Constructing Modern Knowledge is excited to offer 3 free hands-on workshops on June 27, 2023 across the street from the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Bring your laptop, appetite, and thirst for hands-on learning and join us for some mini learning adventures. Join Dr. Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez, co-authors of Invent to Learn – Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom at Maggiano’s Little Italy for one or more of the day’s events.
9:00 – 10:15 AM Secrets of the micro:bit (with continental breakfast)
The $15 BBC micro:bit is a technological marvel allowing learners of all ages to build interactive systems with code, craft supplies, and recycled materials. This workshop will help jumpstart your micro:bit learning adventures and expand your sense of the possibilities. A variety of programming environments, project ideas, and extension boards will be available for exploration. Leave with practical ideas for physical computing and computation in your classroom with the micro:bit and Microsoft MakeCode.
10:30 – 11:45 AM Messing About with the Hummingbird Bit Robotics Kit (with snacks)
The Hummingbird Bit Robotics Kit is our favorite set of materials for learning-by-making. Its inventor, Dr. Tom Lauwers – CEO of BirdBrain Technologies, joins Gary and Sylvia for this no-nonsense introduction to this exciting construction kit. Combine craft materials, recycled junk, motors, lights, sensors, and computer science to create a rich physical computing context for learning.
1:45 – 3:15 PM Coding in the Age of AI (with snacks)
Gary Stager will lead participants through a series of playful programming challenges that allow them to “mess about” with language, interrogate data, develop computational fluency, and gain a deeper understanding of the promises of artificial intelligence by having personal agency over an increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated world.