creativity in the near future, however, might only enrich those experiences. She's also making every effort to personalize those learning experiences and contribute to student growth, active exploration, and project development.
Lori also loves how makerspace opportunities can bring greater relevance to the student experience. She sees it as an always-evolving opportunity for students to apply those concepts they learn in the classroom and use those experiences as they pursue real-world knowledge. As she gets closer to officially beginning design on the makerspace, she's thinking about some of the STEAM tools that she'd like to include, which is partly what led to her applying for our grant. Perfectly aligned with her vision of creating fun, real-world, problem-based makerspace experiences, we'll be providing Sphero Mini robots. With them, her students will be able to explore coding, robotic behavior, and design thinking among other STEM connections.
She sees these robotics tools as excellent options for helping to reinforce many in-demand STEAM skills. Beyond that, however, Lori also recognizes the importance for children to develop these skills regardless of their eventual career paths. Maybe most importantly, she sees the versatility of the Sphero Mini's impacting this school's curriculum and the effectiveness of their makerspace in more ways than one—an observation that's certainly accurate. Once again, we thank Lori for applying and congratulate her for her selection! We encourage educators interested in applying for our EdTech grant to submit the application for October's award. It's open now and will remain open through Oct. 20. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more!