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.
We have proposed a Children's Innovation Project Workshop session for the South by Southwest conference this Spring.
Conference sessions are selected based on a panel picker process where people cast votes. If you could, please take a minute to log in (it will ask you to create an account) and vote for our session:http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/15149 Thanks!Melissa and Jeremycippgh.org
A summer waterbot pilot was held with two science teachers from Huntington High School and another teacher from Cabell Midland High School on July 24th, 2012. Pat McKee, Rich Sharpe and Brian McNeal already teach about water quality in their classrooms and will be using waterbot throughout the year to monitor local watersheds in several different areas. A blog has been created to record findings and share results with others (http://cabellwaterbot.blogspot.com/). Once established, future plans include training additional teachers in multiple areas.
On Wednesday, May 23, 2012, PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS & TECHNOLOGY (PAECT) SouthWestern Chapter held its first Regional Event. This “Taste of Technology” TECH and TELL was held at St. Louise de Marillac School in (Upper St. Clair) Pittsburgh, PA from 5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M.
Zee Ann Poerio, Technology Teacher for K-8 at St. Louise de Marillac, was the host and event chair. Ken Klase, principal of St. Louise de Marillac School welcomed everyone and Dr. Shirley Campbell, Past President of PAECT, thanked everyone for attending.
Following a light technology themed dinner with APPetizers, BYTE sized sandwiches, computer potato CHIPS to munch, and COOKIES, the attendees were invited to a visit a student showcase which featured technology from Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab. http://www.cmucreatelab.org/ An exhibit featuring a Robotic Ancient Coin made by the STL Student Technology Team using the ARTS & BOTS (formerly Robot Diaries) - Hummingbird Kit was displayed for human robot interaction. Also, 8th grade student, Tom W., invited attendees to attempt challenges he programmed for the FINCH, another robotic device. A GigaPan was on display along with a large print for attendees to post comments. Jillian G. and Francesca G., eighth grade students, also volunteered at the event. They demonstrated how Turning Technologies http://www.turningtechnologies.com/ response devices or “clickers” can be used in the classroom, and they assisted in registering teachers with EDMODO http://www.edmodo.com/ accounts to prepare for the workshop.
Dan Plesco of Direct Tech Solutions explained the benefits of using a Meraki Wireless Access Point. The access point was installed that day and attendees were able to see how quickly schools could benefit from the technology. SWPAECT members presented the attendees with a “taste of technology” that they could put to use in the upcoming school year. Attendees learned how to power their classes with EDMODO http://www.edmodo.com/ (Zee Ann Poerio, K-8 Technology Teacher), engage their students with the new SMART Notebook 11 http://smarttech.com/notebook11 (Brandie Boback, Certified SMART Trainer), and use Twitter http://twitter.com/ for the Classroom and PD (Silvina Orsatti, IT Specialist.) The session ended with a TECH & TELL where attendees shared their favorite web tools.
Thanks to the following organizations for donating these fantastic door prizes:
Smart SolutionTechnologies, L.P. Smart Board Interactive Whiteboard SB680 Smart Board or Smart Response Training http://smarterguys.com/
Special thanks to Dom Salvucci who joined us via SKYPE to share his experiences with Edmodo, Jana Baxter of SW PAECT, St. Louise de Marillac School administration and staff, and Theresa Enyeart, Toni Luvara, and Jean Rowles for their help on the day of the event. This event was FREE for PAECT Members and $5.00 for Non–Members. Attendees received PA ACT 48 credit and left with “cookies” (to eat) and great ideas to share with their colleagues and use immediately in their classrooms.
Photos from this event can be viewed here: (Created with ANIMOTO http://animoto.com/ another great web tool!)
Submitted by Zee Ann Poerio, SW PAECT Member (Event Planning Committee) Teacher, St. Louise de Marillac Catholic School
Kelluwen is a project aimed to develop didactic experiences involving social web tools in schools under poverty in southern Chile. We are making pilots, twice a year, involving several schools from different cities in southern Chile. Some of these classrooms are running special instructional designs using GigaPan Edu equipment and site.
Profesora Johanna Valenzuela y sus estudiantes de Séptimo Básico del Colegio Pumanque en el límite entre Puerto Montt y Alerce.
Profesor Claudio Villarroel y sus estudiantes de Octavo Básico de la Escuela Particular Horizonte (en las faldas del volcán Calbuco, entre Alerce y Colonia Río Sur).
Estudiantes de Octavo Básico que se preparan para una foto de muestra cuando comienzan su experiencia de Fotografiando la Revolución Industrial - Escuela Particular Horizonte.
The June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development, College of Education at Marshall University, held a year-end celebration showcasing Harless CREATE Satellite projects on May 17, 2012 from 6-8 in the Memorial Student Center’s Don Morris Room.
Featured projects included: the GigaPan Outreach Project, Arts and Bots, Hear Me, and Message From Me. In addition, a new WaterBot project was introduced. GigaPan enables students to take GigaPan panoramic images of their communities and activities and share them with peers across the world. Arts and Bots is a customized robot designed to integrate technology, literature, and history through the use of art supplies, circuit boards, lights, motors and sensors. Hear Me seeks to amplify kids voices using media and technology to create a world where kids are heard, acknowledged and understood, thereby giving them the power to inspire change in their lives, communities and the world. WaterBot is a citizen scientist project that prototypes a low-cost, easy and mobile method to monitor water quality, empowering communities, educators and children to monitor their watershed systems.
The Harless CREATE Satellite grant, which was funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, provides rural Appalachian schools continuous and seamless access to technologies, educational resources and ideas generated at the CREATE Lab in Pittsburgh. In addition it enabled teachers to integrate cutting edge technology into existing curriculum.
Schools showcasing projects are from the Marshall University Professional Development Partnership Schools and include the Early Education STEM Center, Huntington High, Kellogg, Guyandotte and Ceredo Elementary schools, Beverly Hills, Milton, Barboursville Middle schools, as well as Cherry River Elementary in Nicholas county, Beverly Elementary in Randolph county and South Point High School in Ohio.
HUNTINGTON -- Most daycares have snack time, nap time and all sorts of games, but the Marshall University Early Education STEM Center has all of that, along with robots and voice activated technology that its Pre-K students are not only playing with but are helping build almost on their own.
That technology and those students were on full display during a family night event Thursday at the STEM Center in Corbly Hall on Marshall University's Campus.
Specifically, students were eager to engage in activities that made their way to Marshall's campus thanks to a partnership with the Create Lab at Carnegie Mellon, which includes three main projects called GigaPan, Hear ME and Message from Me, said Tarabeth Brumfield, the director of the Early Education STEM Center.
"All of these activities have so many ways to engage these kids in using technology," Brumfield said. "These are kids who have had technology be a part of their lives from the start, and they aren't scared or intimidated by any of it."
Brumfield was especially excited for the Message from Me Center, which allows the students to wirelessly upload photos by themselves, create a message to go with it and send the photo and message via text or email to someone from a list of people including their STEM teachers, their classmates and their parents.
The Message for Me machine is one of thirty in existence, Brumfield said.
"It's a neat way for them to engage their school life into their home life," she said. "It's a fun way to share what they're doing with their parents while they're learning."
Parker Adkins, a 4-year-old STEM student, operated the Message for Me machine like a pro, and his parents, Nisa and Shawn Adkins, said they've seen so many changes since their son began attending daycare at the STEM center.
"We wanted to send him to a place where we knew he wouldn't fall through the cracks, where he could get one-on-one attention, and he's gotten that here," Nisa Adkins said. "He's opened up so much, and there's so much difference in the way he deals with problems and works through things. The whole thing is just great."
The Marshall University Early Education STEM Center is one of the Professional Development Schools piloting the Arts and Bots project. The project, originally started for middle school girls, has expanded to include both genders as well as other ages. This is the first time the project has been used in elementary grades as well as pre-k. Many thanks to graduate assistant Lee-Dorah Wokpara for taking on this task and being creative and flexible with the curriculum. Children were encouraged to make a plan and draw a design before creating their robot. We can't wait to see what the children come up with!
