Innovation Stations: A Middle School Creative Technology Unit

I know I've referenced my 8th grade culminating curricular unit before, which we lovingly call the Innovation Stations, but I thought I'd take a moment to explain how it all gets laid out and run within our classroom!

From a classroom management standpoint, I have students work in pairs during Innovation Stations. I find that groups of two allow for adequate assistance (students have a friend that they can ask for help), but also allows for students to easily take turns controlling the actual tools. No one just sits and observes, or claims to have "nothing to do."

I have three stations that I need to arrange to have all of the students move through: Makey Makey, littleBits, and Sphero. Grouping and time frames are basically dependent upon which tool I have the smallest number of, which at present, is Sphero. I have four of them (and if I'm lucky, they're all working!). That means that up to eight students can be working at the Sphero station. If I have a class of 24, it works out perfectly to have eight students at each station, with four groups each. Of course, this is an IDEAL situation, and I do often have to make adjustments accordingly.

Each tech tool station has a task list of directions for getting acquainted with the tool, and challenges for the students to complete. Last year, these task lists were printed off on paper and I had to manually "check off" tasks for students after they performed them for me, but this year I've begun making these checklists paperless (as hyperdocs!), and having students photograph and document task completion by inserting the images into the doc as proof.

Depending on how much time we have left in the quarter, I will have students spend 2-3 days at each station, and charge them with getting as far as they can on the task lists during that time. The task list is where you'll find fun challenges, like our Sphero maze.

I'm fortunate to have all sorts of tech gadgets to use in my curriculum, and it's currently structured for students to experience technology at my school like this:

• 6th Grade - Dot and Dash robots
• 7th Grade - Ozobots
• 8th Grade - Makey Makey, Sphero, and littleBits

It works out pretty well, because each grade level gets to experience a new tech tool each year. But the Ozobots and Dot/Dash robots are actually new to us THIS year, so my current 8th graders never got the chance to use them. Therefore, I decided to try something new for 3rd quarter and add two more stations to the rotation of tools: the Ozobots and Dot and Dash robots!

I took my longer Ozobot and Dot and Dash unit materials and shrunk them down into (what I hope are) manageable 2-3 day task lists, like the ones I created for the other three 8th grade stations, and now I had FIVE Innovation Stations for students to rotate through! I'm not gonna lie, it's a lot of device management and attention to things like charging/cables/outlets, but it's a fun type of chaos to see all of the students so engaged in the activities.

One of the things that I ended up doing in order to help make these stations run more smoothly was to create short "How-To" type videos for the most common issues that students would encounter when working with the devices. For example, I often found myself spending chunks of the class period troubleshooting our Sphero connections. The solution? Help yourself! See here:

And despite having very specific and clear instructions on how to properly connect a Makey Makey, sometimes it's just more helpful to watch someone else do it: 

The other station that seemed to need a little more one-on-one assistance was the Ozobots, mostly because there's a difference between using them on paper vs using them on a Chromebook and loading them with programs. So I made these:

I found these short videos extremely helpful for running my Innovation Stations unit, as it freed me up to observe and assist in other areas, as needed. I wasn't feeling so much like a broken record, answering the same questions over and over! 

This is one of those instances where teaching a class repeatedly, like in 9-week terms, has its advantages because I can run a unit for students, reflect, and make adjustments like this. It's pretty rewarding to be able to observe how things improve after tweaking a lesson or unit!

Have you used any of these tech tools before? What new tech tools or toys would you suggest adding to our offerings in the future?

- Mrs. L.

Hosting a Cardboard Challenge at Your School

I remember watching Caine's Arcade years ago when I was still teaching art, and immediately becoming inspired and wanting to do something like that with my students, but it never quite came to fruition...

Then, just this fall, I was listening to the TechEducator Podcast about #CardboardEDU and it all came back to me - I remembered how cool I thought the idea of creating using ordinary cardboard material was, and began to brainstorm all over again about how I could use this at my school. Despite being a technology teacher, I absolutely loved the low-tech aspect, and how easy it would be to create a maker-themed event for it.

A quick Google search turned up all sorts of events and projects at schools all over, like the Global Cardboard Challenge, which has been happening since 2012 ... which left me feeling quite tardy to the party! But I still needed to make this happen. I presented the idea to Mr Walker, our art teacher, and we decided to make it a joint effort. We then went to my principal, who was super supportive, and scheduled a short presentation for us at the next PTA meeting, so that we could present to parents and get some support (and supplies!) from their group, too!

The "official" Global Cardboard Challenge is held in October each year, but since the art teacher and I weren't really sure how this would go over, we decided to go ahead and host it in February (at the time, giving us a few months to sort out the details) because it is a relatively less busy time of the year in our building, making it more ideal for hosting events.

In theory, hosting a cardboard challenge event is pretty simple: collect a bunch of cardboard, find a chunk of time, and have students come and make stuff. But of course, in reality, it helps to be a little more organized than that. Here's what we did:

1. Write a list of supplies to buy, and ask PTA to help fund: cardboard scissors, saws, tape, and glue gun sticks. 
2. Ask PTA for parent supervision help (if needed, we found that this wasn't needed as much as we originally thought). 
3. Pick a date (we chose 3:30-6 pm after school on a Thursday), and reserve a space in your building - we chose the cafeteria for the big tables and sweep-able linoleum floors. 
4. Advertise! We made flyers and asked each teacher to post one in their classroom or on their door. We also went on our morning announcements to try and hype the event. 
5. Collect cardboard. Lots of it. Have a space to store it all ahead of time. We used the art room, a storage closet, and even a section of basement hallway. Our maintenance team was super supportive (and patient!) with us. Sources for cardboard included parents, teachers, students, maintenance department, cafeteria team... everyone pitched in and it was awesome!
6. Create a student sign-up system for the event. We used a Google Form to have students sign up in teams of up to four. We asked them to come up with a team name, and encouraged matching shirts, costumes, or accessories. Having students sign up ahead of time was helpful so that we could estimate how much we needed for supplies. 
7. Decide if your event is going to have a theme, and if not, consider giving some ideas to students for projects: cardboard forts? armor? robots? games? vehicles? sculpture? costumes? We kept our first year open-ended, but I'm considering having a theme next year. 
8. Awards. Will you have them? For what categories? Who votes? For our first year, we made simple participation medals (out of cardboard, of course) that read: "I mastered the Cardboard Challenge at SMS," and encouraged students to wear them to school the following day.

I was so excited to have over 15 teams of students sign up for our first ever Cardboard Challenge event! There was so much excitement in the cafeteria. Our administrators stopped by several times to watch the action unfold, and many teachers took the time to stop by and talk to students, too! We even had a team of seniors from the York High School "Invite to Teach" program (it's like a teacher internship for students who think they'll go into the education field in college) participate in the challenge!

For leaving the first year's event open-ended, we got some pretty fun and creative results: two massive castle forts, a life-sized robot, a working skateboard, a cardboard V-8 engine, a basketball hoop, a cityscape, and some cardboard shields and weapons were among the finished products!

I think that the students really enjoyed themselves. Several groups took their finished pieces home; a few others left their creations here at school and are on display throughout the building. One of the nicest things to happen after the event was this super sweet and cute email that I received from a student:

I've literally NEVER had a student take time like that to write me an email just to say that they liked something. So this is a pretty big deal for me. I'm saving it in the happy file.

Reflecting on the night's events, there are a few things that I would improve upon for next year:

1. I need a better clean up system. There was a huge mess at the end of the night. It would be nice to give each team their own waste bin to toss trash as they work. Also, I should pre-set some large cardboard boxes as recycling "bins" for unused larger pieces of cardboard to be returned. 
2. An adult sponsor for each team. I'm considering having each team include an adult sponsor, like a parent or teacher, to help with building and supervision. It would be a great way to include parents (or building staff), and also help with my #1 item - cleanup. 
3. Have a snack/refreshment station. Even just cups for water would be nice, but some cookies or granola bars at a table just beyond the builders would be a good place to take breaks a couple of times during the evening. 
4. Supply organization and safety. Thankfully, everyone was safe and no one was injured beyond a paper, er, cardboard cut, but I would like to feel just a tad bit more organized by having a pre-set "toolbox" for each group next time, probably consisting of cardboard scissors, exact-o knife, glue sticks, tape, cutting mat, etc... This is also where having an adult sponsor for each team would come in especially handy, too. 
5. Size limits, and plans for display after the event. Giant forts are cool, but don't always fit through the doorway, nor are there a lot of places to store/display them. I think I need to put a cap on size, unless a student plans on taking it with them!
6. Trophies and a closing ceremony. Our event just kind of ended with a mad scramble to clean up and get out on time. It would have been nice to have more of a show-and-tell time, or awards ceremony. I'd love to make super cute cardboard "trophies" for the winners, too. 

Have you ever been to an event like this, or hosted one yourself? Do you have any advice or ideas? Let me know!

- Mrs L.

Using Ozobots in the Middle School Classroom

The middle school tech teachers in my district have tried really hard in the last two years to modernize the curriculum and engage students. One of the ways that we do this is through tech tools and gadgets, which we refer to as "Innovation Stations."

8th grade (a nine-week course) uses Spheros, Makey Makey, and LittleBits, 6th grade (a six-week course) uses Dot and Dash robots, and 7th grade (also a six-week course) uses Ozobots. So each grade gets to have an experience with at least one new tech tool/toy/gadget/whatever you like to call it.

We have been very lucky to receive funding to buy most of these tools via our curriculum department, but our middle schools won a special grant from our education foundation to purchase our classroom sets of Ozobots!

I thought I'd go over a little bit how we use Ozobots in my 7th grade computer classes. First, I divide the unit up into three sections: on paper / on an iPad / on a Chromebook. Ozobots can do a lot of stuff and be used in different ways, so we start small, on paper, with Ozobot reading lines and color codes, just to learn the basic workings. We look at the sensors and how the robot works. We talk about basic care and maintenance: cleaning the wheels, charging the battery, and calibrating the robot before sending it off to travel.

I'm an almost 100% paperless classroom, so it bothered me that I was having to print out so many calibration sheets on paper (even if I kept and collected them each class, they would get lost or damaged/folded up and I would have to make more), so I found a solution that seems to be working really well so far! I cut out circle stickers from black matte vinyl on my Silhouette Cameo machine at home (I bought one two summers ago for my own personal use and I love it!), and stuck them to the underside of my centerpiece placemats at each student work table. If you don't have placemats to hide stickers under, you could still put a circle sticker on each desktop/tabletop in your room for calibration purposes.

In class, we also talk about line following/line sensing robots and how the technology is being used now/could be used in the future. One of my favorite videos to show is this one involving robot chairs!

Students can choose to work individually or in pairs with Ozobot, since I have 18 devices total. But for the second part of our unit, which is on iPads, we have to get into groups that are a little bit larger, because I only have 9 iPads. It ends up being no more than 4 per device, so not too bad. We use OzoGroove to program our robots to dance! Working in larger groups means using multiple Ozobots with one iPad, which is actually advantageous when using OzoGroove because you can write one dance program, but run it on several Ozobots at one time so they dance synchronized! It's pretty neat.

Out last portion of the Ozobot unit is using our Chromebooks! We use OzoBlockly to solve puzzles (the shape tracer) and to write code (the Editor) to load and run on our Ozobots. If you've ever used Scratch, you'll find that OzoBlockly Editor is very similar in how it functions.

The end of the unit is the most fun for me, because I like to see what students can come up with using their Ozobots. Some set up games, like tiny bowling pins, and others make mazes or race tracks for their Ozobot to run. I've been doing a little bit of exploring via Pinterest as to how other educators and families are using Ozobots, and I found an awesome resource over at Tech Age Kids where they detailed the instructions to build a tiny Lego chariot for Ozobot to pull! I was so excited to find this that I had to try it out right away:

I'm going to give students the opportunity to integrate Ozobots with Lego this term, and I'm excited to see what they do! Every time I teach a unit, it gets a little bit better and I see more and more cool things that students come up with!

- Mrs. L.

Valentine's Maker Projects

I came across a couple of really fun-looking STEM/Makerspace-inspired Valentine's Day projects, and I thought I'd share them with you here:

1. Light Up Circuit Valentines:

 

This light up circuit project is very similar to the one I used to teach in 8th grade art last year, but with a Valentine's twist! I think I'm going to make one for Mr. Leban.

2. LittleBits Love-O-Meter:

 

We use LittleBits in 8th grade computer lit class, so this idea is pretty humorous to me. It uses an arduino bit, which we don't have, but it gives me an idea for a future assignment: to challenge students to create tiny "arcade" type inventions using LittleBits. Super fun!

Happy Valentine's Day (soon)!

-Mrs. L.