Maine educators are invited to participate in a professional learning workshop that supports the integration of technology across multiple content areas with a focus on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) as well as computer science, coding, and computational thinking. By using arts and craft techniques to teach circuits and programming, the workshop will introduce ways to engage learners of diverse backgrounds and interests in designing and building their own technologies and getting excited about STEAM!
During the workshop, educators will:
- Engage in activities that can be used in classrooms with students who are learning STEAM, coding, and computational thinking concepts
- Explore techniques that blend craft and code: students can use skills they have (crafting) to learn new skills (coding), offering new pathways to coding for students who find traditional pathways to learning code less accessible
- Learn how to develop integrated learning opportunities, where the technology is used in service of the learning (instead of as the focus of the learning).
- Understand how to create and foster a sense of wonder (instead of fear) when students try something new and somewhat challenging
The workshop will be led by a team from Chibitronics that has created Love to Code, an electronics and coding toolkit that gets students building circuits and coding in an art-friendly, hands-on way. Students will learn to build and program functioning circuitry within the pages of a picture book and then take these skills to design their own paper circuits (sample paper circuit projects). Students can then program a “Chibi Chip” to control their art work, making interactive artwork that comes to life with code!
Love to Code’s innovative features include a:
- Picture book format, which teaches complex coding concepts by embedding them in metaphor and story;
- Blend of craft and code, which allows learners to use skills they already have (crafting) as they learn new skills (coding).
Learn more about the presenters and see some of their projects, Jie Qi and Natalie Freed.
Event Information:
- Date: Saturday, December 1st, 2018
- Time: 8:30am – 3:30pm
- Location: RiSE Center, University of Maine, Orono
- Contact Hours: 8 hours can be earned
- Cost: $15 (includes light breakfast, lunch, and Love To Code Kit)
- Register here
Please bring a laptop or tablet with you to the event. In order to program the Chibi Chips, devices need to have a headphone port available. This might require you to bring an adapter/dongle depending on your device.
Draft Agenda:
- 8:00am: Registration and light breakfast
- 8:30am: Welcome, Introductions, and Connections
- 9:00am: Jie Qi and Natalie Freed– “From Make Believe to Making Tech: Paper Circuits and Programming”
- 10:00am: Break
- 10:15am: Learning with the Love to Code Kits
- 11:45am: Lunch – includes a networking activity
- 12:45pm: Expectations and goals for afternoon design and creation time
- 1:15pm: Design and Create: Make what you’ll take back to your school – workshop for colleagues, unit or lesson with students, etc
- 3:00pm: Wrap up, reflections, connecting forward
For answers to questions or more information, please contact Amanda Nguyen, Digital Learning Specialist for the Maine Department of Education at Amanda.Nguyen@maine.gov.