Elementary I: Day 2 and NMUed Maker Faire

The end of the semester is upon us! I have been so busy I just did nearly an entire week's worth of dishes because I haven't been home at aaallll... it's so nice to sit down and relax a bit.. and now to business :)

this is what's been keeping me busy the past few weeks.. ceramics dungeon

 On Tuesday I was invited to serve as a judge for the NMU Education Maker Faire! It was a really cool experience and the pre-service teachers at NMU have great ideas. The Maker Space/ Design Lab is fully stocked with new technology and learning resources.

3D printing with instructions  - really great stuff

this group was modeling an aerial view of a house interior

The teachers were not using the technology as adaptations for learning and teaching but instead were asked to put together an 'experience' for their group members and the judges. I think it was a very effective approach because the students focused on their interests and poured a lot of time and research into the technology.

MakerBot at work

Teachers learning about Minecraft and Makey-Makeys

 As a judge I was responsible for providing feedback, asking questions, and trying out each group's technology or programs. I got to drive a Lego robot around an obstacle course, navigate a maze with Minecraft, play with a Go Pro camera, and learned a couple new apps for teaching on the iPad.

cool idea: prezi filled with teaching apps for each discipline

Maker side of the Design Lab

Gamer side of the Design Lab

Lego robot!

Day 2 of the Elementary I lesson plan went extremely well! I was kind of scattered and getting wiped out from this week but I have realized I also ROCK at thinking on my feet. I forgot my flash drive and so I cancelled the presentation I had planned and just let the students draw the whole time.

 One of the major accomplishments of the day was keeping the students on-task. Many of the kids have attention problems and struggled to keep working the whole time. It was really important to address each student individually and I walked around the classroom more times than I could count. Many of the kids talked through what they were drawing and wanted to share with me and their classmates. Some of their stories were funny, some were sad, but all were SHARED. I could tell the kids really enjoyed the activity because the papers were being filled to the corners :)

scissors, pumpkin, battery... there's definitely a story here!

same student - "I used to listen to this band and this was their logo"

One student revealed to me that he couldn't think of anything to draw. When I asked why he said he has a "memory chunk" missing from 1st through 7th grade because of his medications. He remembers very little from his childhood and didn't draw for most of the hour. After talking to some other classmates he wanted to draw video game characters so here's the start of that...

he's got big plans for more Mario drawings

Day 3 is Friday! We will be working on creating the background and continuing to draw.

Until next time,
Ms. Kanak