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Approaches + methodologies + movements

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Learn. Play, Design & Code Retro Arcade Games Grades 2+ | Blocks CS First Unplugged Grades 2-8 | Blocks, Unplugged, Scratch Discover Python with Silent Teacher Grades 6+ | Python codeSpark Academy with The Foos: Create Games Pre-reader - Grade 5 | Blocks Dance Party Ozaria: Your Journey Begins. Teaching our children to code: a quiet revolution. Coding for kids. The Maker Movement and English Language Arts. On the surface, the Maker Movement with its focus on 3-D printing, hands-on craftsmanship, and industrial design may not seem an especially good “fit” for the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom.

The Maker Movement and English Language Arts

The ELA teachers I meet generally acknowledge Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) as important, but wonder how they can integrate STEM principles into writers’ workshop or literature circles. As our colleagues in science and the technical subjects learn to teach literacies to meet Common Core State Standards expectations, I see the integration of electric circuits in ELA, inspired by the Maker Movement, as interdisciplinary reciprocity.

In my view, this activity can support the integration of ideas across content areas and build problem solving skills. I also learned that it can be a lot of fun. In what follows, I explain. Last week, I co-hosted a Mini Maker Faire at the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) conference with my MSU Colleagues. Makerspace. The Maker Movement and English Language Teaching. The Maker movement has inspired teachers to explore interesting new tools and materials like robots, 3D printing, e-textiles, etc.

The Maker Movement and English Language Teaching

However, its focus on digital fabrication, hands-on craftsmanship, and programming seem perfect for STEAM, and not feasible for English Language Teaching. ELT teachers wonder how they can integrate STEAM principles into our teaching reality and why they should do that. Making something of value is thrilling and exciting, and maker activities in English schools can build problem solving skills, promote opportunities for meaningful exchange of information, and genuinely motivate students to use the target language to convey meaning. English language teachers have always used hands-on activities, but now we might do it interdisciplinary and focus on tasks that motivate learners to take the role of producers of shareable content and learning artifacts.

The Maker Movement and English Language Teaching. Meet the Makers: Can a DIY movement revolutionize how we learn? A young patron sits down to a recording session at the “creation station” of the Darien (CT) Library.Photograph by Dru Nadler.

Meet the Makers: Can a DIY movement revolutionize how we learn?

Middle Grades Makers: Invent to Learn. A MiddleWeb Blog “We must reimagine middle school science and math not as a way to prepare students for high school, but as a place where students are inventors, scientists, and mathematicians today.”

Middle Grades Makers: Invent to Learn

So say Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager in this exciting guest article about the Maker Movement and its implications for kids, schools and STEM studies. Martinez and Stager are the authors of a must-read book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. Can the Internet of Things make education more student-focused? “It has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication…What use could this company make of a toy?”

Can the Internet of Things make education more student-focused?

When the Apple Watch™ wrist wearable was announced this fall, businesses did not rush to procure it for their workforce. Some reviewers expressed reservations, and many comments echoed the sentiments of the statement above – originally made about Bell’s telephone in 1878 by Western Union president William Orton. Bell’s telephone eventually took off not only because it offered faster communication, but because it created a more enriching – more human – experience. As is often the case with enabling technologies, early use cases for “smart” internet-connected devices have focused on direct applications – refrigerators making grocery lists, cars scheduling their own maintenance, or traffic lights based on real-time congestion.

Admittedly, this added value does not come without concerns. The Internet of Things and Education. With the Internet connecting us to many things (media, photos, information, etc.) can it also connect us to physical objects?

The Internet of Things and Education

Can we launch applications on our computer by just touching a physical object? Can one physical object talk to another physical object through an Internet connect and command it to do a physical act or feed it data? The answer is yes and this phenomena is called “The Internet of Things”. What is exactly the Internet of Things? According to Wikipedia the Internet of Things “refers to uniquely identifiable objects (things) and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. So how does the Internet of Things exactly work? If students are collecting data out in the field for research, tagging physical objects to find and analyze data about the object (and have to feed into other programs for analysis) is one way the Internet of Things can be used in education.

Say a student created a work of art. The Implications of the Internet of Things for Education. For years, experts have predicted that the Internet of Things—a system in which objects can communicate internally or with other machines—will transform the way we live our lives.

The Implications of the Internet of Things for Education

As it turned out, some of those prognostications were a bit premature. In 2014, however, I fully expect the IoT to be a much more mainstream concept. ABI Research, after all, predicts that by 2020, 30 billion total devices will be connected, nearly triple the number that exist today. Applications for the IoT are already being leveraged in sectors like healthcare and customer service; now schools are joining the party. Some of the ways the IoT can benefit education may be apparent, while others are not as obvious. Help for Special Needs Students Connected devices can help make life easier for students with special needs. Making Matters! How the Maker Movement Is Transforming Education. By Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary S.

Making Matters! How the Maker Movement Is Transforming Education

Stager The Maker Movement, a technological and creative learning revolution underway around the globe, has exciting and vast implications for the world of education.