Here are conference sessions, workshops, PD that I can offer you or work with you to create a custom PD/workshop
Makerspace/Hands On Learning
MAKEing a Difference: Compassion Making Global Project
2 Day o4 4 Day Workshop – Make Yourself Into A Maker Builds 1-3 and 4-5
Raspberry Pi
Getting Started With Raspberry Pi Course
Coming soon: Taking Raspberry Pi to the next level
Hummingbird Bit Kit
Flight of the Endangered Species
This session will explore the importance of a quality open ended prompt that will lead to powerful learning. As Gary Stager states, “a good prompt is worth a thousand words.” We will provide this full day deep dive immersion with a prompt to create a project that showcases how they can save the endangered species of the engaged student. We will work to create mechanical birds that symbolize and represent our plan of action heading back to our schools to engage learners in extending their wings to fly beyond their comfort zones.
We will use the Hummingbird Duo Robotics kits along with basic everyday materials to create an aviary of mechanical birds to showcase our birds and action plans.
Be ready for a full day of making, tinkering, coding, and learning how one good prompt can launch us to new heights of learning to save our most endangered species on the planet – engaged students.
Minecraft Education
Part 1: ½ day workshop
This will workshop will focus on getting started. It is designed to help someone new to Minecraft Education learn how to open up a new world and navigate all that Minecraft Education has to offer. Come ready to be engaged in a hands on learning experience that will leave you with the foundation skills of building a house to learn about inventory and structure design. We will practice moving, breaking blocks as well as placing them. We will practice moving and navigating the worlds, how to fly, how to descend, how to get back on the ground, how to climb a ladder, how to get in a mine cart, how to get out, how to drop an item, and other basic game mechanics. No hard hat needed for this construction, but you will need your creative thinking caps!
Part 2: ½ day workshop
Now that we have a foundation for how the game works we will explore some more advanced features of the game. In this session we will explore crafting, redstone, farming, mining, slash commands, Classroom Mode, and more. In the end you will have all you need to survive a day in Minecraft!
We will also spend time looking at the resources already created to help you begin to make connections to your classroom with lessons, worlds, and more. Finally, we will provide you time to process all we have learned to feel empowered about taking the next steps of using Minecraft Education in the classroom.
3 Hour or 1 Hour Sessions
Minecraft Education: From Blocks to Builds – a smaller or more condensed version of the PD above.
LEGO
LEGO EV3 and Maker Movement: Full Day
As teachers incorporate more hands-on making activities into their classrooms, the use of LEGO products can provide an easy tool for students to create personally meaningful maker projects. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore the learning opportunities that are possible through making and experience what role LEGO plays in the Maker Movement. The workshop will also highlight LEGO Education’s new, free Maker Activities.
Learning STEM through Play and EV3
This workshop will explore the connections between play and learning by understanding the following concepts. What is play? We will identify the key characteristics of play. What’s so special about play? We will look into how play affects learning. What’s the connection between play and STEM? A implementation of a hands-on example of how a playful approach affects learning of specific STEM skills.
Discover STEM with Mindstorms
This workshop is ideal for participants who are new to MINDSTORMS and/or curious to see how it can be introduced into their classrooms. This introductory workshop will explore the getting started experience with LEGO MINDSTORMS and how it can be used in STEM learning. Through a series of hands on building and coding challenges you will feel more confident in using the robot to develop high level and engaging learning opportunities for students.
Purposeful Play with LEGO(revised course coming 2022)
FIRST LEGO League Help and Guidance(revised course coming 2022)
LEGO EV3 Classroom: Robot Trainer Course
LEGO Design Thinking Workshop
Come experience a workshop developed with LEGO pieces that focuses on two key areas that must be covered when doing high quality PBL with an authentic audience:
- Teamwork
- Communication
These are two essential building blocks among many others that we must teach students. We often discuss the importance of group work and basically just put them in groups and say “work it out”. We wanted to avoid this type of mindset and really create an interactive experience for them to understand how important these concepts are when working as a group.
We wanted to develop an experience that was fun, fast, and furious. We knew we had to grab their attention. We knew we had to keep them moving. We knew we had to keep them discussing and working together to build these skills out.
We knew that in order for any of this to work the learning had to stick. We had to connect to emotions, the senses, and hands on learning
Come experience the workshop and be ready to discuss how this process can be utilized in your own classroom and/or school.
Purposeful Play: It is all about the culture of learning
Come ready to make things happen. In under one hour we will discuss how and why to weave in purposeful play into our learning spaces. We will dive into the importance of focusing on the culture of learning spaces. Additionally, the audience will undergo a build, play, and share cycle through a hands on immersive challenge to experience the culture of purposeful play. Audience will learn how to apply these ideas into any classroom and school.
Coming Soon
- LEGO SPIKE Prime Getting Started Course
- LEGO SPIKE Prime Python Course
- LEGO Building Technique Course
- Smart Robotics with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor: Learn to play with the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor kit and build creative robots course using my book
- Design Innovative Robots with LEGO SPIKE Prime: Seven creative STEM robotic designs to challenge your mind using my book
MAKECODE
Circuit Playground or micro:bit + Rapid Prototyping = Iterative Education
This full day workshop is broken into two parts. The morning will be spent exploring all the options available to you on the MakeCode. We will explore all the different applications of MakeCode with the Circuit Playground. We will go through a series of builds and learning cycles to empower you to be ready to incorporate the Circuit Playground into your classroom and school.
The afternoon will be spent working through a rapid prototyping experience where you will be creating a project to be implemented in your classroom. Come ready for a full day of hands on learning, making, tinkering, and designing to empower you to empower students!
3 Hour Circuit Playground or micro:bit = Iterative Education
Workshop Description:
This half day workshop will be spent exploring all the options available to you on the MakeCode. We will explore all the different applications of MakeCode with the Circuit Playground. We will go through a series of builds and learning cycles to empower you to be ready to incorporate the Circuit Playground into your classroom and school.
Workshop Objectives:
- Participants will be able to imagine and build creative circuits.
- Participants will be able to build simple and effective programs using the free MakeCode coding program that will support a Circuit Playground design challenge.
- Participants will learn how to create and solve open ended design challenges using the Circuit Playground.
- Participants will learn how to build/use a variety of sensors that provide feedback.
- Participants will explore how the Circuit Playground resources and methodologies support learning outcomes in their classroom.
- Participants will explore these questions: Where do innovations come from? Can their emergence be influenced?
Micro:bit: There’s Nothing Micro About This Learning
Workshop Description:
Get ready for a fun hands-on workshop where you’ll learn how to teach literacy with physical computing and coding. Participants will be making products using design thinking using the Micro:bit device. This workshop will have you making clever devices for your classroom. You’ll learn best practices and gain access to a multimedia training website that you can use later when you work with others or teach the students you serve.
Workshop Objectives:
- Participants will be able to imagine and build creative circuits.
- Participants will be able to build simple and effective programs using the free MakeCode coding program that will support a Micro:bit design challenge.
- Participants will learn how to create and solve open ended design challenges using the Micro:bit.
- Participants will learn how to build/use a variety of sensors that provide feedback.
- Participants will explore how the Micro:bit resources and methodologies support learning outcomes in their classroom.
- Participants will explore these questions: Where do innovations come from? Can their emergence be influenced?
Makey Makey: It’s More Than Bananas
Workshop Description:
Get ready for a fun hands-on workshop where you’ll learn how to teach Invention Literacy, Making, and Design Thinking using the award winning Makey Makey invention kit used by educators in all 50 states and around the world and featured in TED talks. This workshop is new and being delivered throughout the US. You’ll learn best practices and gain access to a multimedia training website that you can use later when you work with others or teach the students you serve.
Workshop Objectives:
- Participants will be able to imagine and build creative circuits.
- Participants will be able to build simple and effective programs using the free Scratch coding program from MIT that will support a Makey Makey design challenge.
- Participants will learn how to create and solve open ended design challenges using the Makey Makey.
- Participants will learn how to build a variety of sensors that provide feedback.
- Participants will explore how the Makey Makey resources and methodologies support learning outcomes in their classroom.
- Participants will explore these questions: Where do innovations come from? Can their emergence be influenced?
MakeGeeking: Maker DIY Hacks and Tricks
This will be rapid fire session of maker tips and tricks that I use as a maker and DIYer. This session will share out things I use in my workshop, makerspace, and home innovation studio. These ideas will give you some new ways to organize materials, simple strategies to make projects flow easier, and all the little things that we can teach kids to be better makers. Come ready to learn and to experiment with new ideas for your own makerspace.
You can do what with LED’s?
This is a session for you to light up your thinking about simple everyday materials. Using cheap LED’s we will explore how something so simple can expand the learning opportunities for students. We will go through a variety of activities for us all to learn about circuits, simple maker projects to use in makerspace and classroom, extension activities, and how we can develop further skills. Be ready to learn new ideas, make throwies, binder bling, slime, coding, soldering, and more.
Crazy Cardboard Contraptions
This session will provide an entry point into learning various ways to use and manipulate cardboard to do basic building and construction. During this session we will explore 10 different ways to connect, strengthen, and support cardboard building to take prototyping to a new level. These techniques will help ensure you don’t just have massive duct tape bundles of cardboard in your space.
Crazy Cardboard Automata
This session will build upon the basic building techniques and begin to understand automata and how it works.
What is cardboard automata? Cardboard automata are crank-operated mechanical devices that tell miniature stories with movement and narrative, these simple but engaging contraptions are often a vehicle for personal expression and humor.
Through this section we will be exploring how the work, how to make a variety of different mechanisms, and learning applications.
Cranks, cam, followers, linkages…..
These are some terms that you soon understand through exploration. Let’s dive into some inquiry and hands on learning.
Crazy Cardboard Physical Computing
This session is taking our cardboard knowledge to the next level by adding microcontrollers to the mix. We will be exploring how microcontrollers such as Hummingbird Robotic Kits, Micro:bits, Circuit Playground, and more can be infused with cardboard to make our learning come alive.
In this session we will learn how to create some machines and mechanisms using the Hummingbird Robotics Kits. If you have these robot kits, then please bring with you so you can take your creations back to your space. A few will be provided for those that do not have one and would like to learn more.