Using TinkerCad with Students Under 13

Navigating a  3D world can seem pretty overwhelming to someone like me who has not spent as much time as today's students leveling up in 3D gaming environments.  However, today's students are much more comfortable finding their way around in a 3D world, so why not let them create in 3D with one of the most user friendly digital tools for 3D modeling ~ TINKERCAD.  

Photo Credit:  Kevin Jarrett

Why TinkerCad!  It's not only a very user friendly and powerful 3D creation tool, but it also  works on both personal computers and Chromebooks!   Don't take my word for it,  check out Kevin Jarrett's first graders using TinkerCad in the  K-4 STEM Lab at Northfield Community Elementary School.  

Although it is very accessible,  there is one barrier for teachers who want to quickly get started using Tinkercad  by AutoDesk with students under 13.  In order to be COPPA compliant when using Tinkercad,  students under 13  need to be approved (thus supervised)  by a parent or teacher.   If a student under 13 signs up to use TinkerCad, they will be able to navigate the beginning lessons, but will not be able to save their work until approved. 

Thankfully AutoDesk has streamlined this process. First of all, students under 13 will automatically be asked for a parent email address and an email will automatically be sent to the parent email address.  This step helps to streamline the process,  but there are still challenges for students whose parents don't have email  or for students whose parents don't get around to "approving' their students in a timely manner. 

Luckily AutoDesk has provided some avenues to help teachers with this challenge and quickly get  their students up and running using TinkerCad. 

#1 AutoDesk has included in their terms of service a reference to the fact that in some circumstances, teacher consent can be used in lieu of a parent.   Thank you, to AutoDesk for taking the extra step to include this phrase in Tinkercads terms of service.  This is very helpful for teachers who are working hard to be responsible users/educators while using innovative digital tools with their students. 

https://www.tinkercad.com/about/privacy#privacy-13-1-1Teacher consent in lieu of a parentFor school-based activities, COPPA allows teachers and school administrators to act in the place of parents to provide consent for the collection of personal information from children. Schools should always notify parents about these activities.In some cases, in order that an account is not closed and so that a child can continue to use a website or application outside of the school context, we may ask schools to obtain consent directly from a parent instead of and/or in addition to providing consent in the place of a parent.For more information on parental rights with respect to a child’s educational record under the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), please see the FERPA section below.

#2  AutoDesk has created an environment where teachers can easily manage (and approve) their students and QUICKLY get started teaching their students how to model in 3D.   If you have not discovered it yet,  check out Project IGNITE by AutoDesk.    In less than 15 minutes, I helped a middle school math teacher create an account on AutoDesk and set up two classes he was planning to teach later that day using TinkerCad.   But the dashboard for quick and easy classroom management is not the best part about Project IGNITE -- the BEST part is the fantastic ready made  self-paced lessons (aka Projects) that teachers can assign to the students.     

#3  Once a teacher has approved his/her students using the Project IGNITE classroom dashboard,  the students can immediately get started with PROJECTS that the teacher has assigned as lessons to each  classroom section of Project IGNITE.  Students can also move right over to TINKERCAD  and use their newly approved  account to create their own free form designs on the TinkerCad work plane.  Simply have your students access www.TinkerCad.com after having logged into their Project IGNITE account.  As a professional educator,  I would still make sure that my students' parents are engaged with the process of 'co-supervising' their child's account and have developed strategies to do that in my schools.  But by starting with Project IGNITE first, and then moving over to TinkerCad's free form space,  teachers can start using TinkerCad with students the same day!

And as an enthusiastic eager teacher who likes to use innovative digital tools with students, I am much appreciative of everything AutoDesk has done to streamline the process of using this powerful tool in our classrooms with even our youngest learners.  The process is well thought out and provides a streamlined workflow that removes barriers for teachers who want to use TinkerCad with younger learners. 

Note:  The Project IGNITE lessons are quite text heavy and might be challenging for struggling readers and would not be the best entry-point for our youngest learners.  Even with my middle school students I suggest toggling back and forth with the tutorial mode of Project IGNITE and some open-ended exploration and teacher demonstrations directly in TinkerCad.  

Next Gen Can be SEW Fun at VSTA Conference

Leah Joly and I had 'great fun'  teaching science teachers  how to use eTextiles and other Soft Circuits to create models that explain phenomena at  the Vermont Science Teachers Association Conference.  Our workshop "Next Gen Can be Sew Fun"  started as an inquiry into the potential that Maker Ed has to support teaching and learning in science.   This inquiry lead me to amazing resources about eTextiles, Soft Circuits  and about the creation of models as a practice in Next Generation Science standards.

The best part of the workshop was how much we learned about the PROCESS of learning through creating models by actually CREATING our own science models to showcase during the workshop.   That process validated my 'theory' that maker skills and tools can support the process of learning in science.

By being familiar with how to create both parallel and serial circuits  (a 4th grade standard) I was able to access the concept that the loss of energy as it moves through each LED powered by a battery in a serial circuit, was much like the loss of energy moving through a food chain.


  I definitely went through each phase of the creativity cycle from IMAGINE to PUBLISH as I created my Food Web Model.

As a learner I started to imagine the design of my model.  My imagination was limited to my own mental model of the food web and the materials I was familiar with.  Since I was familiar with the way the serial circuit worked from recent adventures in "making",  I was able to imagine the energy in a serial circuit working the way the energy in a food web worked.

But as I started to CREATE and PLAY with different materials,  I did lots of RESEARCH  to make sure that my MODEL accurately represented my growing understanding of the food web.  It was important to me that the example I used was scientifically accurate.  As I shared my idea with others I was also sharing my mental model, explaining  which materials I chose and how they symbolized various levels of the food chain.

Example of a  BUILD in PROGRESS Food Web Model

I used a tool called Build in Progress to capture my process and explain my thinking.   Sharing the process (not simply the product) through  a tool like Build a Progress which was designed with sharing the PROCESS in mind would allow a teacher to provide better feedback to students at various points in their process to more students,  yielding more opportunity to REFLECT  by both the teacher and the students during the process of building.  And with that reflection came more iteration of the design as my mental model went through its own iterative process,  growing in accuracy and closer to the conceptual model that accurately represented the food web in Lake Champlain.

In MAKING the act of  PUBLISHING  does not mean that I would be publishing words (as in a book or paper),  but that I would be completing a PRODUCT  (thus publishing)  that would be shared with others.  The Build in Progress Food Web Model was one way to publish, but so was the sharing of my artifact with other colleagues.   My desire for my model to be  scientifically accurate was increased because I was investing myself into something beautiful, something I made with my hands that was not simply a drawing where I labeled consumers and producers on a paper diagram.    The whole process created a deeper understanding of both the way energy flows through a serial circuit and through the food chain. and set me right up to imagine more possibilities in making  and in how the world around me works.

The following slides are filled with ideas, academic research,  examples, tutorials, and resources that we were able to organize around the topic of using Soft Circuits as a tool for creating models in science education.

And to top it all off,  we learned a lot about each other as we watched our colleagues express themselves in very different ways with the materials we made available to our participants.

Creating a Collaborative Video using You Tube

I love to work collaboratively.
Whether in the same room   or miles apart  here is a quick and easy way to use YouTube Editor with colleagues to create a quick and easy  collaborative video project.  Recently 4 friends and I created a quick Happy Birthday Video for our friend Elizabeth from 4 different locations.

This can be a  convenient workflow to use with students.  Your students are sharing quick pics and quick videos with each other using their mobile devices.  Why not have them share their learning with you using the same devices.

Here is a video tutorial and slide deck  of how to complete the steps outlined below.

Step 1: Make sure you have a YouTube channel.  After I started using this method more frequently with students,  I created a separate YouTube channel just for these types of project.

Step 2:  Locate the special email address for mobile uploads by email that YouTube generates for you.  You can find this this under Overview

Step 3:  Share this 'special' email address with students.  This is best used in a group where there digital citizenship and collaboration is part of the culture.   Since it not an easy email address to communicate, I find that sending all my students the address via email, makes it easy for them to add to their contact list.   (You can always reset the 'confidential' email address if you find some students were not as 'ready' as you expected.)

Step 4:  Ask all participants to use their devices to complete a short video in response to your PROMPT.   (SHORT is key email systems will not allow you to email long videos.  I would start with 15 seconds or less and test longer videos if necessary.

Step 5:  Check the Video uploads section of your YouTube Channel.  You will find the new videos automatically appear here.

Step 6:  Use YouTube Video Editor to remix these clips to make one fun fantastic video project.




Step 4:

Out of this world learning at Center for Technology in Essex

Recently I have taken on a professional inquiry seeking ways that the tools and skills found in maker-spaces can be used to meet Next Generation Science Standard.  As part of this inquiry, I had the good fortune to meet Jennifer Liguori as she and her  students were using a 3D printer and laser cutter from their maker lab to design pieces that would be used with the Ardunio microprocessor they were programming as part of a design that would be used in an upcoming Balloon Launch.


Last week, students at the Center for Technology at Essex had an out of this world experience, that will most likely become one of their most vivid memories of high school.  On April 15, 2015, they successfully recorded the flight of a man-made balloon into the stratosphere and back, navigating their way through real world challenges that ranged from powering a data-logging Arduino through subzero temperatures to retrieving the payload in the midst of Vermont’s infamous mud season.

High Altitude Balloon Flight April 15th 2015 from cawdvt on Vimeo.

This type of project-based learning is the type of learning that students remember.  It’s not knowledge that’s easily forgotten after the test.   It’s real world learning and problem-solving that inspires students to obtain deeper knowledge and inquiry than any text-book could.

This inquiry driven project based learning environment doesn’t just happen.  It takes a masterful teacher to design project based learning that is powerful and meaningful, and as I interviewed Jennifer Ligouri, science teacher at Essex Technical Center, it was evident to me that her passion  for kids,  passion for learning,  passion of science combined with masterful teaching were at the heart of this exciting and successful experience.

Listen to Jennifer describe the design of the project, the pre-flight testing,  the flight,  and the challenges that Vermont's mud season and lack of cell service brought to the chase and retrieval of the balloon's payload, and the successful retrieval of data collected during flight.

As you can tell from listening to the interview above,  instrumental to this project  was access to affordable technology tools that are empowering a new generation of innovators, makers, and problem-solvers. 

Tools like 3D printers,  laser cutters, Arduino microprocessors, sensors, spot GPS technology, and ultralight cameras, were all part of the design created by the team from Center for Technology at Essex.  

These tools are becoming more and more accessible to students  with the growth of the maker movement in our communities, not only in terms of cost and availability, but also in terms of people who are sharing their knowledge and experiences in how to use these tools.  Whether it be through the local maker community or the global connection made possible through the Internet, today’s students can pursue solutions to challenges like making a balloon that will reach the stratosphere.

The student have decided to enter their project to compete in several categories of  the Global Space Balloon Challenge including highest flight, best pictures, and first balloon flight design created with maker tools such as 3D printers and laser cutters.

Thank you to Jennifer Ligouri, her colleagues and students from the Computer Animation and Web Design program at the  Center for Technology at Essex for sharing their story with us.  Read more about their journey on their blog post detailing the process. 

You will find their photos from the balloon and video of adventures at http://www.cawdvt.org/resources/balloon-launch/

and video from the flight here: https://vimeo.com/125172889
See also:  Burlington Free Press Article

An Inquiry in Creating Models with Soft Circuits ~ Step 1

Today I worked on creating a model demonstrating my understanding of a food web using eTextile materials. This is part of a professional inquiry I'm involved with.

I have one more problem to solve -- "What should I use for an power source that will power my model, which consists of 4 LED's connected in serial?" Each LED is used to symbolize "life" at each level of the food web.


I chose to use a serial circuit, because in my model the electricity flows directly from one item to the next in my food web chain, releasing enough energy to light each consecutive LED in the chain. While creating this model, one of the problems I had to solve was that as soon as I put more than one LED in the model, I could no longer use the Coin Cell battery as a source of power. I switched power sources, but as soon as I added a 4th LED, the nine volt battery no longer powered my model. Argh!


If I had created the model using a parallel circuit, I would not have had a problem providing power to the 4 LEDs that represented life in my algae blossom, worm, smelt, and trout, but the energy flow would no longer represent my mental model of the food web.

After a bit of Internet research, I discovered a site called Battery University, which lead me to my current solution -- connecting my 3 volt coin cell battery to my 9 volt battery in serial to provide my model with enough energy to keep each of my organism's LEDs alive. Obviously the LED use 3 volts each.

The problem I have now is that this is not a elegant solution for such a small eTextile project. But the alternative, working with parallel circuits would not model the flow of energy I want for this project. I'll keep working through this design challenge, but meanwhile I have a new resource to share with ANYONE who needs to bridge their 'experience gaps' with battery technology. Check out Battery University. Turns out there is a lot to know -- along with being filled with great free information, the site sells a 328 page book on the topic! Who knew there was so much to know about batteries. But suddenly I have a desire to know more! Which proves one of my points for creating the model in the first place -- when providing students with the opportunity to CREATE and MAKE, lots of unexpected, just in time learning happens, that yield to more questions, and more problem solving!


I still have lots of questions (for myself, and others) about the role of soft circuits in creating models. But I do have a lot more tools in my toolbox now than I did before I started this 'inquiry". Any suggestions welcomed (on either the battery problem or my current professional inquiry).

"How can soft circuits be used to help students develop models in science education? "

One of the reasons this interest me is that I believe soft circuits are a good entry point to bridging the experience gap that many of us have about the way electronics work. Finding more ways for students to gain the experience, knowledge and skills to use these tools effectively would provide our students with new ways to solve problems in the world around them. This type of confidence might encourage more students to take on challenges in their education and careers, that many are currently avoiding.

Adding Color to your Data in Google Spreadsheets to Show Growth

I enjoy analyzing data.  I love color.   Recently I discovered a new Google Sheets feature that uses color in a new way to look at data.

If like me, you like to combine data and color, you are probably already using Conditional Formatting.    Recently I noticed a new feature when I clicked on conditional formatting-- COLOR SCALE.  It seems to have snuck in there quietly, but boy is it awesome!

Here's a quick snapshot of how to use this feature.

How would you use this?  Lots of ways,  but here is one of the ways I use it frequently to help students see the growth in growth mindset in a very concrete way.

I start the beginning of a workshop or course with a Google Sheet where I
-- add a list of learning tasks we will complete in Column A
-- add a skill we will gain from completing the learning tasks in Column B
-- ask students to pre-assess  their skill level by placing a number in a column
       (1) no experience  (2) Aware of skill  (3) Practiced this skill (4) Confident in this skill already
-- use conditional formatting feature of Google sheets to assign a color to each value

I make a copy of the sheet and then ask them to do a post assessment on the copy

This makes it so easy to see the growth in confidence (or skill level) of our cadre of learners. 

The old way to do this was to add a new rule for each possible value. 

But with the new color scale feature,  you simply select a range and assign a color to the lowest and highest value.  Google Sheets does all the math and coloring for you.  And playing with color combination is a breeze. 

For more ways to use conditional formatting,  check out Alice Keeler's recent blog post:  Be Data Driven, Use Conditional Formatting.   

Girls Make IT Day Session 2 Reflection

Although a few weeks have passed,  I have not stopped thinking about Girls Make It Day #2.  The day went beyond my expectations.  About mid day, the girls just took charge of their own learning and started flying past what we had planned,  moving beyond bling,   beyond blink, and making flowers fade.

On March 24th,  Jill Dawson, Leah Joly  and I (Lucie deLaBruere)  lead our second session in a series we named Girls Make It - Circuits and Coding and eTextiles sponsored by TechSavvy Girls, Vermont Works for Women and the Generator in Burlington, Vermont. 

Teams of two middle school girls and one teacher/mentor arrived at the Generator with their flowers in hand ready to learn to code. Each participant was asked to bring two hand crafted flowers to the event that included an LED in the design.  The design challenge was meant to help the girls apply previous learning about circuits (whether it be the first Girls Make IT session, school or club activities, or their own self-exploration of circuits).  The design challenge mostly yielded a wide variety of origami style flowers.   

While the team leader brought their laptop to the tech check station to make sure that Arduino was properly installed and ready to go, the rest of the team created  a paper flower with their team member names  and added it to a white garden trellis.  (this would later serve as attribution to the finished product we hoped for by the end of the day ~ a collaborative community flower garden).  

During introductions, each team shared their flower designs and how they learned to make it and then immediately launched  into securing the LED to their flower using floral tape and a green wooden stem. This served as the perfect blend of wire and insulator for our flower project. Although the  two pieces of floral tape initially connected the LED leads to cell battery, it wouldn't be long before the leads were attached to a LilyPad Arduino board using alligator clips.  

The coding lesson that followed was interspersed  with making,  manipulating the  Arduino blink scheme and playing out computer science unplugged activities where the girls learned about variables by 'programming' their teacher to sing and 'programming' themselves to follow Arduino code using finger flashlights.  

One of the goals I had for the workshop was that every girl (and their teacher) would not only be able to use the Arduino code to control their flower, but that they would also UNDERSTAND each line of the code they used.  Too often, students are encouraged to 'copy' a snippet of code without understanding the various elements.   It wasn't long before everyone had mastered  the following commands and were using them to code their own flower arrangements. 

Although our goal was to move into learning how to use functions in  their code, the girls had their own idea.  One team DISCOVERED the FADE Arduino scheme and before we knew the teams took off into their own self directed learning, teaching each other to blink and fade flowers.  Their comfort level grew as they tried different sequences of patterns to give each flower its own unique presence in their flower arrangement.  Watching the collaboration in the room was absolutely delightful and reminded me of a time,  not so long ago, when I had my own classroom of students discovering, uncovering, and constructing together.  My experience taught me that this was the perfect moment to let go, step back, and watch the learning happen rather than redirect it to next phase of the lesson.   This is what I was aiming for but didn't anticipate it coming so early in the day. 

But it also meant that we didn't get to "MY" next step in the lesson (FUNCTIONS)  with the whole group,  but I did get to teach, Maxine, our high school role model/mentor how to use functions to help each girl add a contribution to a collaborative community flower box.  She was a quick study and jumped right into a leadership role into our final activity for the day. 

After each team had created and coded their own flower pot with their first flower creation,  it was time for them to contribute their second flower to the community garden (complete with code). 

We used window boxes, a Lilypad arduino, alligator clips, cardboard, and fake moss for our design and used Functions  to cycle through snippets of codes written by our middle school girls.   The results -- two flower boxes that were made with code by our middle school girls that would become a traveling exhibit to inspire others.   First step for our traveling exhibit would be the Generator Birthday Bash! 

Our Exhibit at the Generator Birthday Bash

We ended the day debriefing, challenging them to complete the 20 hour Code.org course and use their take home kit to continue exploring the power of code and keep on making.   The kit included 2  Lilypad  simple arduinos and one LilyPad Development board, which we strongly suggested they keep intact (NOT break apart) to practice their coding skills.   We also provided them a sneak preview of where we hope to go next (adding sensors and motors) by showing them the robotic flower prototype created by our fantastic high school mentor, Maxine.  The importance of having Maxine as a role model can not be underestimated.  She shared her recent acceptance to  Bucknell University,  her experience in the Essex Robotic Club, and offered advice for our young students about steps they could take to shape their future. She even started developing the leadership skills of one of the middle school girls, Eva, who used today's events to step into a new role as a middle school leader/mentor. 

Today left me inspired to keep working on providing opportunities for learning, mentoring, networking, leadership development that help create a STEM pipeline for girls.  Our goal is to announce some new Girls Make It session, including summer camp opportunities on this site, and also at  TechSavvy Girls and Vermont Works for Women website.

Many thanks to 

to the Generator  for providing the space for this fantastic day of learning, 

to  Vermont Works for Women  for funding the consumable supplies,

to Jill Dawson and Leah Joly for the the support and 'blind faith'  that this would work

to Maxine for  the robotic flower design and for being an inspiring high school role models

to Eva for being our first middle school leaders

to the teachers and middle school girls who created such beautiful flower designs and absorbed the coding lesson like sponges reinforcing my beliefs that making beautiful things is an onramp to increasing the number of girls who code. 

Authentic Learning ~ Beautiful Work

This year at SxSw EDU I had the privilege of listening to Ron Berger speak about the importance of beautiful work.   Today I saw a post on Scott Mcleod's blog Dangerously Irrelevant   asking how often our students do beautiful work and referencing the Edutopia article  Deeper Learning - Hightlight Student Work by Ron Berger, which started me thinking.


As I listened to Ron speak, I thought of the projects I did in my classroom scaffolding students to create authentic projects at a quality that was beyond their expectations and the expectations of others, like our annual entry into Global School House's Cyberfair which eventually yielded  a Platinum  award.

At one point someone in the audience asked a similar question to the one Scott Mcleod asked  "How often do you aspire for the standard of beautiful work with students."    Ron did admit that it would not be sustainable for every piece of work that students produce to meet the standard of beautiful work,  but suggested a ratio  ( at least every ?th piece.. not sure I remember the exact ratio).    That makes sense,  not every 'draft' of writing will be worthy of turning into a masterpiece,  but each draft will contribute to the learning that results in the next masterpiece in some way.

As I thought about this, I realized that part of the scaffolding is to help students build the skills they need to be able to produce a beautiful piece of work that they are proud of.   We wouldn't expect a child to be able to start off "coloring inside the lines"  or being able to draw a butterfly.   But if our end goal (think backward design)  is to have students produce beautiful work, then each of our learning tasks will be meaningful in that it raises the understanding of students about what "beautiful work" looks like and also their skill level preparing them to be a  meaningful contributor to a collaborative piece of beautiful work,  or even create their own individual piece of beautiful work.

This one minute video that I created for the Google Teachers Academy summarizes my philosophy that Audience Matters in instructional design.

Naturally, some of our student work will not be ready to be showcased or highlighted;  it will be one of the steps along the learning journey towards beautiful work.  Some of it might even be 'drill work'  that builds fluency skills,  but the end goal is to be well equipped to produce a beautiful work piece in the not so distance future.

As educators, the first step for us towards this goal is to produce our own beautiful work that we are proud of.  What if we published the meaningful learning tasks we design for our students publicly in a way that helped others and communicated with our community "This is what I do in my classroom

with your students".   When I ask educators  in my class to do a final project, I strongly encourage that it be published for an authentic audience (other educators who could benefit from your beautiful work).  This absolutely increases the quality of the final project.  It helps educators see how publishing for an authentic audience helps raise their standard of quality and also contributes to a greater good.  That is exactly what our student's projects should be.  The rubric we use with quality indicators, should be to guide the process towards beautiful work that you are proud to share,  not the end in itself.


One of the barriers towards this vision that I have come across from educators is a 'fear that showcasing student work' is not safe.
Recently I showed a group of teachers an easy post by email feature of blogger that they could use to easily collect student work effortlessly.  One teacher expressed that she had no interest in using a blogging tool because of her concern for student safety.   Even after I assured her that the use of this  feature does  not have to be to  create a blog of student work, but  that she could use this   feature of the blogger tool that yielded a collection of a photos of student work in a photo album that was easy for her to access.  From there, she could pull out the images to put in student portfolios, or showcase in a more public way.  After hearing the response "I just don't see the learning value",  I realized that we still have work to do to in helping some educators understand the pedagogical value of showcasing student work.

So the challenge to me is to do more reflecting on the barriers that teachers face to keep them from aspiring to showcase their student's beautiful work  and find new ways to scaffold reluctant educators who still don't see the value of showcasing student beautiful work.

Inspired by VentureLab in San Antonio

Here is post I just added to  my  Where the Girls Are series of posts from my TechSavvy Girls blog. 

As some of you know I love to be inspired by creative people and places.  Today's tour of VentureLab  was one of the highlights of our travels through San Antonio as part of our Living Learning Mobile Journey.   When I discovered VentureLab, one of the things that caught my attention right away was the 60% female participation statistic on the front page of their web site.

vwe're making a real difference

 724 students, 60% female participation,

Who are these people that are having such great results getting young women involved in high tech ventures?  I immediately started clicking around their website and discovered that not only are 60% of their student participants female,   but over 60% of their team are women -- SMART women!

And one of these women is their founder, Cristal Glangchai, PhD in BioMedical Engineering.   

Cristal is a scientist, professor,  entrepreneur , and mother of two girls who is passionate about teaching girls to become leaders in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Spend two minutes with Cristal in this short video and you'll see for yourself  how the lack of women in her university program, lack of women CEOs, lack of women investors, all fueled Cristal's desire to get  more women involved in the innovation landscape.  And one of the ways she is doing that is through VentureLab  ~ an innovation academy that focuses on hands on learning and teaching youth about entrepreneurship.

VentureLab - Meet the Founder from Key Ideas on Vimeo.

But  it's not just Cristal's passion for raising the number of females who play a role in shaping the world around us that is driving the success you see at VentureLab;  it is the passion of a whole team and their belief in a shared vision. 

Click on the WHO ARE WE Link and listen to children, parents, community members, and other stakeholders join Cristal (cofounder)  and Director of Programs, Nick Honegger. passionately describe the shared vision of VentureLab.    As Dirk Elemdorf cofounder of Rackspace,  describes "this whole industry has been dominated by dudes who look exactly like me~ young white dudes."   VentureLab is filled with a team of supporters who are passionate in making changes in an industry that currently "cuts off women and people of color".  They understands that

"diversity of view gives us diversity of solution by keeping people not otherwise exposed to this stuff in the game we get a better shot of having them actually take these roles that we need to fill our future"

The shared mission of the team of VentureLab came through loud and clear as Program Director Director of Programs, Nick Honegger, described what happens at Venture Lab during our tour of the space today.


Start YOUNG! 

VentureLab wants to start with kids as young as 5 years old!


EVERY student should  EXPERIENCE ENTREPRENEURSHIP!

Using our ESTEAM framework, we provide experiential learning in Entrepreneurship,Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, teaching students the key mindsets of entrepreneurial thinking, design thinking, creativity, and we provide hands on instruction in technology.  [VentureLab Website]

Let's Utilize our FULL WORKFORCE! 

Getting more women to participate in the STEM fields and take on entrepreneurial roles is not just about achieving gender equality; our entire country will benefit from this progress and development. To realize our full competitive and technological leadership as a nation, young women must be encouraged to achieve their full potential and receive more representation within ESTEAM-related fields. We want to ensure that our full workforce is being utilized, and that is why we strive to achieve gender parity within all of our programs.  [VentureLab Website]

Thank you, Hetali Lodaya and Nick Honegger  for taking time out of your day to show us around VentureLab today and fill us with inspiration that the world is filled with creative people doing amazing things. 

Cross posted by Lucie at

techsavvygirls.blogspot.com

createmakelearn.blogspot.com

blog.livinglearningmobile.com

Can you Make a Video in 5 minutes using Chrome or a Chromebook?

Had a great time working with with three other very Googley colleagues as we collaborated on a Vermont GEG (Google Educator Group) event using Google Hangout on Air:  Creating with Chrome: Videos in 5 minutes

+Elizabeth McCarthy +Kelly Wilson +Jennifer Roberge  and I each agreed to demo two ways to create a Video in 5 minutes using Chrome or a Chromebook.

Boy 5 minutes is NOT a lot of time and we 'mostly'  stayed within that time limit  and managed to demo  six +2 ways you can create a video.

1. Create a Photo Slide Show with You Tube 
2. Create a Video using YouTube Video Editor  
3. Create a Collaborative Video using (Post to YouTube by Email)
4. Create a Screencast Video with ScreenCastify
5. Create a Video using Creative Commons and YouTube
6. Create a Video using WeVideo

along with two 5-min demos that Jennifer Roberge created before she hopped on a plane to Disneyworld.

1. Create a Video with MoveNote - Jenn Roberge - Video Clip - ready to play
2. Create a Video with SnagIt - Jenn Roberge - Video Clip - ready to play

Do you have some fun ways to create videos with Chrome or Chromebook?  Share your tips or better yet your examples in the comments.  

Setting the stage for diversity in maker spaces and high tech learning environments

On Valentines Day I wrote a post on TechSavvy Girls blog featuring some fun geeky projects that could be used to engage girls in high tech (on Valentines Day and beyond).

Somehow that post got me thinking about other ways that I've found to engage diversity in in my high tech classes through the years and how the same strategies could be used to engage a diverse community of makers.

I think that one of the key strategies is understanding how important "the early stages" of a new maker community can be towards setting the stage for attracting a diverse maker community. Whether your diversity includes different genders, cultures, economic status, it is certainly the different abilities and the different ways of thinking and relating with the world that will generate the most innovative solutions to complex problems now and in our future.


So I thought today I'd share a small but key bit of learning that some of us discovered in our work on increasing nontraditional gender participation in Career and Technical Education. When setting up a new program in Career and Technical Education, it was very important to consider explicit strategies for engaging nontraditional gender participation in the initial stages of program development. Whether we were talking about the Metal Fabrication courses or the Health Careers program, If a program started off with a mix of male and females, then it had a much better chance of continuing to attract both males and females. A new program (or maker space) will tend to attract visitors who are curious about the new program. If visitors to the program see themselves in the picture, then word about your program will spread to more than 50% of the population.


But left to its own devices, the biases or stereotypes around us may primarily lead one gender to the program or space. Once that happens, it is harder to turn it around.


This may seem to be common sense, but the inclusion of explicit strategies to create a diverse community is sometimes an after thought that gets a back burner in the initial days of setting up a 'maker space' or a "learning space". There are always so many details to tend to.. but tend to this detail earlier and your return on investment will be much greater than if you come at it after the program or space is launched.

Where are the Girls? Not so easy to count

Cross posted on TechSavvy Girls blog

Yesterday,  I  posted some data that once again demonstrated that our AP computer science classes

Photo Credit.  Public Domain

are not the places where you will find many girls in most high schools.   One of the reasons we are aware of these numbers is that there is accessible data that can be quantified.

However it is not the only place we should look when measuring success. Girls are involved in many areas that give them a chance to grow and use their tech skills, and often these areas are not counted as 'measures' of success when we look at the outcome of girls programming that provides girls with technology skills and confidence in using technology.

Many years ago I was involved in an IT related economic development committee  that was looking for 'stories' to make their data come alive in a report they were writing.   I shared with them a story of a young lady who I saw as a shining star.  When I shared her story, they decided not to use it because she went into 'civil engineering'  not IT.

Vicky* had been involved in Tech Savvy Girls for 4 years.  After a field trip we took to Vermont Technical College to participate in Vermont Works for Women's Annual "Women Can Do" event, she visited the school guidance department to change her math class from business math to Algebra 2  so she could apply to Vermont Technical College's civil engineering program.

Vicky also convinced her best friend, Debbie*  to join her in taking Algebra 2.    Debbie  applied to VTC also, but in the end chose to go to Community College so that she could continue the job she had landed right out of college because she had great business and tech skills.

During a week  Tech Savvy Girls Summer Leadership Camp for High School Girls, Carole fell in love with the campus at UVM and applied to  University of Vermont to major in Biology.  She was the only girl in her computer programming class in high school.  She had dismissed her guidance counselors suggestion that she fill up the open slot in her schedule with an art class because she saw "programming" was offered in the same time slot.  She didn't have the background  for "AP programming"  but remembered that Ms. deLaBruere had said that programming was a gateway to many many careers.  She didn't want to become a computer scientist, but thought this would be a good choice.

NONE of these three girls counted in the the quantifiable data that the IT economic development committee was looking. Nor did their story qualify for the  'case study' they wanted in their report.

NONE of these girls would have counted in the numbers currently being shared about the number of girls enrolled in AP Computer Science.

I surely count them in my measures of success when I think of Tech Savvy Girls.  How do we count the data that is not easy to capture?   Let's not forget that the numbers are only part of the picture, and lets keep sharing the stories of success and also look to add a variety of indicators and measures when we evaluate the successes of our programs.

*Names have been changed to protect individual privacy

Where are the Girls? Not in Computer Science Class

Cross posted on TechSavvy Girls blog Day 5 (a commitment to blog about girls and technology in 2015)


Did you know that NOT a single girl took the AP Computer Science exam in Mississippi,  Montana, and Wyoming last year?    And in the states where girls did take the AP computer science exam, the number of females averaged to 18.5%.  In my state, Vermont,  only 6.3 % of the students taking the computer science exam were female.  Of the states that did have girls take the exam, only Utah and Nevada had fewer girls than Vermont take the exam (percentage-wise).
To see a summary of recent and  historical trends, check out the work of Barbara Ericson. 

This makes me so sad!

What makes me even sadder than the low numbers is that the number of females engaged in computer science has actually DECREASED during the last 3 decades.

In a recent article, "When Women Stopped Coding" NPR made an interesting observation, which has me pondering.

"The share of women in computer science started falling at roughly the same moment when personal computers started showing up in U.S. homes in significant numbers."

NPR reporter, Steve Henn's observation that from the beginning,  personal computers  "were marketed almost entirely to men and boys. This idea that computers are for boys became a narrative. It became the story we told ourselves about the computing revolution" is certainly not the only whole story, but it is part of the story.

Looking at the narrative is important!  Looking at historical data is important!  But moving forward takes action, and thankfully this issue has caught the attention of organizations and corporations that are willing to be part of change we need to make to change the numbers, which will change the narrative.