PROGRAMS and ROBOTS and DRONES - Oh My!

Teaching technology courses has afforded me the opportunity to take part in conversations about the direction of the technology for the district. My opinion is sometimes asked for when it comes to new items to purchase. I am always so excited to get to take part in those conversations. My students deserve the opportunity to experience things that they may come across in college or within the career that they choose. I love the fact that they will be able to look back and know that they were prepared by their high school experiences.

Recently, we have been looking into the world of robotics. It was decided that we would be creating a robotics course and the interest from the student body was phenominal. We invested in Lego Mindstorm kits, Vex systems, and began teaching programming. The students and staff and equally enjoyed navigating through this new and exciting course. Students started out using a basic coding program called Scratch. Click the link to check it out! Scratch was developed by a group lead by Mitchel Resnick at MIT. The program a wonderful place for students of just about any age to understand basic programming concepts. Once the concepts were mastered, they began to appy what they had learned into creating working robots. This was a great experience. Coping with frustration and problem solving skills were something that was not planned to be taught, but it really added new depth to each lesson. Trial and error is something that they had to get used to and it is something that will help in all walks of life. Students loved the course and feedback was mostly positive.

Now, we are looking into drones. Our district is listing all of the potential uses for the drones and are hoping that we can add them into our arsenal of educational tools to be used by our teachers!