Caribou faculty program brings cutting-edge tech to extra Aroostook college students
CARIBOU, Maine — Because of a rising program at Caribou Group Faculty, extra Aroostook college students are studying about progressive applied sciences that can be utilized of their communities and future careers.
Almost 160 eighth-graders from Caribou, Woodland and Fort Fairfield gathered in Caribou Monday to satisfy the Maine Studying Expertise Initiative ambassadors. After assembly with every ambassador, college students practiced with applied sciences that many had by no means encountered earlier than, together with digital actuality, 3D printing, podcasting, inexperienced display movies and laptop coding.
As a part of the Maine Division of Training, Maine Studying Expertise ambassadors provide skilled improvement for academics who wish to use extra expertise of their lecture rooms. Ambassadors go to colleges throughout Maine and assist college students improve expertise that they will then use in classroom initiatives.
Caribou eighth-grade instructor Heather Anderson first invited the ambassadors to the Group Faculty final yr. After her personal college students responded with enthusiasm, she knew that others would profit from a full day of expertise actions.
Anderson and her colleagues now wish to make the Maine Studying Expertise Initiative Day an annual occasion for college students from Caribou and past.
“College students in The County typically don’t have as many expertise assets, so we’re hoping to make this program a district initiative, not only a faculty initiative,” Anderson stated.
Early Wednesday morning, eighth-grade college students from Fort Fairfield gathered within the hallway to follow inexperienced display animation.
Whereas holding up her small laptop computer, Chloe White filmed her classmate Kaydence Doughty, who stood in entrance of a inexperienced display. White stated that after filming, she and Doughty would determine what background so as to add.
The Maine Studying Expertise Initiative Day marked the primary time that the classmates had ever experimented with inexperienced screens and different superior applied sciences.
“I like that [with the green screen] you might put your self anyplace,” Doughty stated.
Anderson hopes that her personal college students will see how they will use expertise to coach and empower their communities.
College students additionally discovered the fundamentals of making podcasts with ambassador Kate Meyer.
With their new expertise, Anderson’s college students will create podcasts devoted to 4 displays on the Caribou Historic Society’s museum: The Mi’kmaq Nation, Early Caribou Settlers, Caribou Excessive Faculty Sports activities and Early Medication. College students will report interviews and share historic analysis in movies that museum guests will entry by scanning QR codes on their telephones.
Anderson and her colleagues hope to offer college students extra partaking methods to study that transcend the standard classroom exams.
“Expertise is a technique for college students to have extra voice and selection in how they study,” Anderson stated. “They get to work extra collaboratively and study from one another.”
Simply earlier than their podcast lesson, Caribou classmates Bailey Wright and AJ Mierzwa cheered as Mierzwa’s animated character discovered her manner out of a digital escape room.
The scholars have been utilizing CoSpaces, a digital actuality software program that they’ve utilized for a lot of nontraditional faculty initiatives.
Mierzwa not too long ago used CoSpaces to create a digital world primarily based on a e book she had learn for sophistication. She stated that navigating trendy expertise at school will assist her in a future profession.
“I wish to be an inside designer, so I’ll have to indicate my designs on a pc,” Mierzwa stated.
