We’re excited to introduce our community to another "Eduporium Featured Educator.” Each month, we’re highlighting the work of an educator who is effectively using EdTech to empower his or her students. We’re happy to be able to share their stories and their work with you and hope it will give other educators encouragement to try something new in the classroom! This month, we’re featuring Nikki Lavergne, an instructional technology facilitator from Louisiana, who led an amazing repurposing of a school bus into a STEAM space with the help of Eduporium’s monthly grant program!
Nikki Lavergne
Instructional Technology Facilitator, Livingston Parish Public Schools, Livingston, LA
Nikki's Technology Journey as Told by Her
After the Great Flood of 2016 (from an unnamed storm), our team decided to focus on makerspaces as a district initiative. We built a sample makerspace at the district office with products ranging from $0-$400. This was such a hit that many of our schools built their own for their students and we were left with a makerspace that no one needed anymore. We soon came up with the idea of a traveling makerspace and classroom that would focus on bringing educational opportunities to our community. The idea for our STEAM Express was born!
Q&A:
What have you done with the technology you received through Eduporium's grant?
Thanks to Eduporium’s generosity, the grant helped us to provide fun and educational opportunities for our students! We brought our STEAM Express (formerly a school bus) to our parish fair and invited the community to come visit. We had several HUNDRED students, teachers, administrators, community members, business owners, and local university personnel tour our STEAM Express with amazing feedback!
Thanks to this grant, we were able to set up several stations—one of them featuring the Dash robot with the xylophone, which the kids LOVED and music teachers were especially interested in. Outside of the bus, we had a bowling demonstration with the Sphero Mini’s that was a ton of fun to figure out and had the adults smiling like children at Christmas.
We partnered with our parish library as well, which hosts STEAM nights with many Edison Robot activities. We also put on classes to educate teachers and community volunteers who are interested in working on the STEAM Express to teach them how to use all of the products and introduce the Wonder Workshop Coding Curriculum.
What interests you most about Eduporium?
What interests me most about Eduporium is how the company recognizes the value in makerspaces and EdTech. Most companies throw the term “makerspace” into a general description of their products, but Eduporium highlights the value of learning in makerspaces and even breaks down their bundles to fit the needs of specific programs.
If you’re interested, you can read more about Nikki’s project in this article from a local publication. Also, if you know of an educator who is doing exciting things with EdTech, feel free to recommend them (or yourself!) as an Eduporium Featured Educator by applying here! Find out more about how Eduporium can help revamp your classroom, library, or makerspace by getting in touch with us. Sign up as an educator and start saving with your discount!