When it comes to STEM in 21st century teaching and learning, there are few limits to what students can accomplish. Besides helping boost their overall engagement and enjoyment levels in the here and now, access to STEM learning and opportunities to build real-world skills often significantly improve how students prepare for the future. Whether it's with introducing them to coding in the early grades, engineering in their middle years, or the benefits of more complex technologies, like virtual reality or artificial intelligence, in high school, STEM education is a crucial piece of student development. With such huge potential and importance, however, this instruction requires planning, guidance, and equipment. And, as the economy keeps trending toward STEM-dominated professions and opportunities, exposure to these areas is vital. Thankfully, there are few restrictions to leading effective STEM lessons.
Our mission is helping educators develop students who are truly Future Ready and helping them facilitate relevant learning is how. To that end, we offer a robust online store filled with the latest STEM solutions. But, beyond that, we love creating and sharing impactful content to help enhance how educators use these tools in instruction. In this section of our blog, you'll find countless posts on trending STEM topics, how-to articles, many recommendations for classroom solutions and projects, industry updates, connections between STEAM tools and the future, and a lot more. We are also extremely committed to closing certain gaps and increasing equity in STEM education. As such, a lot of this content contains context for advancing inclusive opportunities for all kids. We encourage you to search through the posts to find something relevant for you. And, if there's any topics we've missed, let us know.
As educators, we strive to provide our students with the best foundation for success. But, more importantly, we seek to impart skills that students can tap into throughout their academic and professional careers. The days of rote memorization are long gone. Now, students must learn how to ask the hard questions, solve difficult problems, and be creative.
As personal drones become more popular, innovators have been working hard on developing new ways to use drone technology. One of the most popular uses for a drone today? A sophisticated, flying camera! That’s just one of the features that the subject of this week’s Eduporium Experiment, the Micro Drone, comes fully equipped with.
We began the month with a table and a constant crowd on Feb. 2 and 3 at Learn Launch’s annual Across Boundaries Conference held at the amazing Hynes Convention Center in Boston. A local organization, Learn Launch is dedicated to expanding Boston’s EdTech ecosystem by connecting many of today’s educators with innovative products and companies (like us)!
In the 21st century, those who are most successful are always thinking at least one—sometimes two, three, or four steps ahead. Why? Because they have to. No longer can the most successful workers and students get by on basic skills. The times have changed and now essentially require them to have increasingly innovative skill sets just to survive.
The pi-top isn’t the only build-it-yourself computer on the market these days! As the Maker Movement snowballs in popularity, innovators are starting to wholly buy in to the idea that students need to learn not only in software skills, but hardware skills as well. This is where Piper, the wooden, kid-friendly, DIY laptop kit comes in and shines.
According to Code.org statistics, about 90 percent of parents in the United States want their children to learn how to code. On the other hand, only 40 percent of students in K-12 schools are currently learning about computer science. Considering the huge demand for technically competent workers in today’s growing-by-the-minute IT sector, learning how to code is key.
Designed to make engineering fun for girls, Roominate empowers them to control exploration by making them the architect, the engineer, or even the electrician! It’s a neat way to build Future Ready kids while they strengthen design and engineering skills by building cafés, cars, and even brand-new houses! And, we’ve got some new STEAM kits just for that!
The search continues to provide teachers and parents with an entry-level robot that ensures little ones aren’t left out of STEM learning. This week I experimented with one of our simpler robotics toys, the Mini MiP, which is developed by WowWee and serves as a smaller, less complex version of WowWee’s MiP robot.
You have your teachers. You have your administrators. And, you have your aides. Now, there’s yet another profession that’s come to life in lots of 21st century schools and it’s becoming one that seems to soon be fully present across the board. We’re talking about EdTech specialists and instructional technologists, who help educators integrate tech tools more effectively.
R2-D2 from Star Wars remains my personal favorite character because of its sassy personality. Since I was a little kid, I dreamed of having a robot friend. So, if I were still a kid today, I would have begged to get my hands on the Dash and Dot, the playful robots from Wonder Workshop that are revolutionizing the way introductory
