ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
February 2014
Monthly Megabite ITTIP Presents at VSTE Conference in Roanoke The Virginia Society for Technology in Education Conference was held December 8th-10th, in Roanoke, Virginia. The Institute’s STEM Specialists, Stephanie Playton and Paula Leach, presented a one hour hands-on session on MaKey MaKey. The session had over 25 participants. During the presentation, participants got into groups and were challenged to first make a game controller, then make a song to share with the participants using the preprogramed microcontroller. “It was so rewarding to see the ‘ah-ha’ moment for these teachers as they were able to figure out how to use the tool. We purposely gave them very minimal instruction so they could work together to problem solve on their own, similar to how we would introduce this tool with students ”, Stephanie Playton said. One lucky participant was also able to take home their own MaKey MaKey kit in a drawing at the end of the session. Above: MaKey MaKey session participants are In addition, Stephanie Playton and challenged with making a game controller using various materials. Bill Wilson, Senior Technology Engineer of ITTIP, presented at VSTE’s first Hackerspace. During this Continued on page 3
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Up-Coming Events Feb 6th8th
Texas STEM Conference, Dallas, TX
Feb 19th
SVRTC Meeting, Nottoway High School
What to find in this month’s Megabite: Page 1 VSTE Page 2 Codeathon in York Page 3 STEM Summit Page 3 Classroom Observations
ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
February 2014
ITTIP Presents Scratch at York County’s Codeathon 2.0 On January 9th, Dr. Manorama Talaiver and Stephanie Playton, ITTIP’s Director and STEM Specialist, spent the day at York County’s High School for a Codeathon 2.0 event organized by Reggie Fox, Coordinator of Online Learning for York County School Division. ITTIP staff repeated three sessions on programming Scratch for middle and high school students. The purpose of the session was to expose students to different ways software can be used to engineer games. During the session, students practiced programming with the integration of MaKey MaKey. They were challenged to create a script in Scratch to be controlled by the MaKey MaKey microcontroller. At the end of each fifty minute session, two short demonstrations were presented to students. The first demonstration showed students how you could use MaKey MaKey with games already made and shared in the Scratch community. The demonstration included a dance floor, using cardboard, tin foil, and the MaKey Above: York County students work MaKey microcontroller. The second short demonstration illustrated how you can use the Finch Robot and together to connect their MaKey MaKey kit to work with their Scratch control it with programming through Scratch. The ses- Above: Stephanie Playton asks Codeathon participants sions were not only fun for the attendees, but also for program. how to assemble the Makey MaKey while doing a demonstration.
ITTIP takes Technology ClassFlow Around the World ClassFlow is a new cloud based storage platform, currently available in beta format. ClassFlow allows teachers to build and access interactive lessons from any web browser, share lessons with peers, use student response technologies and mobile devices including tablets, laptops and interactive whiteboards. This tool allows teachers to share content, poll the class in real-time and exchange annotated lessons through mobile devices. Teachers can also send and receive lesson data. Currently, ClassFlow allows you to connect other online storage accounts such as, Google Drive, Sky Drive and Dropbox to your ClassFlow account. The platform has a lesson builder tool that lets you store your teaching resources including favorite tools, websites, videos, documents, presentations and more! They also have an online community for new users to ask questions, report problems, or share ideas.
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ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
February 2014
2014 STEM Summit The 7th Annual STEM Summit was held at Longwood University, Thursday, January 30th. After a warm welcome from Dr. Chapman, Dean of the College of Education and Human Services at Longwood University, ITTIP’s director, Mano Talaiver, began with presenting to the participants the qualities of makers and inventive thinkers. She challenged listeners to RESPOND by looking for qualities of resilience, excellence, seeking out, perseverance/passion, optimism, new processes/ideas, and determination in students. The Summit’s first guest speaker was a high school junior from a rural school in India, Tenith Adithyaa, who joined via Skype. Tenith talked about his banana leaf technology, research he has been conducting over the past four years. His technology uses a chemical free process that increases the longevity of a banana leaves up to two years, naturally drying out only after 3-4 days. The banana leaves can be used to make plates, cups, envelopes and more! This decreases the waste produced by the use of paper and plastic products. His technology is economically friendly, impacting the need for deforestation, animal deaths, and landfills, to name a few. Tenith is almost through the entire process of owning the patent for this technology, and has hopes to commercialize the technology for others to use world wide. In return, this is a great opportunity for India’s exporting, as the banana leaf is native and very plentiful in this country. Tenith concluded his presentation with giving thanks for his parents in believing in him and giving him support. He expressed that he is very busy and does not get much rest with balancing school, home, and his research, but he said he does not need it. “No rest for me, because science gives me the strength!”, Tenith says. Tenith has already been awarded several recognitions for his research, including the 2014 Indian Science & Engineering Fair Nationals. University of Virginia’s, Professor of Instructional Technology in the Curry School of Education, Dr. Glen Bull, brought a group of people from the University, and Charlottesville City and Albemarle County schools. Together, the group talked about an initiative with integrating 3D printing . Students from Buford (Charlottesville City) and Sutherland (Albemarle County) Engineering Design Academies, presented on how they used the 3D printer to recreate historical inventions, such as the telegraph, from manuscripts. Middle school students from the two engineering design academies talked about the process and the integration of cross curriculum subjects including, Mathematics, History, and Writing. Continued on page 5
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VSTE (continued) event, staff set out several tools for attendees to explore, including: Hummingbird, Finch Robot, Squishy Circuits, MaKey MaKey, and Sphero. A brief overview was given for each tool. Participants were then invited to walk around, tinker, and ask questions. The Finch Robot and Hummingbird were Above: Hackerspace connected to participant tinkers computers for with the Sphero using others to even an iPad. explore programming themselves. ITTIP staff enjoyed doing this informal session with VSTE, and look forward to presenting at their Hack-
Above: Summit participant, Ethan Abruzzo, asks the presenter, Tenith Adithyaa, a question over Skype.
ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
February 2014
ITTIP Specialists Observe Classrooms as Follow-Ups from Summer Activities As part of the Summer 2013 workshop grants, ITTIP staff gets to visit classrooms to observe teacher’s lessons. This is one of the fun parts of the job, as facilitators get to see their students (the teachers) put what they have learned to work in the classroom. In December, a visit was made to Rebecca Thornton’s middle school classroom at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. Ms. Thorton is a participant of the VA STEM CoNNECT grant, and invited ITTIP staff out to see part of her STEM unit. During the visit, staff got to see the part of the unit where the students used their designed cars to measure and record the distance they were able to travel down several different ramp heights. Students seemed to enjoy seeing their car designs in action! They were later brought back to the classroom where they could analyze and chart their data, and discuss with their teammates how they would be presenting the information later to their peers. Another observation took place in January in Mr. Tim Winkler’s classroom at Bailey Bridge Middle School in ChesterAbove: Hargrave Military Academy students measure and record the distance field, Virginia. Mr. Winkler is a particitheir designed race cars travel. pant of the Middle School SCIEnCE grant. During his lesson, ITTIP staff got to see part of his problem based learning unit. Students were given the task of working in groups to purpose the next best power plant to open in Richmond. They first had to decide, with what information they learned about pros and cons of each type of plant, which plant would be best and where to locate it. Students used Mr. Winkler’s website to reference the project materials, resources and rubric assessment. At the end of the unit, students are challenged with presenting their results through justifying their plant and its location through charts, diagrams, research, and an advertisement. ITTIP staff looks forward to continuing with visits to classrooms through the springtime. If you were a participant of 2013-2014 VA STEM CoNNECT, Middle School SCIEnCE, Elementary School SCIEnCE, or CI STEM workshops, and have not scheduled an observation, we look forward to visiting your classroom soon! Above: Students at Bailey Bridge Middle School, Chesterfield, use Google Maps to find the best location for a proposed power plant.
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ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
February 2014
STEM Summit (continued) One student said that this learning and teaching model helps “Our engineering teacher to promote freedom and creativity in the classroom making us feel like real engineers!” Both principals from the academies, as well as engineering and science teachers, were there to talk about their roles in this initiative. David Rogers, principal at Sutherland Middle School, said it took a lot of ongoing communication and collaboration to make this project successful. “The planning piece is huge”, said Mr. Rogers. The collaborative project will be moving forward with other 3D projects that will include additional opportunities for students. The Smithsonian also has agreed to be a collaborative partner, as they have just began their own initiative with creating 3D images of archived artifacts. The presentations continues after lunch, including ITTIP’s STEM Specialists presentation on K-12 STEM Tools. Tools that were highlighted were the Hummingbird robotics kits, Squishy Circuits, the Finch Robot, and Makey Makey. Presenters, Stephanie Playton and Paula Leach, even gave participants a collaborative handsAbove: Dr. Glen Bull, University of Virginon challenge with the Makey Makey microcontrollers. ia (UVA), introduces Summit participants to the collaborative efforts of UVA, CharMathDisk cofounder, Mohamed Rafiq Jaffarali, also presented his free online mathematics modeling tool, geared for lottesville City Public Schools, and Albemarle County Public Schools. use in middle and high school mathematics classes. He explained and modeled how the software included both 2D and 3D models that could be manipulated. Some model examples even included embedding videos that were tailored to play and pause in conjunction with the simulations. Mr. Jaffarali also noted that there was an offline version available for teachers and students to use if they did not have internet connectivity available.
The last presentation of the day was from Dr. Kimberly Brush of NASA. She shared with participants the free STEM learning opportunities for both educators and students. Dr. Bush talked about the counselor workshops geared toward promoting and encouraging engineering careers for students, modeling and simulation workshops, NASA tours, webinars, Virtual Educator Professional Development, and NASA’s Digital Learning Network (DLN).
Above: Summit participants get a handson experience using Makey Makey during ITTIP STEM Specialist’s K-12 STEM Tools presentation.
Even though the weather played an inherent part in the overall attendance of this year’s summit, it was a huge success to those that were able to be part of the event. ITTIP looks forward to holding the 8th Annual STEM Summit in 2015, with a possible Fall date.
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