Our third Merge Cube donation took place this past Friday at the Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School in Los Angeles, California! For those of you who may not be familiar with this initiative, Andy from Eduporium is traveling the country on a 74-day road trip, so he brought along some EdTech donations to gift to some teachers thanks to our friends at Merge VR. The latest educator to receive one was Jennifer Nishimoto, an instructional technology coach at the Santa Monica school, which is located just steps from the famous Santa Monica Boulevard. Like many of the educators who will be receiving Merge Cube donations, Jennifer applied for our technology grant a few months ago and, since she was not selected, we’re happy to be able to provide her with this donation!
Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School is a part of the Fenton Charter Public Schools. Located in Los Angeles, the school serves students of all different backgrounds and Jennifer in particular is responsible for working with many of the school’s youngest students—from transitional kindergarten to second grade. At the donation meeting, Jennifer was joined by the school director, Cary Rabinowitz, and a couple of other members of the school’s faculty. They had some great questions about teaching and learning with the Merge Cube and were instantly blown away by the AR displays they saw!
Visiting the Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School.
Jennifer has done a lot of work with STEM resources as the school’s instructional tech specialist and had even explored the Merge Cube a bit already. During the meeting, Andy got to show her how to use it more in-depth, including the best mobile apps to use with the cube. Her and her colleagues discovered how easy it is to download the mobile apps, launch them from a smartphone or tablet, and start learning with AR right away. After getting through the set-up exercises and brief tutorials, they all wanted to see what the Merge Cube could really do!
One of the first lessons that users are able to access has to do with the Solar System, which they were excited to explore. As soon as they held their new Merge Cube up in front of their devices (four of them were experiencing it at once!), there was definitely some audible excitement and intrigue among them. Just by pointing their device at the cube, they were able to see the AR effects on their screens and navigate through the different content elements. By tapping their screens to highlight the different planets displayed in this particular lesson, they saw how there was more information provided on each, how the Merge Cube could be used to create new types of learning in their classrooms, and that it can read the text aloud.
The Merge Cube in action on the spot.
After seeing what the Merge Cube could do for their teaching and discovering that it’s a lot more affordable than they thought, the teachers were discussing the different ways they could use it in their instruction. They also inquired about the different purchasing options and what’s included with the Merge subscription. They may have had Cary convinced to look more into getting a subscription for the entire school, but we’ll have to wait and see!
It was great to be able to visit the Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School and check out the cool LA neighborhood where it’s located. Thank you to Jennifer and to Cary for hosting and to the other eager educators who came to check it out. And, of course, we hope the Merge Cube serves you and your students well! To keep up to date with the other school visits we have planned over the next month (seven to go!), be sure to check back in on our blog and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. As always, thank you to the Merge team for making this all possible!