If you’ve been keeping up with our news, you may have heard that we have one member of the Eduporium team currently on a 74-day road trip around the US. Not only is he traveling to some of the coolest spots in the country (the original purpose of the trip), he’s also brought with him 10 Merge Cubes that were donated by our friends at Merge. He’s dropping some cubes off to teachers, and has already stopped in Vermont, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Yesterday, Andy made donation No. 5 and visited Jennifer Fischer, who is a STEAM teacher at the Mary B. Austin Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama!
As her school’s STEAM coach, Jennifer has the chance to engage students in high-quality, project-based learning—something she loves doing! She has used a variety of technology tools with K-12 children so far, including Wonder Workshop robots, and we believe that the Merge Cube we donated will provide her with something new for her students to try. Since they've all had some good experiences with using technology already (and have Jennifer to thank for that), we’re thinking they’ll be excited to try these augmented reality learning opportunities that the Merge Cube provides!
Jennifer truly understands that importance of collaborating amongst peers, fostering student collaboration, facilitating learning experiences, and mentoring these children. With the Merge Cube, she can build on that and generate learning that’s appropriate for students in different grade levels. Back when she had originally applied for our technology grant, she made a point to say that she would like other teachers in the school to be able to use the technology she may be awarded. And, this is the perfect opportunity since the Merge Cube is compact and portable, allowing teachers to truly learn together.
Jennifer's also all about providing these children with learning experiences that will prepare them for life in the 21st century. The Merge Cube can definitely help instructors with this by exposing students to the very much emerging field of AR. When they have in-app lessons open and point their devices towards the cube, they'll see interactive content on their devices. Tapping these various on-screen prompts can open up new tabs with added information and keep all kids engaged. They'll also be able to work together, which aligns pretty nicely with what Jennifer wants to have in her STEAM lab!
Jennifer also said in her original grant application that her school has quarter-long PBL units that separate into different themes. We’re hoping she can tie her new Merge Cube to one of these units or ultimately add some more to her classroom to create more comprehensive units! But, we’ll leave it to her to figure out the best ways to use the cube with her students. If she did want the whole class or children schoolwide to use individual cubes, however, there are subscription options available. They'll provide one classroom worth of cubes and curriculum or enough for the whole school! Anyone can try it for free for 30 days, however!
We thank Jennifer for allowing us to stop by Mary B. Austin Elementary and showing so much excitement! To keep up with all updates she shares, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And, as always, we thank the Merge VR team for their generosity and for making these road trip donations possible. Read more about some of the other stops and look out next week when we stop in North Carolina!