Each month, we highlight a committed member from the educator community. From early education through high school, classroom teachers, librarians, administrators, and makerspace facilitators are, unquestionably, the backbone when it comes to providing students with relevant learning experiences. Especially in creating innovative opportunities with technology, we know that those who prioritize student-centered, inquiry-based, and also collaborative learning are doing all they can for children. For that (and other reasons), we launched our Eduporium Featured Educator series to share some successes educators have had. We also wanted to do all we could to help inspire other educators around the country. Each one plays such a vital role in advancing student outcomes and integrating new technology. Ultimately, we hope this leads to teachers trying some new things in the classroom or makerspace.
In our newest Eduporium Featured Educator interview, we hear from April Leonard, who serves the students of the Mississippi Heights Elementary school in the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District. She’s done a lot with coding, including using the Dash and Dot and LEGO WeDo with goals of welcoming 1,000 students to a common makerspace in the future.
Tricia has worked with a number of EdTech tools and given the students she coaches a ton of positive experiences. We’re excited to share Tricia’s story and hopefully inspire more educators to take chances with new tech in the classroom and unlock new learning opportunities with technology! Keep reading to learn more!
We spoke with Albert Lewis! Albert works with students in the 4-H Youth Development Program as part of the University of Maryland Extension in Baltimore City. He loves using STEM to connect with the students he works with and, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, he’s helped them find creative ways of using technology in their learning.
Christine works with students at the Double Peak K-8 School in the San Marcos USD in California. As an Innovation TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment), Christine helps facilitate hands-on learning for her students using robotics, 3D printing, circuitry, and other STEAM tools and she’s always finding new ways to help students build problem-solving skills.
Ashley is a K-5 STEM teacher at the Oak Grove Primary School in Prairieville, Louisiana. Using tech tools, like the Makey Makey among others, Ashley has helped create some amazing STEM and real-world learning experiences for her students over the last couple of years and truly empowered them to create some amazing projects!
Michelle works with students in the library at the Tudor Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska, where she loves using technology with her students. In fact, she uses it so effectively that she’s also received the Library Media Specialist of the year award from the TCEA as an acknowledgement of her passion for helping students build real-world skills.
Our latest Eduporium Featured Educator is Morgan VanClief, a library media specialist who teaches just a couple towns over from our office in Dorchester, MA! Morgan has shared in the success of her students by using various robotics tools to complement learning in the library and introduced them to some creative projects.
We’re ramping up our Eduporium Featured Educator series to share more accomplishments from teachers, librarians, makerspace leaders, and others! For this post, we’re excited to introduce Sharon Clark, whose made great use of technology in her instruction as a STEAM teacher, using it to help teach both real-world and soft skills.
We love being able to share teacher stories with you and hope this series continues to give educators encouragement to try new things! Now, we’re featuring Kim LeRoy, a librarian from New York, who was one of the educators to receive a raffle prize from us in the past year. She has been running makerspace activities for her students with great success!
As we do at the beginning of every month, we’re highlighting the work of an innovative educator who has consistently used EdTech to empower his or her students with enhanced learning experiences. This month, we’re featuring Laura Luker, a teacher from Massachusetts, who was one of the educators to receive our EdTech grant in the past year.
