Lego Engineers

In the past year the Lego company has piloted a program to help kids ages 7-11 get a start in becoming engineers. They are providing a hands-on experience that allows kids to be active participants in their own learning. It requires students to think creatively, work as a team and problem solve throughout the process, all skills that are important to us in the 21st century.
Student create robots out of legos that are connected to a computer so that they move. The ultimate test is for the students robot to act as a goalie and keep a small soccer ball coming at them from entering the goal.
This technology was featured at the NECC '08 conference this summer in San Antonio and will be released to the public in January of 2009. For more information read the following articles: Lego Product Targets Youngsters Interested in Computer Engineering and Lego Education.

Warlick's Nuggets

Reporting from NECC 2007:
At the beginning of David Warlick's workshop he acknowledged there would be points in the workshop when we might mentally "check out" because he might be covering information with which we are already familiar. At these times he invited us to explore some Web 2.0 nuggets listed on his wikispace. He invited us to become experts on one of these nuggets and report to the group later. What a great instructional strategy for a group of diverse learners.

Podcasting from NECC

To read a post about podcasting from NECC, please visit the Teach Blog