Bringing Student Designs To 3D Life!

This has been an exciting week! Last week, I posted about our 5th graders learning to design in the Tinkercad web app in my post 5th Graders Begin 3D Design. This week students were thrilled to begin printing their designs on our 3D printer! It was a fairly steep learning curve for my students and I! Now that we are seeing success, I am happy to say it was worth the effort.  Once I introduced Tinkercad and all of the little nuances, students went through the 5 original lessons provided in Tinkercad.  I then shared a few more "how to" lessons to help them as they began designing their projects. 

Once students designed their projects, students exported their designs (.stl file) from Tinkercad to their Google Drive, and then they shared it with me. This work flow was simple and efficient! I asked our district email administrator for a Google account just for 3D printing so I wouldn't have all of their emails and files in my work Google/Gmail account. I then downloaded their projects, and set them on the Makerbot print bed so that I could print five or six designs at a time.  

Also, our 3D printer lives in our library so that all of the students in the building can see the 3D printer working. This initial exposure to the printer will help prepare students for when they are given the opportunity to design and print.

Now that our 5th graders have learned how to design for the 3D printer, I am realizing how great this design experience is for our students. I would recommend Tinkercad designing for students with or without a 3D printer.

5th Graders Practice Creative Writing With Plot & Setting Using Storybird

I recently had the opportunity to share the Storybird app with our 5th grade students. I was reminded how wonderful this web app is for inspiring an supporting student writing.

Our students loved having a huge library of original digital art to select for their stories. This artwork served as the illustrations for their stories but also sparked their creativity. Their stories, once published as a flipbook, could be shared with each other, other classrooms and with their families. Storybird even has a feature that allows students to collaborate on a story. The best part is that students enjoy writing using this app, and nothing beats students having fun while learning! Check out Olivia's story about a scared bunny!

5th Graders Begin 3D Design With Tinkercad...

In November, we opened up our brand new 3D printer, Makerbot Replicator+, and began the process of learning how to print. The process of learning how to print was centered around learning to design in the web app Tinkercad, and learning how to manage the print jobs in the Makerbot print application. I really needed to be a students myself before becoming a teacher. I used trial and error to discover the ins and outs of the process.  I had quite a few failed print jobs, but slowly I began to have some success. 

Once I figured it out, I then began to put on my teacher hat and try to discover the best way to roll out this complicated task for our 5th graders. It was clear that work flow was going to be a big deal. Finally, yesterday I introduced Tinkercad to the first of four 5th grade classes.  I introduced the Tinkercad work plane and tools. We discussed the importance of renaming their projects clearly so I would be able to managing all of the 3D print jobs once they sent them to me.

After the introduction, I asked students to go through a few introductory lessons in Tinkercad so they could learn how to use the design features.

Now students will spend the next few sessions designing. Stay tuned for the final projects!

Cubelets - Robots For Learning!

In a continuing effort to provide opportunities for our OHE students to become makers, this week students began to explore new tools in our makerspace. I began with a small group, with the intent of introducing them to classrooms in the coming weeks.  Cubelets are modular robots that can be constructed and reconstructed for different purposes. They connect with magnets making it easy assemble and change. Our first session with Cubelets was simple exploration. Students tried a variety of different configurations to discover how their robots would change. The cubelet robot cubes are divided into three categories - sense, think and act blocks. It took our students no time at all to get the hang of Cubelets, and their invention cycle, create, remix, play, share, was hoppin' fast!

With our Cubelets, I also purchased bluetooth Cubelets. So in future we will be able to combine these robots with coding! I can't wait to see what our students invent when combining these robots with coding! 

Digital Tools To Warm Up Your Class!

3rd Graders Get Crafty For The Holidays With Pic Collage!

Today is the last day before our winter break. Our OHE students, like most students around the nation, are excited about their upcoming winter break! Our teachers are always looking for fun activities for this day. Before going any further, I want to take just a moment for a big shout out for Hilary Moorlach, my Digital Learning Specialist colleague for this fabulous idea!

First, students found 9 images of Christmas backgrounds using Google images and saved them to their camera roll. They also image searched for "bark" and saved one image to their iPad camera roll. For students with a different family tradition, they found images of their choice. 

Once they found and downloaded the images, students took a "selfie" photo.

Once these steps were done, students opened the Pic Collage App, chose a "free style" collage, and added their newly saved images to their page.  From here, students used the cutout option to edit each picture with the circle template. 

Then they arranged the circles into a tree shape, added a background and voila...a Christmas tree with their image on top!  Great digital fun!

New Library Books - Gifts for the Season or Anytime!

I prepared this video for our OHE morning announcements back in December and forgot to share it on my blog! Better late than never! New books for the library are always welcome.