The ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference is one of the biggest events of its kind in the world – a meeting of education and technology thought leaders, companies, teachers and students. It’s currently being held in the beautiful city of San Antonio in Texas and the Element 14 team are there supporting several products, projects and partners.
The exhibition and conference is huge with thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors discussing how to best use technology to teach kids - and adults - the skills they need to thrive in an ever changing world. Many of these challenges are common the world over: lack of budget, a widening skills gap and not enough young people growing up wanting to be engineers.
Jonathan Smith - element14's Global Strategic Alliance Business Manager - was in attendance at ISTE to support the official US and Canada launch of the BBC micro:bit. A combination of specifically designed cost effective hardware, free coding editors, free lesson plans and support materials for teachers, plus a rapidly expanding eco system means micro:bit is a highly effective and accessible learning tool for teachers and students.
The Micro:bit Education Foundation's dedicated booth and was exceptionally busy throughout the first day of the conference, with plentiful support from other partners and collaborators; Microsoft, Sparkfun, SEEED, Binary Bots and DF Robot are just a few of the companies that were showing and demoing micro:bits on their stand.
Microsoft recently launched MakeCode – their coding platform product aimed at STEM education which was created as part of the micro:bit project. At ISTE they have announced a 14 week micro:bit curriculum helping teachers with projects and ideas. Microsoft have been holding presentations on their main stand showcasing micro:bit and MakeCode and also running ‘maker’ style sessions with hands-on learning for teachers, including an exercise in creating a micro:bit ‘watch’.
Exciting developments included Project Lead The Way - a not for profit organisation which provides transformative learning for teachers and students across the US - announcing that micro:bit is being included in a new unit for Computer Science for Innovators and Makers within their Middle School Gateway Program. There was also good news for Scratch users, as the micro:bit foundation announced that micro:bit is now compatible with the popular visual programming platform.
Alongside element14's Global Business Development Manager Adam Hurst, Jonathan will be posting updates from the ISTE conference throughout the week. If Day One is anything to go by, micro:bit looks set to be right at the centre of an amazing collection of ways to inspire and stimulate young minds...
Microsoft hold a talk about their work with micro:bit
A Microsoft maker session featuring micro:bit
Rachel Zhang of DFRobot checks out the micro:bit stand
15 year old Trashbots co-founder Sidharth Srinevasan meets the team
Binary Bots is another company working closely with micro:bit on future projects
Coding in action at the micro:bit stand...
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