Loyola Blakefield Delivers Professional Audio to Unique Spaces on Campus with Renkus-Heinz Solutions

Loyola Blakefield is a Jesuit preparatory school for boys in grades 6-12 that has operated since 1852. Its 60-acre campus in Towson, Maryland boasts several academic buildings and an array of student-centered facilities, such as a spacious dining hall, athletics complex, and common areas. The school’s mission centers upon delivering a superb academic experience coupled with spiritual formation in the Ignatian tradition. It also provides a variety of elective and co-curricular activities to their more than 940 students – including athletics, performing arts, cyber science, and speech & debate.

With such a wide array of activities and programming on campus, performances and presentations take place in several locations. When it came time for the school to upgrade its Dining Hall with an improved sound system, it was important to meet a vision that saw the space as a flexible and dynamic setting bolstered by an integrated audio system.

Steve Morill, IT Director for Loyola Blakefield, envisioned the many possibilities for the space with the deployment of a state-of-the-art system. Morill manages the school’s technology infrastructure needs and understands the influence and importance of audio/visual tech in a learning environment, including its unique role in content sharing and comprehension.…Read More

Vernier and SAM Labs Help Teachers Incorporate Science and Coding into Instruction

Middle school teachers can now integrate science lessons with data collection and coding using new packages from Vernier Software & Technology and SAM Labs. Each new topic-based package—comprised of a Go Direct sensor, SAM Labs output blocks, and ready-to-go activities within the Google Workbench programming platform—engages students in scientific discovery and introductory block-based coding.

“The new Vernier Coding with SAM Labs packages provide a cost-effective solution for teachers looking to introduce data collection and entry-level coding using SAM Labs with Vernier sensors,” said John Wheeler, CEO of Vernier Software & Technology. “The packages are versatile in that teachers can use them for in-person instruction or in a hybrid learning model. For the latter, students collect data that interacts with their output blocks in class or borrow the package for use at home.”

Each package is designed to help students explore a specific scientific topic, such as temperature, magnetism, sound, force, and motion. Students use each packages’ corresponding Go Direct sensor—Go Direct Temperature, Go Direct 3-Axis Magnetic Field, Go Direct Sound, Go Direct Force and Acceleration, and Go Direct Motion, respectively—with the SAM Labs output blocks as they complete their step-by-step lesson.…Read More

Trinity Elementary School Updates Broadcast Studio Lighting with Adorama Business Solutions

Trinity Elementary School recently enlisted Adorama Business Solutions, the premier technology resource for corporate, educational, and government institutions, to upgrade its in-house broadcast studio used to produce school announcements and offer production courses to students. Eager to move away from pre-recorded programming toward more sophisticated live production capabilities, Trinity Elementary first revitalized its studio set-up with new, improved lighting equipment.

The new lighting upgrades have enabled live interviews during morning announcements, live panel discussions, and green screen capabilities. It has also helped facilitate projects such as a Blackmagic workflow for live broadcasts of school auditorium productions and live streaming of programming on outlets such as YouTube. In addition, the updates have allowed a new curriculum to be implemented about the different elements of live television production, including classes such as editing, recording, and audio.

After an on-site consultation, Adorama Business Solutions worked with Trinity Elementary School to identify the best lighting gear suited to their needs. Selected equipment included: 12 Astra Bi-Color LED Light Panels, an Astra Bluetooth Communications Module, and a Snapbag Softbox. They additionally provided technical drawings detailing where the new lighting should be placed, as well as recommended power outlet placements to facilitate future upgrade plans for the studio.…Read More

Free classes and practice problems in over 200 subjects

Many K-12 schools have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More closings are sure to come. In response, Varsity Tutors, founded by Washington University in St. Louis alum Chuck Cohn, has launched a new service called Virtual School Day.

Virtual School Day: Nearly 200 free, live K-12 classes available all day long intended to help parents fill their children’s day with enriched learning. Some popular classes are “Intro to Spanish for Kids”, “Coolest Women in History”, “Java Programming Basics”, and “The Story of Your Favorite Fairy Tales”.

Virtual Summer Camps: Free half-day summer camps are a week-long, with enrichment-based classes in subjects like foreign languages, chess, theater, coding, Minecraft, how to be a detective, photography, and more. These live, interactive camps will be taught by expert instructors vetted through Varsity Tutors’ platform.…Read More

Free computer programming courses

DataCamp for the Classroom offers free access to data science and analytics educators across the globe to all DataCamp content. This includes a growing library of 325+ courses in Python, R, SQL, and other technologies.

To date, DataCamp has helped over 200,000 students and teachers from 180 countries build data skills. This delivers on its mission for democratizing data science and analytics education around the world.

For more information visit DataCamp for the Classroom…Read More

Bridging the gap between science and coding

Students exposed to coding and programming at an early age are well equipped to take on higher-level computer science courses in high school—and they also build essential skills for future opportunities in the technology world.

When Rob van Nood was hired as the educational technology specialist for Catlin Gabel School in Oregon, coding and computer science courses were only offered in grades 9-12, and not to students in the younger grades.

Related content: 5 examples of coding and robotics in the classroom…Read More

How this school designed a robotics program from the ground up

As a former computer engineer with a background in applied math, I’m a firm proponent of STEM education. As a math teacher with 14 years of experience facilitating robotics clubs for students, I’m also an ardent supporter of programming and robotics as a vehicle for STEM ed, so when I had the opportunity to build a K–5 robotics program from the lab up, I leapt at the opportunity.

Our school is a brand-new Title 1 campus. We’re in our first year and just opened in August, so we’re still tweaking and learning as we go, but we’ve developed a solid foundation for introducing students—even those who are very young—to a range of STEM and other concepts in an environment that feels more like fun than work. Here’s how we did it.

Kindergarten & 1st grade

When I was designing the robotics program, I wanted to make sure we were building a bridge from kindergarten all the way to 5th grade and beyond, so our program is designed to be progressive throughout the six years students are with us and to set them up for more advanced robotics in middle and high school, should they choose to pursue it.…Read More

Why I use student-driven ideas in my curriculum

You might think that teaching a high school programming course in which students are asked to code simple games and interactive websites would be motivating and exciting, but there are unforeseen elements of dealing with the teenage brain and the influences on their lives that seem to creep into the most well-designed plans. Students come to class with various types of anxiety, fears, and coping issues from daily stresses. They are also distracted with social media and the availability of instant information at their fingertips. As teachers, how do we keep them engaged and focused on their learning with the overwhelming amount of social and emotional distractions in their lives?

Student-driven ideas: the key to keeping students engaged

Keeping students on task is a constant challenge, so when I observed some students playing an online game when they were supposed to be working on an assignment, my first reaction was to ask them to close the program. Then I began to wonder why they were so fixated on playing this particular game. I wasn’t dealing with the typical Fortnite addiction; this was an escape-room game. (If you are not familiar with an escape-room game, Wikipedia defines it as a “physical adventure game in which players solve a series of puzzles and riddles using clues, hints, and strategies to complete the objectives at hand.” I asked these students why they liked this game and they eagerly gave me their reasons, which revolved around conquering a personal challenge.

I realized that students didn’t seem thrilled about the work I asked them to do. Instead, they decided to switch to something different that caught their attention and motivated them to challenge themselves. My lesson had some important elements of coding included so I didn’t want to toss it out completely, but I wondered if I could use the “escape room” idea to spark a new level of interest in my plans. Should I let my student’s interest and/or distraction drive my curriculum?…Read More

How student-created VR can enhance SEL and special ed

Quality social-emotional learning (SEL) and effective special education (SpEd) programming look remarkably similar. Each relies on a positive, safe learning environment and touts activities geared toward student strengths and weaknesses. Both types of programming facilitate a group experience where individual outcomes are designed to be disparate, be recorded, and used to track growth. Because these two types of programming are similar in philosophy, it should come as no surprise that both SEL and SpEd can be enhanced and expanded by innovative edtech solutions—most notably, student-created virtual reality (360 VR videos).

The benefits of VR

VR is proving to be an effective engagement tool in diverse ways: visiting museums around the world, blasting off into space, etc. But VR does not have to be limited to geography and science classrooms. By using student-created, perspective-taking videos, VR can be a powerful experiential tool that aligns with and augments both SEL and SpEd outcomes.

When students put on a headset to view these types of videos, they are stepping into another life, another story. They will find connection in the familiar and discover meaning in what they perceive to be different. Students then begin to develop perspective-taking skills, resulting in newfound levels of relationship skills (communication), self-management (emotional control in response to a story), and social awareness (empathizing with the storyteller). As a bonus, viewing VR films is an incredibly immersive experience, making student engagement—often a legitimate challenge—easier to achieve.…Read More

11 educators share how they bring coding into the classroom

By now, most educators understand the importance of coding. Programmers continue to be in high demand, and coding improves much-needed skills like creativity, persistence, problem solving, and critical thinking.

But just because you know you should teach something, doesn’t mean you can. Perhaps you can’t figure out how to fit it into your already crowded curriculum, or maybe you’re intimidated to try. eSchool News is here to help.

We asked 11 Sphero Heroes—teachers from all over the U.S. who are using Sphero robots to transform teaching and learning in their classrooms and beyond—to share their expertise about bringing coding into the classroom.…Read More

8 great ways to STEAM up your class with Sphero (and other edtech)

Jobs in the computer science field are the top source of new wages in America, and a quarter of all jobs are now “highly digitalized.” Twice as many Americans use computing in their jobs, with half of these positions in non-STEM fields.

Yet, only 25 percent of schools across the country offer a computer science class with coding or programming as part of the curriculum. It’s more important than ever to incorporate STEM and STEAM principles into the classroom to prepare our students for the workforce. Kids are already immersed in the world of technology, but it’s important to incorporate STEM principles into the classroom to arm students with the skills they need to succeed in the job landscape of the future.

In our classrooms, we use a variety of tools to teach the values of STEAM education, including Sphero, the technology company utilizing play as a powerful teacher with its product line of robotic balls and other app-enabled gadgets that inspire STEAM learning.…Read More

What are this year’s top trends at SXSW EDU?

Connecting leaders across the learning lifecycle and around the world, SXSW EDU serves as a melting pot for the latest approaches to education. From more than 1,500 proposals received in PanelPicker to applicants for our startup and design competitions, we review a diverse array of content aligned to some of the biggest trends today. What follows is a curated list of the top 10 trends impacting teaching and learning as exhibited in the programming at SXSW EDU 2019. At a high level, this year’s trends represent a human-centered approach to empowering both the educator and student to define their own learning pathway.

AI, XR, & Blockchain: A New Era in EdTech
The advancement of emerging technology is laying the foundation for a new age of learning. With virtual worlds being built to extend the classroom and embedded AI to better track student development, experiential technology provides a new level of immersion. Though still in the early days of direct application in education, blockchain promises to establish a new digital infrastructure to authenticate knowledge acquisition and track a lifetime of learner competencies. Collectively these new applications of tech are shifting its role in the classroom.

Related sessions:
AI Enabling Personalized Learning at Scale
Blockchain: Hype or Enabler for K-12 Data Privacy
Education Meets Blockchain and the Sharing Economy…Read More