(Students use colored cards to tell robotic cars where to go.)

At Windsor Elementary and Middle School, students are passionate about innovation, and their librarian, Kristel Anuszewski, uses the mobile computer science labs funded by the Maine Department of Education (DOE) to support that passion. Anuszewski, Kennebec County’s 2024 Teacher of the Year, is the Librarian and STEM Educator for Windsor’s Learning Commons. On a Friday in late May, the Maine DOE visited as she taught coding skills to a first-grade class using indi cars from the Maine DOE’s Mobile Computer Science Lab program.

In 2022, the Maine DOE offered a grant for educators to apply for one of three mobile labs. Anuszewski chose the robotics and programming lab, with the other options being augmented and virtual reality and coding and hardware.

“We wanted to create a space where kids can be creative, they can be innovative, they can explore, and they can engineer,” said Anuszewski. The cart came with three learning tools for students: Sphero Indi Cars, Sphero BOLTs, and Merge Cubes.

Anuszewski used the Mobile Computer Science Labs to transform the library into a vibrant hub for innovation.

“I feel like it went from gray to this burst of color,” said Windsor Principal Heather Wilson. “She pulls out of the students different things that they’re interested in and shows them how technology can enhance that.”

At Windsor, the Learning Commons is designed to blend technology and traditional library lessons seamlessly. Anuszewski was brought on in 2019 to build out and run the program.

“We had this vision of it being called the Learning Commons and not the library because we wanted it to be more than books,” Wilson said. “We wanted it to be about technology, STEM, innovation, and fun. Before Kristal and the [Mobile Computer Science Labs], we viewed technology as one kind of tool, but it wasn’t interactive with the kids. Now, it’s a vibrant, interactive space that sparks creativity and engagement.”

Now, Learning Commons is bursting with color and sound. The moment students walk through the door, they are filled with curiosity. When Anuszewski tells her first-grade class about the day’s assignment, using the Lab’s indi cars for a lesson about Summer, the room fills with cheers.

“Kristel is an astoundingly intuitive teacher when it comes to building instruction around the STEM,” says Anuszewski’s teaching assistant, Ed Frankonis. “Students have developed immense teambuilding skills with each other thanks to the challenges presented by the coding-teaching technology tools.”

The indi cars Anuszewski used for the day’s lesson provide a hands-on coding experience using a built-in color sensor and interactive color-coded tiles. For more advanced learning, students can progress to simplified block coding options. In Anuszewski’s first-grade class, they stick to the color sensors.

“Students start out really young, with the directional coding, like the indi cars, and essentially, it’s, here’s where you’re starting, here’s where you’re ending, and what directions do you have to give your robot to be able to get them to where they need to be. So, it’s all about processing and logic,” explains Anuszewski. “Having [the Mobile Computer Science Labs] creates more opportunities. I never had anything that was color coded before, and for the kids who are still learning their lefts and rights, the colors help them flush out those concepts, all the while they are doing directional coding.”

For Pre-K through fifth grade, Anuszewski meets with each class twice a week, once for a traditional library lesson and then again for a STEM lesson. She ties these lessons together with a theme. Her Friday first graders have been learning about seasons, specifically summer. Earlier in the week, they read the book “Stuck” by Oliver Jeffers, a story about a boy whose kite is stuck in a tree and his attempts to knock it loose by throwing more objects up into the tree until it is full of stuck objects. For their following technology lesson, they are strategizing how to move their indi cars down a track to a summer object, like the ones from “Stuck.” To do so, they will have to use indi’s colored cards to tell the robot where to go.

The students pair off, each assigned to a specific section of the library where Anuszewski has laid masking tape tracks for them to lead their cars down. Frankonis goes to each group and lays out their special summer object at the end of the masking tape track.

“It’s hard, but it’s really fun,” said Nevada, one of Anuszewski’s first graders.

“You have to figure out what color to use,” explained another student named Landon. “Sometimes I get it wrong. I try again, though.”

Anuszewski teaches Windsor students up to eighth grade. Older students have more autonomy when it comes to the Learning Commons.

“So my middle school curriculum is very different from a traditional curriculum. I have what is called choice boards, so at the beginning of every month, I present between 12 and 14 choices for students in the areas of reading, technology, coding, engineering, and maker space,” explains Anuszewski. “So, within those headings are four different choices, at least, for students to be able to choose from. They pick the one area that they want to study for the month. There are clickable links that will take students to different places online, whether it’s instruction or the actual site, and they explore the subject independently and kind of prep themselves to be able to be successful with their choice.”

Every year, Anuszewski selects a team of middle school students to attend the Maine DOE’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) Student Conference at the University of Maine Orono (UMaine). She selects students who have shown an aptitude or particular interest in tech. This year, one of her Windsor Middle School students, Emry Michaels St. Ong, won a $1,000 scholarship for UMaine at the conference for a game design challenge.

“I got a scholarship to the University of Maine in Orono at the MLTI conference. I was playing an online game called Bloxels, and I won for creating a character based on one of my favorite teachers,” explained St. Ong.

For those unfamiliar, Bloxels is a game-building platform where players can create games their peers can play.

“At the conference, we would go to different blocks. In the Bloxel block, the presenter told us how to go in and make characters, then gave us time to play around with it,” continued St. Ong. “There was a competition for best character. I didn’t think I was going to win it at all. But Mr. Ed here in the library told us that you never know, just take your chance and you can get it. So, I submitted my character and won one of the scholarships.”

Anuszewski mentions that game design is very popular for a lot of kids.

“They get to do it in the library during learning commons time,” she said. “But to be able to hear from another presenter, to be able to have that kind of college experience with someone who’s not your teacher is really, really cool for them.”

That being said, St. Ong credits Anuszewski with giving him the tools he needed to win: “She teaches you a lot of stuff that will not just help you in school but help you wherever you go. She has taught us to use our imaginations and to be creative.”

Regarding coding, St. Ong was able to learn more about himself as a learner by using the robots from the Mobile Computer Science Carts.

“I’ve learned I’m a visual learner, and I like to go off on my own to code,” St. Ong explained. His class uses the Sphero Bolt bots. Students like St. Ong will code the bot to move about a room independently. “I’ll code a [Sphero Bolt] a little bit, see where it ends up, and then I’ll use what I learned to change it. I love learning hands-on like that.”

Through programs like the Mobile Computer Science labs, educators like Anuszewski have the means to empower students to engage with technology from a young age, building skills that they will use for the rest of their lives.

“I don’t want kids to ever be afraid of technology. I feel like immersing them in the technology is one way to do that,” says Anuszewski. “If they want to seek a career, technology is going to be a part of that. I don’t ever want them to feel like they don’t understand tech or not pursue something they want because they’re too afraid of what they don’t know. I never want them to be scared to try something.”

The Mobile Computer Science Labs are a part of Maine Teaches CS and were purchased with Federal Emergency Relief Funding. Maine Teaches CS is a part of Maine’s Whole Student Pandemic Response. Discover more of the DOE’s innovative programming at Maine’s Whole Student Pandemic Response page on the Maine DOE website.

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