I teach business and technology to some of the most creative, curious, and innovative students. My goal is to provide tech experiences to our students to promote 21st-century learning and skills with STEAM.
My students are very innovative and creative individuals.
Students in our district often have limited technology experience. My students will begin to discover and cultivate their creativity as they begin to apply their unique gifts and talents and allow them to become the innovators and global leaders of tomorrow with the stories they will be able to create and tell.
My Project
Being a business and technology teacher, I believe that students building projects from scratch allows them to experience the full power of the 4 Cs of education and build on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics). For the past four years, I have brought the wonderful world of Pixels to students for the use of business, creation, 3D printing and Genius Hour. However, one of our biggest problems every year has been supplies. The story began in late 2015 when I was looking into a new hobby as I worked towards finishing up my dissertation proposal. Just after New Year’s 2016, I bought a set of grids and a large mixed bucket of Perler beads that were being sold at a swap meet and away I went. A few days later, I was working on a project with two of my friend’s children and they were coming up with crazy designs using graph paper and were bringing them to life with the Perler beads. I realized this was a great way to teach students about pixel art and doing 3D printing on a more manageable budget. The idea took off with my students and I started sharing out classroom ideas and STEAM lessons on my social networks. Every semester, my students cannot wait to be their Pixel Projects with Perler Beads. The maker space projects have become so much larger and expanded to almost all of my classes, our supplies are starting to run out.
We need to fill our classroom with updated color assortments and more design thinking to have the PIXEL Classroom to continue not just for this school year, but for the school years ahead.
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