ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
June 2014
Monthly Megabite ITTIP 2014 Spring Summits
Up-Coming Events
ITTIP had several summit celebrations through the month of May. As a participant in many of ITTIP’s grant opportunities, the Institute usually has a summit in the Springtime where participants share their learning and integrations from the school year. Many of them present unit and/or lesson plans, student artifacts, videos, pictures, and more! It is an opportunity to learn and share with our peers from across the divisions.
June 23rd - ModSim, NASA Langley 26th
During the month of May, ITTIP hosted four summits at Longwood University. Over 50 participants shared their experiences, challenges and successes from 17 divisions. As part of ITTIP’s effort to celebrate the hard work that was accomplished over these teachers’ year of learning from VA STEM CoNNECT, CI STEM, Elementary or Middle School SCIEnCE, their lessons and/or unit plans will be edited for publication on ITTIP’s Ed Resources site:
What to find in this month’s Megabite:
http://edresources.ittip.org/ The Institute expects to have these additions to the website by the fall. Currently, the Ed Resources site has over 70 lesson and unit plans.
June 28th - ISTE, Atlanta, GA July 1st
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2014 Summits
Page 2 PD at Longwood
Page 3 Engineering Webinars Page 3 ITTIP Visits Albemarle Above & Right: Participants present their work and student artifacts from their projects.
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ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
June 2014
ITTIP Staff Attends Longwood PD Available ITTIP staff attended two professional development sessions on May 21st from SKILLPATH. Longwood University’s Professional Development Committee organized the opportunity for Longwood staff. The sessions were held in the Nance room and focused on leadership skills for persuading, motivating, inspiring, and empowering your peers. This experience additionally gave Longwood employees from various departments a chance to work together and get to know each other. SKILLPATH made to sure to keep everyone busy doing various partner and group tasks throughout the day.
Above: Attendees received a workbook for each session.
ITTIP Hosts Engineering Webinars During the month of May, ITTIP staff hosted a two part webinar series on, “Engineering Our Way Through Middle School Mathematics”. The webinar presenters included Longwood University’s Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Virginia Lewis, and Diane Leighty, a long time educator and previous Powhatan County Schools Mathematics Coordinator. The webinar attracted over 20 participants from 7 different divisions. The participants will be sharing their learning through submitting a teaching plan that integrates what they learned over the webinar series, including the integration of the engineering design process, by June 30th. The Institute looks forward to eventually publishing these plans on the Ed Resources site.
ITTIP Hummingbird takes Technology Around the World
Duo
Have you seen the Hummingbird Robotics Kit? Whether you have or not, Bird Brain Technologies is currently on Kickstarter trying to launch a new and improved kit: The Hummingbird Duo. While the Hummingbird Robotics Kit is a great tool for fostering creativity and innovation to a broad age range, the Duo helps expand the microcontroller kit’s capabilities by adding additional components and features. Check out their Kickstarter and lend your support! Need to know more about the current Hummingbird Kit and projects to get an idea of what you can do? Check out their example robots or Curricula page.
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ITTIP Monthly Newsletter
June 2014
ITTIP Staff Visits Sutherland Middle School Since the STEM Summit back in January, STEM Specialists at ITTIP have been anxious to get out to some of the classrooms that presented 3D printing in collaboration with the University of Virginia. Mr. Robert Munsey, Middle School Science teacher at Sutherland Middle School in Albermarle agreed to let them visit during the month of May. Mr. Munsey had a project he wanted us to see where the students were researching a physical disability and creating a product that would help a person complete a certain task. Some students would be 3d scanning and printing, using other supplies, and even perhaps choosing to create an app for a mobile device. During the visit from ITTIP staff, the students were in the beginning stages of the project. They were working in groups and researching, while others were already in the design process. “It was great to see every single student engaged and applying their learning authentically, as would a real scientist. It was interesting to go around and hear the students explain their ideas and watch them come to life through the design process,” said STEM Specialist, Stephanie Playton. While some students were working on ideas for prosthetic limbs to play different sports, others were working on applications to work for people that had memory problems. Another group worked on creating a more innovative use for crutches for someone with a short term physical disability. Whatever the students’ ideas were, creativity, collaboration and innovation were key elements. During the visit, staff said that every single student was activity engaged even given their independence from the teacher. ITTIP staff looks forward to visiting additional classrooms to see what kind of innovative things are being done in the classroom, especially in regards to 3D printing. If you would like to see more about the kinds of things that Mr. Munsey does in his classroom with 3D printing, check out his videos and pictures on his website: http://www.munseyclass.com/
Above: A student works on his group’s digital version of their design using a software program called, 123 Design.
Left: Students work together with supplies around the classroom to design their product to assist a physical disability.
Above: Students work together to take pictures of a foot to create a 3D printable object for their project using a mobile application, 123D Capture.
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