The wild Covid-19 ride to transition our STEM classes online
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated Ascendly’s move toward teaching online. We’ve learned a lot and we’ve been lucky to start with such great content, instructors, and students.
Education
Filming for Instructors
I had fun today working with Lucas at the Belmont Media Center. We filmed an introductory test video to help Ascendly coaches prepare for their lessons. This was our first real filming and I got to explain how to make an electronic greeting card.
STEM gift ideas from Melinda Gates
For those of us who are looking for last minute holiday gifts, we loved these ideas from Melinda Gates. It’s great to see so many people innovating products designed for young scientists. Just about every kid we know is a scientist at heart. (Don’t you have to be to figure out this world?) Finding toys and games …
Tools teachers can use to communicate with parents
I’ve been researching ways to let Ascendly coaches more easily communicate with parents. Although Ascendly tries to send out email before each lesson to go over the day’s plans, I’d love to make it even easier for coaches and parents to communicate. This page is a list of resources I’ve found and mainly a place …
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Electrical Engineering and the Kindergartner
So, for the first time, I attempted to introduce Kindergartners to Electrical Engineering (EE). These Kindergartners go to school with my daughter, Maddie, at the excellent Waynewood ES, just south of Washington, DC. Now, to be fair, we just started with the basics, but I had been looking forward to seeing if this age, …
The Art of Making Mistakes
JJ and I were teaching a class last week to K-2 graders on building bridges. While we had showed them some techniques, a lot of the kids, especially the younger ones, had some trouble building the part of the bridge that is suspended in the air. It is not immediately obvious, I admit, to figure …
Summer Camp 2013
I’m thrilled to announce my new Engineering and Technology camp in Old Town Alexandria, VA, from 5 – 9 August 2013. Downtown Baptist Church has graciously approached us to work with them at their great facilities in Old Town. The full-day camp (with morning and afternoon half-day options) will provide a combination of Junior Structural …
Building With Planks
I’ve been very happy using LEGO bricks for the Jr. Structural Engineering class, but I’m not wedded to LEGO. I just want to the kids to get good at engineering, so I’m more than happy to use whatever they think is awesome, and then adopting the curriculum to make the most of the materials at …
The Family Edu-Vacation
Hey – my family is covered in the National Society of Professional Engineers' July issue "A Family Edu-vacation" #STEM http://t.co/yl6Fi4kd — JJ Rohrer (@ascendlyJJ) July 2, 2012 Here are the short highlights: “His third-grader son wanted to go to Dubai to see Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. ” & “Rohrer would love …
LEGO® Naming
I wanted to make an overview of how to name LEGO® parts. This is a little rough, but a good start. You can also see this on the ShowMe.com website or in your ShowMe app for the iPad.