1. “The solutions we use in today’s classrooms can come from anyone, anywhere”
Technology: something to teach or something to teach with? Social-emotional learning: the next frontier of disruption? Edtech innovation: the biggest question mark or the answer to all our education woes? In late November, we had the pleasure to sit down with Education Alliance Finland CEO Olli Vallo to talk about what’s now and what’s next in edtech.
2. Maker’s Red Box to receive grant from Google.org to bring STEAM education to underprivileged children
Google Impact Challenge Central and Eastern Europe selected 13 grant recipients from 11 countries from over 800 submissions this year – Maker‘s Red Box included! The grant will allow us to organise storytelling-powered maker courses for 400 Hungarian children in foster care to help them improve their soft and hard skills and find their passion.
3. Want to run a maker ed course? You’d better be a computer science teacher then.
Absolutely not. In part four of our maker education myth-versus-fact series, Maker’s Red Box head of pedagogy Ádám Horváth explored what skills it really takes for educators to get started with maker education – and reap the most rewards. Spoiler alert: having a degree in engineering or any other STEM subject is not one of them.
4. It’s official: Maker’s Red Box rated “excellent” by Education Alliance Finland
Besides pedagogical effectiveness at 92%, our course materials have been found “very motivating” with learning engagement rated 4.2 out of 5 by Europe’s premier independent certification company for educational products. Here’s what this means for us and for schools looking to equip children with transferable, future-proof competencies.
5. Is maker education for “geeks” only?
Fact: maker pedagogy promotes STEM-rich learning. Fiction: that’s all there is to it. In the third part of our maker education myth-busting series, we took a deep dive into why storytelling and role play are key to making makerspace activities a success and how they can guide students, no matter what their interests, on their path to skills development and self-discovery.
