“It isn’t magic. It’s coding. We make things happen with coding.”
And with those words, presenter Eleni Galatsanou of Brandon University summed up why it’s so important for teachers and students to be ready for life and work in the 21st century.
She was one of the presenters at the BYTE (Build Your Teaching Experience) conference at Virden Collegiate last Friday.
More than 240 teachers came from across Westman and as far as Winnipeg to hone their skills at dozens of workshops aimed at giving educators the tools they need to teach in a high tech classroom.
The subject matter ranged from how to use iPads in music class to immunizing students against fake news and how to control robots.
Playing with bots
For example, in Galatsanou’s session entitled Coding with Sphero Robots participants first learned some basic computer coding skills and then got to play with bots and paint.
They linked their mobile devices to spherical robots the size of baseballs and guided them remotely through dabs of wet paint to create Jackson Pollock-esque artworks - all without touching the robot, paint or paper.
Music on iPads
Trustee Dawna Jamieson sat in on Janet Yochim’s session as an observer but quickly got caught up in the excitement (and simplicity) of making music on an iPad.
Yochim, a Virden music teacher, showed Jamieson and the other learners how tapping coloured boxes on the screen generates different sounds at different tempos allowing users to create songs within mere minutes. Laughter frequently erupted as they played back their compositions to the group.
A first for Virden
Mike Thiessen is the ICT coordinator for Fort La Bosse School Division and organizer of the BYTE conference. He’s been involved in the annual event at its previous locations and decided 2018 was the year to bring it to Virden.
Thiessen said he was very pleased with the turnout and the positive feedback he got from teachers in attendance.
“After the conference, I have been told that many of our teachers feel inspired and excited to use the tools and ideas they learned about.”
He also praised the student volunteers who helped guide visitors around the school on what otherwise would have been an in-service day for them.
