| In July 2015, I attended the IMPACT conference at NYU where I met Dr. Kate Stone. She presented an amazing keynote about Novalia audio posters and I was inspired to take it into classrooms as a STEAM project. With some connections at home through my institution, Oakland University, and funding through First Foundation, I am conducting some pilot programs with two different groups of students and their wonderful teachers at Roosevelt Elementary. The goal is to take this project to other schools next year, learning with students about science and the arts, and creative and critical thinking. Many thanks to my grandson, Keegan, for helping me along the way and trying everything out. APRIL 2016 The students in the STEPS classrooms were full of enthusiasm and we loved their engagement and interest in the project. Here's what we did over several days: I introduced the project by showing them a completed interactive sound board and we all got to touch it and were wowed by what it could do. The students spent time that day exploring some music apps on iPads that were, of course, a more sophisticated version of what they would be making. It allowed us to think about a touch pad that creates musical sound. We then had a lot of fun working (playing!) with the Snap Circuit Jr. kits. I serendipitously found these at a children's museum just prior to starting the project and was thrilled with the hands-on opportunity for kids to create simple circuits. As the students worked on their art projects for their individual sound boards, students worked with me to go through the coding process and select the sounds for each point on the circuit board. Novalia has wonderful teaching videos on youtube and amazing customer support. Couldn't have done it without them! We then processed their selections, saved the file, dragged it to the micro SD card, inserted the card into the board and waited for the light to blink fast, then slow! All done!! What fun to experiment with the sound boards. This week the students will talk about the project and we'll have a sharing day to celebrate our STEAM project. Stay tuned - I'll be visiting the magnet classes (grades 3-4-5) in May. |
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AuthorDeborah VanderLinde, PhD ArchivesCategories |