Spotlight on Speyer Tech Happenings: Building a PC! An Hour of Code! Tech Dragons!
We are putting the spotlight on all things Tech! Beyond what our Speyer students are doing in the Makers Lab as part of their curriculum, there have been some fun happenings all around Speyer that have stretched their "maker muscles"!
Shout-out to our Speyer Tech Dragons!
Throughout the year, Speyer's Technology Team has had some special helpers: our Tech Dragons! Middle schoolers Joshua C., Tanner K., Zameer R., and Remy H. volunteer their time and know-how to anyone having a tech problem or who wants to chat about, well, tech topics! Recently, they were visited by Andrei, a computer engineer (and a former student of Speyer's CIO/CTO Mr. Anvar) to talk about their latest projects — he was "blown away" by their knowledge and curiosity! His company is even sending some prototype hardware for the Tech Dragons to hack and experiment with. They've been fabulous assets to our Technology teachers and Tech team (you can read more about how the Tech Dragons have shared their passion while supporting fellow students and Speyer teachers below)!
Speyer builds a PC with Mr. Benedek!
The Speyer security desk needed a new computer, and it was decided that it would be cost-effective — and WAY more interesting — to build our own. In early March, after compiling the components needed, our Helpdesk Manager and Support Specialist Mr. Benedek led the project, which took place over a few days on the Boulevard! Students and employees all stopped by to watch and ask questions as the assembly took place. Of course, Mr. Benedek couldn't do it alone and the Tech Dragons helped out with the completion of the project! You can see how it all came together in THIS COOL TIME LAPSE VIDEO! Amazing!
Hour of Code Celebrations!
All of our Speyer students took part in an Hour of Code! The Hour of Code is a global movement Computer Science Education Week and Code.org to offer an introduction to computer science through fun activities and videos for learners of all skill levels. It's an annual celebration of coding with a specific theme each year — this year's theme was Artificial Intelligence! A few our Tech Dragons made THIS VIDEO to help explain the tech-focused fun to the Speyer community!
In the Lower School, LS Academic Technology Coordinator Ms. Reed planned various activities to celebrate the Hour of Code during each grade's Makers classes. Kindergarteners animated a story in ScratchJr about Grace Hopper and a bug chasing each other, while First and Second Grade students gave LightBot (a virtual robot) instructions to light up tiles in virtual mazes using coding procedures. Meanwhile, Speyer's Third and Fourth Grade students coded a virtual robot in VEX VR to use sensors to pick up trash from the bottom of the ocean while avoiding hurting the corals!
In the Middle School, Makers Lab Coordinator and CCT Teacher Mx. Ramsey organized Hour of Code projects with a variety of difficulty levels, challenging our older students to think about two main questions: Why is learning how to code important? and What does Artificial Intelligence mean and what can it be used for? After watching videos on both machine learning and training data and bias, students were able to pick among a few activity options (Little Language Model; Ad Libs Chatbot; Generative Art Creator; Exoplanet Explorer Chatbot; and Guessing Game Chatbot) to learn more about the intersection of coding and AI! If anyone needed assistance, our Tech Dragons were on hand to help out!
Again, all of these happenings are, of course, in addition to everything they are learning during their Makers Lab and CCT classes! Huge shout-out to our Tech educators Ms. Reed and Mx. Ramsey as well as Mr. Benedek and Mr. Anvar for supporting and encouraging the technology passions of our students in SO many ways!