Preparing for #DLDay

.@thomascmurray @wwpscience show how #edtech has made a difference in education at their schools. #DLDay pic.twitter.com/DuYnIWRN9s

— Digital Learning Day (@OfficialDLDay) February 5, 2014

.@wwpscience presenting #science lesson with #edtech. #DLDay https://t.co/uS3hy42AEv

— Digital Learning Day (@OfficialDLDay) February 5, 2014

Last year, I was honored to present at Digital Learning Day in Washington at the Library of Congress. I had my presentation and all of the tools: littleBits, rovers, student work examples, and the ever so important stack of business cards. Truth be told, I felt incredibly bare. Student work, and the impact of great partnerships, needs to be shared by the students. I showed the pictures and videos of the high school students building their rovers and collaborating with their elementary students, and guests at my station were, at least superficially, impressed. Nothing I said about how great it was for the students to explore local habitats with student-created rovers could have really captured the excitement, the joy, and the learning I saw in the high school and elementary school students in Ms. Bugge's and Ms. Rizziello's classes. As the groups left, I exhaled and hoped I had done the program, and the students, justice.

This year, I am heading down to DC with an army. My amazing group of 6th grade Maker Ambassadors will be leading the discussion on ways to have a student-centered classroom, how to embed activities that develop growth mindset, and how the maker movement inspires creativity. I will not need to speak about student voice because their voices will be heard. Nothing makes me more content. There will be no need for me to chime in with my opinions about how technology can transform learning experiences. The teachers will hear it first hand from the students, the modern learners, who crave these opportunities. The students will be leading the show on, well, how they are leading the show in our classroom. I help them on their journey and get out of their way. It's what I have always done as a teacher. This year, the students will be on the stage as the world listens. I will be there, continuing to support, motivate, empower, and smile proudly as their guide on the side.

How to Explain Growth Mindset to Students

Growth Mindset is a great new way of looking at things that can have amazing effects on classrooms and learning.  For all the teachers reading this post, this is how it can be explained in a way that's easy for even little kids to understand.
Growth mindset is the opposite of fixed mindset.  With a fixed mindset, you think that your brain can't change and you  can't get any smarter.  If you fail a math test, it's because you're stupid, not because you didn't study or hadn't learned it.
Meanwhile, with growth mindset, you believe that the brain can get better, stronger, and smarter.  Guess who's right?  The second person!
For an easy way to see how a growth mindset can be beneficial, check out this simple chart.

Mindset	Fixed	Growth
Thoughts	I can’t change my mind I can’t get any smarter	My brain is changeable If I challenge my brain, I’ll get smarter
After a tough math test...	I didn’t do well on the test.  I’m stupid	I didn’t do well on the test.  This is something I need to work on
Actions	Cheat, don’t study because they believe it won’t help	Work hard and believe they can do better next time
The Outcome	Bad Grades	Good Grades

What is a student centered classroom?

What is a student centered classroom?

A student centered classroom is one that is based around the students' needs, not the teacher's. A teacher's curriculum and planning for class should represent what the student wants to learn/needs to learn, not what the teacher has to teach. A teacher can come up with a prompt, or challenge, for the students, but it must be the students that solve the problem, not the teacher telling them how to. In the Maker program, Dr.MC gives us challenges, and we find solutions for them. When Dr.MC told us to build a rover out of LittleBits, she didn't tell us how to do it, she just gave us the challenge. It was up to us, the Makers, on how we wanted to go about doing it. In a classroom, if a group of students were weak in one topic, say, probability, but the teacher only taught geometry, the students' needs would not be met. Instead, the teacher should alter his/her lesson plan to include probability. In a student centered classroom, the student not only enjoys the class, but most importantly, they learn the most.

After the 1st Trip to Millstone!

Collaborating with the elementary school students. 

Today, we traveled to Millstone River Elementary, the 4th-5th grade school nearby Community.  We had 1 goal in mind: Teach the MAGIC kids about littleBits.
MAGIC is the elementary school equivalent of PRISM, and as we stared back at the sea of 4th grade faces, we knew awesomeness was in store.

Working through littleBit challenges.

It started with chaos.  We were all rushing around in different directions, trying to do stuff.  Sundhar and I were kinda competing for chances to talk.  It was not exactly the way we wanted to start.
But eventually, we got through all that stuff, and started showing the kids how the Bits worked.
"They fit together with magnets, so you can't put them together wrong, and, like, electrocute yourself."
"Green bits do something.  They might glow, or spin, or annoy eighth graders..."
 "Who knows what THIS thingummybob is?" (points to a battery)
Yeah.  It was pretty crazy.
After that, we turned the 4th graders loose to experiment on their own.  We challenged them to make thing that moved, glowed, and made sound.
Now we heard them start really getting into the "maker" mindset.
"Hey, I wonder what happens if I flip that switch?"
"Check this out!"
"Hey, how'd you do that?"
"I wonder how that works..."
And then, I heard the best one of all.
"Hey 6th graders!  This is AWESOME!"
Yes.
It was.

How Bits Work (The basics)

How do bits work, really?  I mean, it isn't like the buzzers will just magically beep and the LEDs just magically glow.  So this is what I learned about what makes the littleBits work the way they do.
Everything starts with energy.  No, this isn't some crazy acupuncture lesson, it's just science.
There are multiple forms of energy, such as electric, heat, sound, nuclear (which doesn't really apply to the LittleBits), and more.
The battery stores the electric energy, which is transferred to the blue module.
When you attach a green module, that electric energy is turned into different kinds of energy.  If you attach a buzzer, it will turn into sound energy.  If you attach an LED, it turns into light energy, and et cetera.
Now on to pink mods.  Say you have a switch.  When it's switched to "off," the circuit is interrupted because the wire inside isn't connected.  When it's switched to "on," it connects and the green mod does whatever it's going to do.


Some Bit Pics:

Pre-Washington Thoughts and Realizations

A month ago, Dr. MC told us that we were going to Washington DC to present to many people and meet congressmen and senators, we didn't know what to think, or how to react. Now, a little more than one week until the day we leave for DC, I finally know what to think, and what I realized in the past month about organizing a presentation working with a team.

Organizing a Presentation

Organizing a presentation is no easy task. The hardest part, in our case, is getting our LittleBit rover ready for presenting. The rover has gone through many prototypes, but every day, a new problem seems to pop up. Be it the wiring, batteries, or treads, there is always something that goes wrong. As a Maker Ambassador, I have learned to deal with problems as they arise, and if I can't solve them, I work around them. If I can't find a pair of small treads for the rover, but have a lot of large treads, I alter the rover's wheels so they fit in large treads instead. Of course, these are only problems with the "prop". Preparing for questions people may ask is another hard part. My fellow Makers and I must be ready to answer any question. This means we have to know exactly how the LittleBits and our rover works. However, as much as we plan, we all know, deep down, that there will always be that one technical glitch, or that one question, that will stump us. When that happens, we will only be able to improvise, and come up with our best answer, or solution to the problem.

Working With a Team

Working with a team is no easy thing, but working with a group of eccentric and quirky Makers is even more of a challenge. At first, our largest problem was communication. I would come upstairs to work on the rover, only to find that it was disassembled. Then, I would have to waste twenty grueling minutes rebuilding the parts of the rover that were completed yesterday. Also, sometimes a team isn't focused. It's good to fan out and each work on a different part of the presentation, but eventually, a team needs to come back together and fit together the different "pieces" or parts they are working on, into a final presentation. We as Makers divide up our jobs, but we are inclined to completely ignore what another group is working on. In other words, working together is not easy. The most valuable lesson that I learned from this experience is that you can't always get people to do what you want to complete. Instead, you have to work with them, and compromise.

Being part of Makers this year in PRISM has taught me many important life lessons, and valuable skills that I will use for the rest of my life.

How the Maker Movement Connects Students to Engineering and Technology