Last year we attended the West Virginia Board of Education meeting to introduce them to the Satellite Network. This September we returned to to update them on the Network's activities in West Virginia over the last year

The people in the group photo, from left to right, are: Karen Savitz ASSET STEM Education, Jeffrey Carver West Virginia University, Jessica Meyers ASSET STEM Education, Rachel Hite CREATE Lab, Lou Karas West Liberty University, Dror Yaron CREATE Lab, Carrie Beth Dean Marshall University, Stan Maynard Marshall University

I’m Lou Karas, Director of the Center for Arts & Education at West Liberty University. I’m here today with my colleagues from the CREATE Lab Satellite Network. With me are Dror Yaron and Rachel Hite from the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University; Stan Maynard and Carrie Beth Dean from the Harless Center at Marshall University; Jeffrey Carver from the College of Education and Human Services at West Virginia University and Jessica Meyers and Karen Savitz from ASSET STEM Education.

Last fall, professor Illah Nourbakhsh the Director of CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute shared with the you the story and vision of the CREATE Lab and its Satellite Network.

We’re here today to give you a brief update on the work of the CREATE Satellite Network in West Virginia.

Update on the work of the CREATE Satellite Network in West Virginia

Over the past year, the satellite partners have worked, throughout WV with over 1,200 children, Pre-K through 12th grade and more than 700 educators, both teachers in the field and pre-service students at the three universities.

We are empowering a technologically fluent generation through experiential learning opportunities in and outside of school. The technology is the raw material, a tool for a child to use to explore and address real world issues, to learn - and communicate - about their own environment and perspective.

We’ve been able to take new technology tools from the desk of an engineer at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute to the hands of a child in rural West Virginia, making them among the first to gain access to these innovations.  Each of the Satellites not only provides training on the use of these technology tools but also, in many instances, is also able to lend the tools to teachers throughout the state.

Over the past three years the CREATE Lab Satellite Network has grown from a partnership between the CREATE Lab and the school of education at Marshall University, to a network including Marshall, West Liberty, West Virginia University, and Carlow University as well as ASSET STEM Education. Each Satellite team adapts and uses the CREATE Lab innovations in a locally meaningful way with the educators and future educators they support. Similarly, working closely with the CREATE Lab, the Satellites bring their communities’ needs to bear on the technology innovation process.

As the Satellite Network model of outreach is gaining traction and in light of its rapid growth, we recognize now is an appropriate time to invite more perspectives and stakeholders to the table, as we consider how to meaningfully direct and leverage the momentum and resources at hand. This has resulted in the formation of an advisory board that will meet for the first time later this fall at West Liberty.

Our work with children has focused on using four of the CREATE Lab technologies:

Message from Me enables young children to better communicate with their significant adults about their daytime activities at early childhood programs through the use of digital cameras, microphones, e-mail, phone messaging and other technologies. Originally developed using adapted computer kiosks, the program now uses an app developed for the i-Pad.

The Harless Center has been at the forefront of using Message from Me in their Pre-K classroom and sharing their experiences with others around the state.

The Children’s Innovation Project

The Children’s Innovation Project takes a broad interdisciplinary and integrated learning approach, focusing on creative exploration, expression and innovation with technology. Children explore and learn about electricity through hands-on engagement with a kit of components designed for young hands. Utilizing this learning, children disassemble toys, identify components and then repurpose and reconfigure these internal components into new circuits, empowering them with new relationships and understandings of their world.

The Harless Center has also taken the lead in the use of the Children’s Innovation Project in West Virginia schools. In addition ASSET and Carlow University are developing professional development programs, which will be shared with the Satellite partners for their use.

Arts & Bots

The third program is Arts & Bots. The Hummingbird robotics kit is designed to enable engineering and robotics activities for ages 10 and up that involve the making of robots and kinetic sculptures built out of a combination of kit parts and craft materials. Hummingbird provides a great way to introduce kids to robotics and engineering with construction materials that they are already familiar with. Hummingbirds have been used in nearly every aspect of the curriculum: teachers and students have completed Hummingbird units in science, art, math, history, english, drama, poetry, and character education classes. The kits have also been used in numerous summer camps, after-school programs and other community-based environments.

The CREATE Lab had been awarded a three-year $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to support the “Creative Robotics” project, an innovative program that introduces robotic technology into non-technical middle school classes. It is the intent of the research project is to identify and nurture students with an affinity for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

All 7th and 8th grade students at Springdale Junior-Senior High School in the Allegheny Valley School District outside of Pittsburgh and all 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in the Mingo County Schools — a total of 900 children annually — are using the robotic kits developed at Carnegie Mellon University. They will use the kits to complete at least one project or assignment each year in required courses such as health, earth science and language arts.

The project also includes faculty members and pre-service educators in the schools of education at Marshall and West Liberty universities. We are working with CMU researchers to develop the curriculum and integrate the project into both existing and new courses for our students.

GigaPan

GigaPan is an earthly adaptation of NASA’s Mars Rover imaging technology - GigaPan helps bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery, and wonder. Using a small robotic device, point and shoot camera, stitching software, interactive online platforms and large-scale prints, GigaPan is enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's world.

West Virginia University is working with North Elementary School in Morgantown, to train the teacher to both use gigpan images as well as generating their own gigapan images.  The technology integration of Gigpan is being conducted in and around the Garden Based Learning project at the school.  The ability to take super high resolution images during the garden growing season and then utilizing those images during the non-growing months in the winter allows teachers to extend the garden based learning curriculum through the non-gardening months.

At West Liberty, we have incorporated learning how to use the GigaPan images and technology into several courses in the professional education program. We are also working with the art teachers in Ohio County Schools supporting them in the integration of GigaPan into their classrooms.

A key focus of the Satellite Network is to provide professional development opportunities for both teachers in Pre-K through 12th grade settings around the state –and- for our pre-service students

We have presented at conferences throughout the state included the West Virginia Technology conference and the West Virginia Art Education Association conference. The partners have provided opportunities ranging from GigaPan workshops lasting a few hours to weeklong Creative Robotics programs. It is important to note, that these programs are only the beginning of our work with teachers. Each Satellite provides on-going support to the teachers.

We are emphasizing the integration of the CREATE Lab resources into pre-service education because we believe it is important for our future teachers to learn these skills and technologies throughout their undergraduate years so they will be fully prepared to integrate them into their classrooms. ASSET, as our newest partner, will be involved in the expansion of this work.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the amazing work done by Debbie Workman, Carrie-Meghan Quick Blanco and Cathy Walker. They devoted countless hours building the programs and services of the first Satellite site at the Harless Center. Over the summer, Debbie and Cathy retired and Carrie-Meghan moved on to another position. Their enthusiastic support has helped the other two Satellite sites get off the ground.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the support of Benedum Foundation and Jim Denova.  Jim has not only provided financial support for our work but has also shared connections and given us guidance as we expand the Network’s programs and services.

Looking ahead

next spring, The CREATE Lab Satellite Network and The Sprout Fund are partnering to present the first annual Creative Tech Conference: Best Practices of Creative Technology in Education on April 21 through the 23 in Pittsburgh. The Creative Tech Conference will ignite productive dialogue and spur the exchange of ideas about the use of creative technologies (or creative use of technologies) in education, teaching, and learning.  

The conference will feature two tracks of programming: Practice and Ecosystems. The Practice track will feature educators sharing ideas and stories around their methods and experiences with integrating technology creatively and successfully into their classrooms and programs. The Ecosystems track will focus on discussions about the networks and conditions that support and empower meaningful technology practice in education. We hope you will consider joining us for the conference.

In the mean time, we also invite you to visit us at Marshall, West Liberty and WVU to see the work of the CREATE Lab Satellite Network in action this school year.

Thank you,

Lou Karas, Director of the Center for Arts & Education at West Liberty University.

Having recently partnered with the West Virginia University CREATE Lab Satellite to include Arts & Bots as part of their “Hot Science Camp” week, The Harrison County Community Center raved about the experience.  The science camp was a combination of two summer camp groups, and included 35 students ranging in age from third grade to sixth grade, all from low income families in Harrison County.  

Campers were instantly engaged. After a short presentation on the basics of engineering, participants unpacked the hummingbird box and practiced with the software. They then began designing their robots on paper, following the rules of at least one motor, at least one light, at least one something else, multiple expressions, and at least one sequence. The kids quickly took over the computers, excitedly programming and building their robots.  Despite being chaotic, as active science always is, camp leaders at the Community Center said it was likely the best day of the week. The campers seemed enthralled by their work with Arts & Bots, and when asked if they would like a 2 or 3 day experience with this, they all wanted more! 

In addition to participating in "Hot Science Camp" this summer, WVU's CREATE Lab Satellite has also been working with the Children's Discovery Museum of West Virginia to offer robotics days for early elementary and preschool aged children. Two Arts & Bots sessions were held at the museum so far this summer, with participants ranging in age from four to nine years old. 

The opportunities given to children to expand their minds, their explorations, their discoveries, and have it all happen as an everyday experience begins to define what education should mean. Young people create, discover, experiment, and solve problems as engaged scientists. This can and is being replicated in WV in remarkable ways. These students will become tomorrow's teams that find the cure for cancer, temper global warming, and change the way they will leave their land better than we left it to them.

Replicated in WV in remarkable ways. CREATE Lab Satellite Network partners in West Virginia.

However, in addition to showing the world how children can learn, the CREATE Lab is also changing our universe. The entrepreneurial spirit that exists in that facility is changing the scope of mankind in what and how individuals can observe, learn and facilitate the integration of new knowledge into our ever-changing, complex world. These young minds enable all of us to know more quickly the challenges that we face as a society and encourages us to be part of the solution in a more effective way.

The visit in and of itself was a overwhelming experience --- but the opportunities that exist are almost incomprehensible in how far the human mind can stretch. I feel so incompetent in trying to express adequately the experience of spending an afternoon in this lab, but suffice it to say, I left there realizing that I had been a part of an amazing vision of teaching and learning at its finest. THANK YOU for sharing with us!!

I hope that our paths will cross in many ways on this journey to educate for the future.

Gayle C. Manchin
President, WV State Board of Education

The June Harless Center held an Arts and Bots training in Mingo County at Mingo Central High School on November 5, 2012.  Twelve elementary and middle school science and art teachers from Burch Elementary, Gilbert Middle, Matewan Middle, Williamson Middle, Burch Middle and Mingo Central High School took part in the training, which was funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.

The Arts and Bots project integrates technology, robotics and art through the use of familiar arts and crafts supplies, circuit boards, lights, motors and sensors.  Students design, build and program robots that tell stories of literary and historical characters and events while promoting technological literacy and informal learning.  

Arts and Bots is one of several projects implemented by the Harless CREATE Satellite, a branch of Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab at the June Harless Center.  The satellite provides robotics and technology initiatives to West Virginia schools including Marshall University Professional Development Schools.

Due to its success Arts and Bots, originally designed to encourage middle school girls’ interest in STEM topics, was expanded to include both genders and a larger age group.  The Harless CREATE Satellite enables educators and rural communities in West Virginia a real-time portal to the flow of cutting edge technologies and programs being developed at the lab in Pittsburgh.

Doug Force's, math teacher at Barboursville Middle School in Barboursville, West Virginia accepted the challenge to inject robotics into his curriculum first semester of the 2012-2013 school year. His students used everyday household items to make robots. Once their robots were created, their challenge was to find what they did that pertained to mathematics. Other questions asked were as follows :

1. How do I make something happen on my robot when I get close to it?

2. How do I make a purple strobe light?

3. How do I make something move on my robot?

4.  What is unique about my robot? 

5.  What have I learned from this experience?

Students and their parents brought their robots to teachers' Arts and Bots follow- up meeting this week on Marshall's campus to share them with pre-service and in-service teachers. 

Thanks for the support from Benedum Foudation, next semester, Doug will continue to use Arts and Bots with a new group of students and we look forward to seeing more creative robots!

The waterbot pilot team of Rick Sharpe (Huntingtin High School) and Brian McNeal (Cabell Midland High School) went out Sunday October 7th, 2012 and installed 2 waterbots along fourpole creek in Huntington.  Fourpole creek is a large creek that runs through the center of Huntington including through Ritter Park. Rick and Brian will be utilizing the data captured by the waterbot and incorporating it into their science classes where they already teach water quality. The waterbot will be a great addition to their curriculum and plans to install a third in Martinsbug, West Virginia with a local science teacher there are in the works. 

Teachers from Ona Elementary, Cornerstone Academy, Beverly Elementary, Kellogg Elementary and Barboursville Middle took part in a 2-day training on arts and bots on July 10th and 11th on Marshall University's campus.  The 8 teachers agreed to pilot the project and integrate it into existing classroom curriculum and will be using it in a variety of subjects including math, physics, chemistry, and reading.  Allen Perry chemistry and physics teacher from South Point High School in South Point, Ohio was on hand to help train the teachers on equipment use while the Harless CREATE Satellite team assisted with curriculum. The project expanded to include additional schools and teachers this summer and they will be involved in a yearlong project.  We look forward to seeing what the teachers and students come up with this year! 

The June Harless Center held a weeklong summer camp June 4^th -7^th, 2012 for children entering 2nd-5th grade on Marshall University's campus.  Allen Perry, a Physics and Chemistry teacher from South Point High School (Ohio), lead the camp with the Harless staff assisting.  Allen participated in the roll out which involved 4 local schools this past school year. Children gained inspiration for their designs from a virtual tour on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s website and used the engineering design process to create their robots with the goal being to learn how to create and program a robot.

ASK:          

• What do you want your robot to look like?
• What do you want your robot to be able to do?

 IMAGINE:   

• Research
• Brainstorm ideas
• Choose the best one!

 PLAN:        

• Draw a diagram
• Make a list of materials you will need 

CREATE:   

• Follow your plan and create it!
• Test it out!

IMPROVE:  

• Talk about what works, what doesn’t, and what could  work better!     
• Modify your design to make it better
• Test it out! 

On Thursday, a showcase of the student’s work was held and parents, friends and family were invited to attend.  Some of the robot designs included an alligator, truck, Sacajawea, wooly mammoth, and recycle bots. The children enjoyed the experience and the parents were impressed with the designs that their children made and the creativity that was used