Vicki's Tech Hub

Creativity isn’t just an enhancement in today's classrooms—it’s essential. Fostering creativity engages students, deepens their understanding, and helps them connect learning to their lives. This year, I’ve been fortunate to design and implement projects that bring out the best in my students, blending academic rigor with hands-on activities that spark curiosity and joy. Here are some of the ways we’ve embraced creativity in the classrooms I support: 3D Printing: Merging Passion and Purpose 3D printing has become a cornerstone of our creative endeavors. Students have explored their interests and passions by designing personalized 3D prints. Some highlights include: Interest-Based Designs: Students created 3D objects representing their hobbies and passions, from sports equipment to favorite animals. Interview-Inspired Creations:  After interviewing a classmate, students designed prints based on responses to questions like, “What do you love to learn about?” or “What are you great a...

 It has been a long time since I posted. I apologize. It's been a busy year! We have a new model of supporting teachers that entails me to drive to 5 schools to support teachers. At one of those schools, we worked on infusing creativity with robots into a culminating social studies activity where students combine learning about communities, maps, map skills, and gardens! Image Credits: P., JR. (2008). Dutch garden. Students worked in groups to create a map of a garden. Students choose from various types of gardens - vegetable and fruit, English, Japanese, Botanical, and more. They created a rough draft, researched plants and effective layouts, and designed decorative structures such as benches, water features, gazebos, paths, and the material that makes up paths (brick, gravel, dirt, concrete, asphalt). Then, they drew their garden on a large piece of butcher paper. After crafting their design, they colored it and programmed Sphero robots to give a tour of their garden.  There...