It’s time to introduce our community to another Eduporium Featured Educator—the final one of the 2020 calendar year. This month, we hear from Jean Daley, who’s a paralibrarian at the Erving Public Library in Erving, MA. Like so many others who are responsible for educating today’s students, Jean has had to adapt some of the library’s programming to be accessible remotely—something she’s found success with so far. Knowing how to maximize the resources she has available to her, including her colleagues, Jean has helped facilitate key STEAM learning opportunities for a number of students!
Jean Daley
Paralibrarian 2/1st Library Assistant, Erving Public Library, Erving, MA
Q&A:
Please share any innovative EdTech project(s) you've completed with your students or plan to complete.
When I asked a group of students ranging from second to fourth graders who met regularly at our library what STEAM project they’d like to work on next, they answered enthusiastically. They wanted to make suits and fly possibly with using LEGO’s. A 45-minute discussion ensued with me telling them about Icarus and broken bones. Then, somebody finally said, “We could build a robot that would help us clean our rooms.”
So, we built robots! Four brave kids built an AdaBox002 robot and gave it a cardboard 'personality.' They learned building, engineering, and coding skills and had to cooperate and help each other. And, they didn’t just cut and paste code but went into it and made all the changes themselves. The last day, we paraded our robots outside to the delight of passersby. All the students who participated were then able to keep their creations.
Once our program went remote only, we were able to send a group students in third, fourth, and firth grade Arduino kits and built mood lamps, door alarms, and even weather stations over Zoom. I look forward to building robots again in the future, adding some new features like scrolling weather reports, obstacle avoidance, and line-following capabilities that we would add on ourselves.
In our small, rural town, the library is the heart of the community. Our patrons know that they can come to us for help with schoolwork or resume writing or to play with cool coding toys and robots.
What is a challenge you faced or are facing with your EdTech use? What resources did you use or are in need of?
I used everyone and everything available! I didn’t know much about coding and jumped in way over my head. The kits I used at first were made for high school students and adults, a fact I missed when ordering! I searched for help on various Arduino sites, Facebook, many books and from library patrons who claimed any knowledge of coding. My biggest challenge was learning enough code, but it was great to see the kids breeze right through the parts I struggled with!
What are some of the real-world skills you've seen your students develop through regular EdTech use?
They have become comfortable coding, making mistakes, and trying again. They understand that one misplaced comma will throw the whole thing off. Also, one of my students had never used a screwdriver before and had no idea about slotted screwdrivers versus Phillips heads, but is quite adept now. All of them were more confident about their knowledge after our hands-on classes.
What interests you most about Eduporium?
Everything! I love all the techie stuff gathered in one place, the friendly and helpful staff, and the ease of ordering new STEM tools. The grant they offer is also wonderful! Also, being able to read what other people are doing helps inspire me to come up with the next idea.
We thank Jean for sharing her thoughts and experiences with us and for helping to create effective STEAM learning experiences for students even throughout the pandemic. We hope these stories continue to inspire other educators to try some new things as well! Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more updates on the great things educators are doing with technology. Also, if you’d like to apply to be highlighted on our blog and social media channels as an Eduporium Featured Educator, we’d love to have you fill out the application!