Keeping up with EdTech news, product releases, and general information can be tough for teachers. Even with the summer months coming up and the amount of time they spend grading papers and creating lessons (hopefully) reduced, there’s still a lot that teachers can’t get to. That’s why we try to bring the most relevant news and educational technologies directly to them. Our twice-weekly newsletter is a great source for educators to subscribe to and a fabulous way for them to learn about many of the advancements in EdTech and additions to our store. There are a variety of topics that enter our subscribers’ inboxes each week, so we thought we’d give you a taste of what you could be accessing as one of our thousands of newsletter subscribers.
Eduporium Helping Teachers
Over the last couple of months, our team has been rolling out a mini series of videos to our newsletter subscribers and social media followers. These videos cover four topics that are very important to us and to the foundation of Eduporium. Each video is about two minutes long and they can be viewed together on our YouTube channel. The previous three topics included our core vision, our feedback loop, and what we consider to be productive technologies. This past week, we released the fourth and final video to our audience to cap off this new initiative. Entitled ‘Eduporium Helping Teachers,’ two of our founders, Rick Fredkin and Irina Tuule, take some time to reflect on why it is we do what we do and discuss some of the many ways we can help teachers discover new technology, new teaching tactics, and new sources of teaching inspiration!
Our newsletter subscribers are among the very first members of our community to have access to these videos and we’ve been excited to be able to share them with everyone! As a reseller of STEM tools, we’re always looking everywhere for the latest and greatest learning tools teachers can use to enhance their instruction. As Rick starts off the video by saying, this helps them develop a stronger system for implementing technology in their classrooms and allows them more time to focus on other things. Irina then talks about one of our most popular and innovative services—the creation of technology bundles. Since teachers often want to be able to use a bunch of different tech tools in their classrooms rather than just one, we launched this service to help ensure they get exactly what they need. And, what we’ve found is that many educators go on to share these bundles throughout their school communities with different teachers, librarians, and anybody else who might be interested.
We also are often letting teachers try technology in their classrooms so that they can see how their students use it and create with it. Having this opportunity to test out the important factor of compatibility is paramount for many educators and this helps eliminate a bit of the hesitation they have when researching technology for the classroom. So, not only are we helping teachers learn about and know where to find new technology that may be of help to them, we’re also offering them support for when they first bring it into their classrooms. It seems simple, but even things like knowing how to turn a tech tool on or knowing what devices it is compatible with are sometimes things that teachers overlook. We work directly with them to try to prevent that from happening and offer them a streamlined way of transitioning from the research process to the implementation process. To watch the ‘Eduporium Helping Teachers’ video in its entirety, visit our YouTube page.
Help Us Build a Hub of EdTech Activities
One of the things we’re constantly cognizant of when advocating for the use of technology in education is that teachers might not how what exactly to do with various tools once they get them in the classroom. They know that various STEM devices have the potential to teach kids all kinds of wonderful, real-world skills, but, unfortunately, might not how how to use them within a lesson. Since teachers are often on their own to create lesson plans (and many are required to), often, their administrators need to see how a piece of technology is going to be used in the classroom to align with curricular requirements and simultaneously promote student engagement. Creating specific lesson plans around a STEM tool just adds extra work for teachers on top of what they’re already responsible for. That’s why we’ve worked with a number of our EdTech vendor partners to obtain step-by-step classroom activities, created some of our own, and now we’re asking educators if they have any they can offer!
We are in the process of designing an online hub that will host a library of classroom activities that make use of certain EdTech tools. We hope over time that we will have multiple activity options for the most popular items on our store, including Ozobot, Dash and Dot, Edison, Cubetto, littleBits, and others. For now, we’re excited to get this project started and we ask that if any educators have created their own activities, to please submit them to us! To submit any original project idea, all you have to do is find the link and fill out the form with all appropriate details. We’ll receive your submission and then get it published on the hub as soon as everything is up and running! We truly believe that this is a great use of the power of social media and online PD, helping educators discover new ways of using tech tools they may already have or inspiring them to try something completely new!
Besides helping other educators discover new things, there is another prime advantage for teachers who submit their activity ideas to our hub. Every month, we will be selecting our favorite and, while all the submissions we receive will be published, one person will receive something special. For the most creative and educational activity we receive every month, we will be rewarding that person with $50 to the Eduporium store! The only thing better than discovering new ways of using STEM tools might be saving on others you buy in the future! Keep an eye out on our blog, newsletter, and social media channels for updates on the release of the activity hub. We’ll definitely be keeping everybody posted once the portal is up and running!
Start Thinking About Summer Camp STEM
For teachers, the end of the school year probably can’t come fast enough, but, for students, those same teachers are probably going to be advocating for them to continue their learning throughout the summer. Although it’s also important for kids to recharge their brains, it’s important for them to remain stimulated as well. That’s why summer STEM camps are such a popular and beneficial option for today’s children. At these camps, they can take part in learning experiences that not only keep them engaged with finding creative solutions to problems, but they’re generally not too taxing or stressful on them. Summer camps offer kids the opportunity to take part in some fun STEM activities and work together with other students on collaborative challenges. Many of the same STEM tools they can use during the school year can be used by kids during summer camps and leaders of these programs should be mindful of keeping these options open.
If you're involved in running a summer STEM camp for students this year, we've got some great suggestions for tech tools that are guaranteed to help you facilitate fun and affordable projects. And, even though it’s soon to be summer time, anybody involved with the facilitation of an educational program over the summer can still purchase tech tools from our store and receive our Educator Discount. Some of the most popular kits for summer learning are drone kits, which include those that kids can build themselves, take pictures with, and program! One of the best options for anyone looking to add drones to summer camps is the Discover Drones Club Pack. It comes with the parts needed to build drones and plenty of curriculum-based lesson plan ideas for them to follow as well. And, drones are just one of the ways students can explore STEM during the summer.
Aside from the drone option, there are plenty of other STEAM tools designed to spark some serious summer STEM learning for individual students or student groups. These include some of the Classics, like the Makey Makey, MakeDo, and Circuit Stickers. Using these tools, students can build a lot of projects that come in booklets included in many of the kits or they can use the components in the various kits to add their own flare to anything else they build. Circuitry is another popular option for summer STEM learning, allowing camp managers to provide students with simple, safe, and affordable projects. So, we’d also recommend checking out the Teknikio kits and Snap Circuits kits! And, if you have something else in mind, feel free to browse our store for everything we have to offer!
New Sphero Offerings on Our Store
Sphero was one of the first STEM tools we really saw take off on our store and, since they’re one of our most prominent partners, we’re very happy that students and teachers enjoy learning with them so much! For the last four or five years, we’ve been working with them and started by offering their SPRK and Sphero 2.0 models to our customers. As they grew and released new robots to replace or complement their existing offerings, we’ve been excited to be able to offer those as well. In today’s age of supportive content and accessories for making EdTech tools even better, we now have some additional items from Sphero available for purchase on our store! And, let’s just say that they’re as helpful for teachers as they are enjoyable for students!
There are a total of four new things on our store from Sphero: The Specdrums Kit, the Sphero Fundamentals Self-Guided Course, and two Sphero Power Packs—one that comes with Sphero SPRK+ robots and one that does not. The Specdrums Kit actually does not involve a traditional Sphero robot, but it’s still a great way for kids to get creative and enjoy some STEAM learning. The kit comes with two rings that slide around students’ fingers. Then, using the Specdrums MIX app, they can tap any objects and hear music play out of their connected device! They can use the Specdrums to mix and produce songs, create looping music, and even share all of their sessions with their friends. To learn more about the Specdrums Kit, visit our store!
In addition to the Specdrums, educators can now purchase the Sphero Fundamentals Self-Guided Course from us. This online training course helps them learn the basics about teaching coding with Sphero, including how to use the Sphero Edu app and block and text programming. The course is valid for 90 days. Finally, we have two new Sphero Power Packs on our store—one that’s empty and one that comes with 12 Sphero SPRK+ robots! With either power pack, educators can charge and store their Sphero robots in the way that’s most convenient for them. Not only do they charge Sphero’s safely, teachers can use these mobile packs to transport their robots wherever they need them! To explore the Power Packs more and to see everything from Sphero on our store, head on over!
Ozobot Evo Educator Kit
Ozobot is one of the most popular EdTech tools and also one of the most reliable. We’ve been promoting it and recommending it to educators in all K-8 grade levels for a few years now and it’s showing no signs of fading away. That’s because the Ozobot can be used to teach coding to kids of all ages in two distinct ways: Screen-free with color codes or in an online programming environment called OzoBlockly. The Ozobot Evo is the newest and (we think) most engaging of the Ozobot options (there is also the Ozobot Bit). With the Evo, students can work collaboratively to code the robot using markers and a piece of paper or, as we mentioned, the OzoBlockly environment. Each method has its advantages for students and things also just got easier for teachers, too.
We’ve recently added the Ozobot Evo Educator Entry Kit to our store to go along with the other Ozobot kits, accessories, and classroom packs we offer. This kit is designed exclusively for educators to maximize the teaching potential of the Ozobot Evo. It includes plenty of very helpful content and even some free STEAM lessons for teachers to try with their students. Most importantly, the Evo Entry Kit helps teachers learn the best ways of using the Ozobot Evo in the classroom. Whether they’re trying to inspire more creativity in their students or in themselves, the included content is very helpful in doing so. With this kit, teachers will also learn more about the key skills students need to know and how to go about making sure they do!
The Evo Educator Entry Kit includes Ozobot’s Educator Bot Camp, which provides teachers with all of the information they need to know for teaching with Ozobot’s. The instructions will walk them through each of the levels of OzoBlockly, how to code on paper, how to teach basic STEAM skills, and give some possible solutions for potential future debugging. All of the information contained within the Bot Camp is very valuable and important as it helps eliminate down time and struggles when teachers are using the Ozobot with students. The Entry Kit also comes with one Ozobot Evo for any educator who does not have one yet (or might be in the market for a replacement)! To get started with learning more about maximizing the Ozobot Evo using the Evo Educator Entry Kit, get yours from the Eduporium store!
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