“Just one small thought in the morning can change your whole day.” - Dalai Lama 

The influence of STEM education on the maker movement is undeniable. The availability of constructive technology like 3D printers, robotics, new programming languages, and so on has made the implementation of maker education possible for more schools and districts. Why is the maker education movement on the rise?  

Leeds University Business School wanted to create a world-class specialist space that would meet the needs of all students in the Esther Simpson Building. This included equipping teaching and learning environments with state-of-the-art technology.  

Today is Read Across America Day (March 2)! Established in 1998, the goal of Read Across America Day is to motivate all areas of society to engage in reading. Classrooms across the country will host special guests who’ll read aloud to students, schools will decorate hallways and libraries with images from their favorite stories, and children will happily share their own well-loved books with others. Use today to launch National Reading Month and encourage your students to experience the joys of reading through various activities that highlight what the written word can do! Here are three ideas to start: 

We may not even realize the breadth of invisible barriers our kids face each day during class. These include the inability to access the instruction because of how a teacher presents a lesson or where they are projecting their voice in the classroom, learning and/or language ability and level of the student, poor acoustics of the physical space, and downgraded audio quality when streaming lessons online. Technological advancements in classroom audio distribution systems (CADs) have helped meet a variety of such needs for teachers and students, with greater demand for easy-to-use sound technology given the rise of remote and hybrid learning, concerns regarding missed learning, and the need to ensure equity and access as education rapidly evolves. 

Meredith Williams, an 8th grade science teacher at Freedom Middle School (Orlando, FL), incorporates a variety of 3D-printed manipulatives so her students have something hands-on to observe, analyze, and form ideas around. She regularly implements and provides feedback on MyStemKits lessons and activities, which she uses in conjunction with her 3D printer. As a MimioSTEM Master, she has been sharing her and her students’ experiences using the MyStemKits curriculum. In this lesson, she is helping her students compare planets. 

In the past year cultivating empathy has become a need in every classroom, helping students and teachers navigate the challenges of our ‘new norm.’ We all realize two years in that the growing feelings of isolation, lack of community, and limited interaction have affected how our students engage and develop relationships. As we approach two years of masking, social distancing, hybrid learning, remote learning, and more, how can cultivating and nurturing empathy bring positive results to the classroom and beyond? 

Birkbeck-University of London (London, U.K.), one of the world’s leading research universities, aims to “maintain and develop excellence in research and provide the highest quality research training.” In its mission to provide instructors and students with a more engaging teaching and learning environment, the Learning Space Technology Department began a search for an innovative technology solution. “It was a challenge finding a suitable alternative for our historical lamp- and laser-based projection whilst also offering a more engaging and interactive experience for users,” states Alex Horsburgh, Learning Space Technology Manager.  

Makerspaces, or a collaborative workspace in a classroom, school, library, or other setting, are increasing in popularity in schools because of their many benefits to student learning. These benefits include, but are not limited to, providing students with  

Meredith Williams, an 8th grade science teacher at Freedom Middle School (Orlando, FL), specializes in integrating MimioSTEM solutions in her science instruction. To encourage her students to think critically and creatively about problems through science exploration, Williams incorporates a variety of 3D-printed manipulatives, so her students have something hands-on to observe, analyze, and form ideas around. Williams also regularly implements and provides feedback on MyStemKits lessons and activities, which she uses in conjunction with her 3D printer. This year, she’ll share her and her students’ experiences using the standards drivenMyStemKits curriculum. This lesson will focus on waves.