#ISTE17 Wrap-Up
What a conference!
Last month, the Wonder Workshop team joined more than 15,000 education-minded folks in San Antonio for ISTE 2017, the country’s largest annual edtech conference. We had so much to share in anticipation of this coming school year, and the excitement mounted as we set up our new booth display.
Throughout the next three days, we were overwhelmed by educators’ excitement for coding and robotics, and all that Wonder Workshop has to offer. It was the first time that our newly formed Education Team came to ISTE to showcase, model, and celebrate this new literacy through hands-on learning stations. Each of our four learning stations was designed to encourage educators to question, experience, and problem-solve so that they could begin formulating a customized approach for bring coding and robotics back to their schools:
Demonstrations: At the first station, June and Bryan showed primary teachers a prototype created to introduce pre-K students to icon-based programming. Teachers gave us valuable feedback on this early literacy activity designed to bring coding and robotics to the “littles” through letter, color, and shape recognition. At the same table, teachers saw how Swift Playgrounds from Apple now can control Dash. Last, we demoed two early prototypes of Chromebook models working with Dash and Dot (stay tuned)!
Higher-order Thinking: At the next station, Dylan and Darri demonstrated a spatial awareness activity, challenging teachers to use their higher-order thinking skills to program Dash to advance through a visual race track of foam board gates with a series of movements, tilts, and nods. They also gave teachers an “insider’s” view of a disembodied Dash (note: no robots were harmed!). Educators touched, felt, and chatted about the ins and outs of the robots’ sensors, LEDs, microphones, and motors — robot guts on display!
New K-5 Curriculum: Then there was the excitement surrounding our brand-new K-5 Learn to Code Curriculum, complete with 30 online lesson plans and 72 student-facing Challenge Cards, aligned to Code.org’s Computer Science Fundamentals series. Teachers walked through the new curricular resources with Charlotte, our curriculum designer, who shared her design process and user testing experiences. At the same time, teachers explored Dash’s xylophone accessory as a way to take a multi-disciplinary approach to promoting a love of music and coding.
Dash-ketball: And last but not least was the activity that left teachers and administrators cheering for joy — Dash-ketball! Educators lined up by the droves to learn how to code firsthand with Blockly. Each had three tries to program Dash to drive down the basketball court with dynamic turns, spins, and animations to make a basket. Our team members Tim, Hetav, and Mike were so impressed with teachers’ growth mindsets. Teachers used critical thinking and problem-solving skills to iterate on their programs until they successfully made a basket, earning an entry into our daily raffle of Dash and Dot robot prize packs.
In our Day 3 final drawing, the winning teachers represented the countries of El Salvador, Australia, and the United States — ISTE truly is a global conference of teaching and learning. A great time was had by all!
In case you were not able to join us in Texas, check out the curated resources found through our handle @WonderWorkshop and the hashtags #ISTE17, #DashandDot, and #NotAtISTE17. You definitely will fill your digital toolbox with amazing teaching and learning resources! Thank you to all of the presenters who shared their best coding and robotics practices over ISTE’s three days.
As a presenter and as an active learning participant at #ISTE17, what I found so amazing were the sessions showcasing incredible ways to design, model, and integrate coding and robotic activities into a multitude of thematic teaching units and lessons. To continue your love for coding and robotics all summer long, stay connected with the Wonder Workshop team and our global teacher community located on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TeachWonder or on Twitter @WonderWorkshop or #DashandDot.
Happy coding!
Naomi Harm, Strategic Outreach Edu Manager, Twitter @Naomi Harm
