Valerie is an author, educator, and huge proponent for STEM education. She’s helped lead hands-on STEM experiences for students and helped expand their minds with some of her favorite STEM-related books. Whether it’s hands-on coding or stimulating creative thoughts, Valerie definitely believes in the power of collaboration and community.
To wrap up our back-to-school STEAM and SEL webinar series, we partnered with our friends from the Ozobot Education team. Led by Melissa Toohey and Tara Reynen, we discussed the importance of CS education, creating SEL connections with the Ozobot Evo, and how the Ozobot Classroom LMS helps simplify coding instruction and prep work.
Once you get the Skoog powered on, it’s easy to pair it with a device and get started trying the various sounds. The Skoog 2.0 is incredibly unique, offering students the chance to create musical sounds with tactile touch and even try coding and mixing with different mobile apps. Plus, each of its different colored surfaces allow students to create
With DroneBlocks, STEM educators can build on student interest in flying drones and take it further with drones they can program! DroneBlocks is a free app that is compatible with Chrome, iPad, and Android devices and provides educators with great professional development tools and resources for helping them maximize their drone and coding instruction.
Teaching students about drones, their uses, and how to pilot them is amazing in its own right. When you incorporate the fact that some drones, like the Tello EDU, are programmable, then it takes drone education to a whole new level and the DroneBlocks professional learning content is a great way to get started.
DJI’s drones are great for teaching coding and piloting basics. Having long been a staple of our STEM education offerings, these drones offer unprecedented levels of excitement and a ton of educational value for students. They can literally use one tool to learn about piloting, shooting video, and coding, making the Tello EDU a great value.
Our newest Featured Educator is Patti Andreolas, an elementary teacher from Queens, NY. Patti has become involved in a variety of innovative projects with her students, helping them develop both hard and soft skills in the classroom. Whether it’s with physical or digital EdTech tools, she’s seen how hands-on learning can impact how students develop.
As always, we’re excited to see how the grant will help Bonni and her colleagues realize their collective mission of making greater progress in their STEM education programs. According to her, they’ve spent many years talking about how to evolve their STEM offerings and now find themselves in the right position to truly make it happen for their students.
If you’ll be in Atlanta for the GAETC, we encourage you to come by to learn more about our offerings or to just say hi. Among the happenings at our booth, we’ll display some educator favorites, including tech tools for the classroom, library, and makerspace and share the benefits of some of the other services we provide.
Whether it’s classroom teachers or challenges students themselves are facing, it’s a different environment when it comes to STEM instruction. Since the value of of these classes lies in their hands-on nature, it’s been quite a physical and mental adjustment trying to provide students with the experiences they need.
