@Michelle_Garrison and @Philisia_Spearmon CSTA is great. I’ve been a member for over 5 years.
HI! I started teaching at the high school level about five years ago, and would be happy to share what I have learned over the years. Just reach out with any questions, and I’d be happy to help.
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Its always good to join as many professional groups and see what they have to benefit your students. CSTA has a great conference every summer, which is a great way to network with other teachers. VEX always has a great booth there and you can meet the educational team in person!
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Hi Everyone,
My name is Nicole Champagne and I’m brand new to the PD+ team. I have been working with VEX in Australia since 2017 and completely fell in love back then and feel just as passionate now. As a former educator I feel so fortunate to be in a position now that just fully supports teachers on their VEX journey with PD+ . My favourite part of VEX is the student’s enthusiasm and the outcomes I have been able to witness over the past 5+ years. The university degrees the VEX alumni have been able to achieve and watching them grow, knowing they are the solution for our job skills shortages, just lights me up. I’m originally from Chicago and have been living in Australia for the past 12 years. I’m looking forward to working and supporting every single one of you. Please reach out for anything!
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Welcome, Nicole! Great to see you on PD+!
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Welcome Nicole!!!
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Hi Everyone:
My name is Seth Ogoe Ayim from Accra, Ghana, West Africa and I’m a new bee to VEX PD+ but thanks to Jason I’m here now to learn from the VEX Professional Learning Community and contribute as well. I’m an educator, Co-founder, and Executive Director of Bountiful Technologies Co Ltd ( VEX robotics product reseller in Ghana and Bountiful STEM Educational Foundation ( REC Foundation Event Partner ) in Ghana and Benin.
For the past 6 years, we have established STEM Educational Robotics ( Engineering, Design, Computer Science, and AI ) programs across 25 private schools in Ghana with 4 Saturday’s centers for elementary, middle, and junior school students using VEX robotics products and curriculum impacting over 2000 students.
Our nonprofit also train STEM teachers and supplies teaching materials and VEX classroom kits to rural and deprived public schools in two School districts in Ghana working with the Ghana Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Services to enable the teachers to teach STEM in a novel way while inspiring the student to pursue STEM-related career. This program has been running for the past 4 years and we have trained 230 STEM teachers and coordinators which is impacting over 4000 public schools, elementary, middle, and junior high students ( basic schools students as we referred to here in Ghana).
My favorite part of the VEX robotics program is the Girl Powered Events annually held in October to celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child. These events are usually sponsored by VEX Robotics and REC Foundation, which our nonprofit has organized a series of STEM workshops for girls: The theme was “Redefining The Face of STEM” to inspire girls to change the narrative of low rate of girls and women in the global STEM workforce by helping bridge the gap. We hosted over 700 girls with mentors women engineers, computer programmers, and STEM female college students in three regions in Ghana and in Benin.
If any of you were at the VEX worlds last year, our Elementary students’ team was at VEX Worlds 2022 competitions, representing Ghana at the competition for the first time. Indeed it was a big deal for us as a Country and organization. It is exciting to see our students developing a growth mindset to continue to learn and challenge themselves, thanks to VEX Robotics and REC Foundation team and all educators around the world using VEX products to inspire the rising generation to prepare them to participate and contribute to the global digital economy.
My background is in Engineering, Information Systems, Public Administration- STEM education, and social innovation, Accra Technical University - HND-Civil Engineering, University of Cape Coast, BSc -Computer Studies and Information Systems-, Brigham Young University, Marriott School,- MPA and the University of Utah- MIS-USA. A Certified Project Management Professional, PMI, Professional Member of the British Computer Society and Certified Professional Member of the Australian Computer Society, BYU Management Society Africa Regional Director, and a Lowell Benson Lifetime Service Award Recipient for promoting STEM education and moral and ethical leadership in Ghana and Africa among the youth.
I look forward to learning from you professionally and contributing to this community as well. Please feel free to connect with me. I’m happy to be part of this great professional community of VEX educators from around the world.
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@Seth_Ogoe_Ayim It is wonderful to hear from you and thank you the introduction. I can’t wait to learn/read more about the growth of STEM and educational robotics in Ghana.
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Hello Everyone! Our team name is BEAST XLR8. We are a team of high school students that participate in a variety of engineering competitions, including VEX. We operate out of the Chicago State University engineering department and are part of organizations like NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). We’re excited to learn from you all!
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Welcome @Seth_Ogoe_Ayim! It sounds like you are doing incredible work with your organizations - I can’t wait to learn more!
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Audra, thank you for your kind words. I also look forward to learning from you as well.
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Hi everyone,
I am new as well this year. My name is David and I teach Army JROTC . I’ve been working with a group of students for the past three months putting together a couple speedbots. I plan to teach Robotics at our summer camp this year. Not sure exactly what I’m going to do. Thinking of using the speedbots and playing some soccer with them. Any suggestions are more than welcome.
I look forward to learning from you and all the great people of this community.
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Hi @David_Wettrich Great to hear from you. 2 resources I can immediately point out for camps are first, ours site devoted to camps curriculum: camps.vex.com
Second, check out Alaina’s Live Session on Thinking Outside the Classroom: VEX Professional Development Plus
Of course, please feel free to ask questions here in the PLC.
Thanks!
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Hi Jason, thank you for your response. The camp curriculum looks great. I would have to tailor it down to 45 minute sessions. I want to do something with a couple speedbots. Maybe something like a soccer game. I had trouble trying to register for a live session. Not seeing the Enroll in session tab.
David
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Hey David - looks like Lauren helped you with enrolling in another thread. If you are continuing to have issues - please let us know. Thanks!
Hi Everyone,
I’m Luke Henderson originally from the UK but I haven’t called it home in over a decade. I got my start in teaching in the ESL world, teaching kindergarten for a few years and corporate English lessons to factories in China. I left English teaching and found my passion in teaching STEM. I got heavily involved in the maker movement, teaching and designing curriculum for 3D printing, coding, game dev, laser cutting and so on. I ran many summer camps and after school clubs.
I took a break from teaching and joined a few startups focused on digital fabrication and internet of things. I ran the YouTube channel of a hardware startup “M5stack” for a few years creating python and C programming tutorials for the company’s hardware devices M5Stack - YouTube
A few years ago, I moved to Australia where I’ve got involved with STEM again and even dipped my toes into Industrial automation. I now work for Innovation First Australia and have been having a great time getting acquainted with the Vex robots and just completed all my vex certs.
I’m excited to get involved with this community and learn from all the talented educators here.
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