Andy Larmand

These days, kids gravitate towards the most engaging content and Buncee is an accessible, easy to integrate, and engaging platform for any students or educators to demonstrate their creativity and their content development skills. Even school and district administrators can use Buncee to create or enhance content for web pages or to distribute at community events!

Students have dealt with a slew of varying emotions and all-new stressors since learning went remote amid the pandemic and plenty are still working back from that. Infusing MakerEd tools into new types of instruction is one solution that could help children restore some of that emotional balance so they can keep learning, express ideas, and share feelings comfortably.

Educational leaders and school librarians routinely team up on repurposing traditional library rooms into versatile, multi-purpose facilities. There are so many benefits to this but it’s often largely tied to the importance of STEAM education and popularity of various makerspace kits. So, this week, we are exploring some top STEM supplies that also double as library supplies.

Robotics tools, in particular, are very valuable in K–12 classrooms because of the various sets of skills children can gain when coding with them. Most notably, teachers could introduce a variety of programming languages, like Scratch, Blockly, JavaScript, Swift, Python, and others—helping kids build a foundation for both their creative and technological development.

When using the SAM Labs kits in your classroom, the wireless setup helps make everything easier to integrate. With the SAM Labs projects, students can apply logic, reasoning, design thinking, and computational thinking as they build inventions and, not only are they great for coding in elementary school, each kit is also great for makerspaces and afterschool activities.

In the webinar, we joined RobotLAB’s VP of Business Development, Cedric Vaudel, who guided the audience through a demo of using RobotLAB’s VR systems, content, and hardware. He began with explaining how their team utilized feedback from educators for designing this final product, including some very specific, education-focused upgrades. Watch the replay inside!

You might hear this a lot, but almost every school makerspace may feature unique learning and building materials. Because makerspaces are found all throughout the K–12 grades (and even college), an elementary makerspace will often look a whole lot different than one you’ll see in a high school. So, using the right supplies at the right times makes a significant

AR and VR both unlock unique angles for learning that, along with effective integration, can enhance student learning experiences. They can also bring concepts to life with stunning visual displays and, once these physical and digital worlds intersect, students can gain context that supports instruction and even potentially reaches them on more of an emotional level.

While other pandemic-induced issues, like inequity, isolation, relationships, and SEL have been crucial focal areas, the effects of too much screen time on their daily development have also caught up with many students. As we continue to hone in on student mental health concerns, it’s often important for parents and educators to keep digital wellbeing in focus for kids.

The Marty V2 is ideal for students in Grades K-8 since they can easily build their bots themselves. This helps teachers incorporate in-class engineering experiences as well as enabling children to better connect their heads and hands throughout that building process. Once it is built, students can then explore opportunities for different types of coding with this compact robot.