In our classes for young makers, we discuss how digital fabrication technology will be a game-changer. In future work, more jobs will involve converting digital content into physical things through technologies like 3D printing, CNC, and other similar technologies. Students love playing video games and enjoy the opportunity Read more…
We had a great time during our 3D modeling workshop at SparkMacon yesterday. This workshop, the second class in our Summer Maker skills series, helps makers learn how to build 3D stuff for games, art and 3D printing. The skills used in this workshop can apply to many topic areas: Read more…
Clever teachers around the world have found ways to adapt the popular open world block-building game Minecraft to teach lessons ranging from computer programming, math, history, and more. Minecraft is like having an infinite bag of Legos. Minecraft has empowered players young and old to build amazing environments and inspires Read more…
A friend of mine had just finished doing “Hour of code” on Code.org with her STEM club. She asked me to comment upon what you might be able to do next to extend their learning experiences from code.org. The website does an amazing job of introducing the basic Read more…
My kids and I really enjoy playing Minecraft together. There’s something magical about designing a 3D structure and getting to see it in a game world. Using my favorite 3D modeling tool for students, TinkerCAD, we tried importing stuff from Thingiverse into Minecraft. Here’s some of the results from our Read more…
In the past few months, I have had the opportunity to lead Minecraft coding workshops using ScriptCraft in our makerspace and a local museum. Walter Higgins had done an amazing job of creating documentation and tools to help students learn JavaScript while playing with Minecraft. I wanted to Read more…
Over the weekend, we had the opportunity to present a coding for teachers workshop at the NASA Regional Educator Resource Center (RERC) at the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, GA and had a blast! Our team had a wonderful time coaching teachers on using code.org, Scratch, and maker tools Read more…
Hi. As I was researching new ways to improve our Minecraft coding workshop coming soon, a friend of mine asked me to check out the ComputerCraftEdu MOD. ComputerCraftEdu empowers young coders to control small turtle robots in your Minecraft world. These little programmable robots can do many of Read more…
On our blog InspiredToEducate.NET, we have reflected on the benefits of learning by making. It has been fun putting project based learning ideas into action at our new makerspace. Our team has been given the opportunity to implement project based learning experiences in community meetups. Our team has completed some informal Read more…
In our digital economy, it becomes important that our children learn to create, to love learning, to have integrity, to foster critical thinking, and to be active citizens. It’s become commonly understood that our current culture for our US school system doesn’t always foster these key qualities. I wanted to Read more…