Image (c) Tim and Ben Bennett, 2017 all rights reserved
By Tim and Ben Bennett
On Wednesday, May 3rd, students and teachers in Bedford showed the community the technology that they can use to enrich their learning experience. The technologies shown could make learning more fun, more approachable for different styles of learning, and make communication and collaboration easier. There were almost one hundred demonstrations, with one to five students at each to explain what they were using. The demonstrations were spread throughout the second floor of the high school across several rooms, and the entire library! All four schools were well represented, from the first grade through to high school seniors. We only had time to talk to some of the groups, but it was exciting to see how Bedford Schools have embraced technology, and how the community supports it.
All of the images below are (c) Tim and Ben Bennett – Double click each one to see it at full size
From Davis School, there was a group with Teddy Holman, Joseph Galante, Gabe Favalora, and Nick Draper, who created interactive maps to demonstrate what they had learned about China from their teacher Ms. Peterson. It showed information about each region that the students had researched. Other students had made news broadcasts using green-screen technology to insert themselves into interesting environments. There was a group who had used MinecraftEdu to design a Mars base, and another one who designed rockets (using realistic physics) to attempt to reach the Red Planet. Finally, continuing the Mars theme, another group programmed Sphero robots to navigate a sample Martian environment.
We heard from Lane school student, Ani Eskanderian, about how her class researched landmarks and then each made a component of a website that they could share with each other and with their families. Ani said that it was more fun to make something that other people would see, so it made her study the topics harder. Blake Stuzynski, Ben Sedran, Johnny Garraway, and Christian Hill, with their teacher Ms. Curro created a model of the Solar System by programming a Sphero robot to orbit a sun. Technology can also lead to tolerance as shown by Cameron Zhu, Christina Kolak, and Ryan McWalter who explained how the students in their class read books about people with disabilities and then used MinecraftEdu to build a house that catered to people with the disability they read about. The students enjoyed building in Minecraft and came up with clever solutions with elevators and automatic rail cart systems that they programmed to start and stop automatically.
JGMS students Hunter Fan Chan, and Evan Karen made robots with LittleBits that were able to draw interesting geometric shapes by snapping together LittleBits. They got to use the engineering process to try something, troubleshoot it, and iterate in the JGMS library with Ms. McGraw. James Brosgol, Dale Burdet, Bella Santiago, and Libby Herzog learned about the three branches of government and then used the iCivics.org site to put what they learned into practice in several games and simulations. James Brosgol said that “This is a good way to apply what you have learned”. We learned about the iPad app Nearpod from Nicole Karev and Mihir Vaze and how they use it to view teacher presentations at their own pace and can get the presentations from home later to review while doing homework. Eyva Dumlao and Ms. Klein showed how they used Kahoot on the iPads to make games and quizzes for Spanish class. Ms. Klein said that she finds that the students are more engaged when they are making things that the other students will use.
Brendan Coyne showed how he used Solidworks, a 3-D engineering modeling program, to create models on the computer, and Julia Silverstrone and Nina then demonstrated the 3-D printer that they used to print the models in plastic. Brendan told us that one group had modeled the parts for a plastic motorcycle, printed them, and raced it. Sophia Gitlin, Charlotte Livingston, Abby VanPraagh, and Jillian Guetersloh showed how they used Storyboard That: Digital Storytelling to create storyboards to help plan out writing. Abby said that “it makes learning fun and accessible through interactive games and notes.”
Two high school seniors, Kyle Fan Chan and Josh Parrella, demonstrated their sailing boat that could autonomously sail an optimal course based on the wind conditions. They worked with their teacher, Mr. O’Connor, over the year to design, program, and create an Arduino-powered, radio-controlled boat. They did this with the financial support of the Bedford Educational Foundation, and helped create the Robotics 4 curriculum for the course they were pioneering this year. The boat was over 4 feet tall, and was sailing on Fawn Lake in Bedford earlier in the day.
Felicia Barber was offering to let people ride on the robot she had designed, built, and programmed. It seemed to be a big hit, there were kids riding the halls on it all night. Eleanor Lowen, Fiona Wolkenhaar, Kristen Hekimian, Gerogia Pitner, and Riya Patel were making videos of people in front of a green screen and putting them in interesting environments to show how they had used the green-screen technology for the videos they had made after researching various topics in Ms. Taub’s Spanish class.
“Every year I come here, I leave more amazed and inspired”, Mr. Ackerman, Lane School Principal. We couldn’t agree more! Thanks to all of the students for showing all of the amazing ways they are using technology in the Bedford Public Schools. And thanks to the community for supporting such a great program.
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