Rocket City STEAM Works

And what tools do we use to help elementary school kids code?

One of the starting points is with drag and drop coding that can be used to create games and to program hardware. Here is a great website to learn more about that tool:

Microsoft MakeCode Computer Science Education MakeCode brings computer science to life for all students with fun projects, immediate results, and both block and text editors for learners at different levels.

Okay, so I guess it would be helpful to start to know what kinds of STEAM activities we are looking to have.

One of the products that we are looking to use is the micro:bit. For a quick video about micro:bit, take a look here:

Introduction to the BBC micro:bit Meet the BBC micro:bit then find out more at https://microbit.org/get-started/first-steps/introduction/

Alright, here it is, my first "behind the scenes" post.

How did we get here?

I actually have been interested... concerned... I'm not really sure what to call it, but I have felt that there needed to be more efforts out there to bring kids into the world of software and robotics and math and science and STEAM in general for a while. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm crazy, and it's not that I think our education system isn't doing enough, but it is more with what I see in the professional world now than anything. Many people have little to no understanding as to what computer programming or robotics are or how they work or what is involved with learning them as a discipline. I think many people just don't know where to start. And it's not just computer programming and robotics. It's math and science and a lot of other technical things as well.
And I think some of that relates to a lack of exposure to these things at an early enough time to realize that kids might want to learn more. And kids definitely need the opportunity to explore these technology "things" so that they aren't so scary and so abstract that they don't ever get an understanding of what they are and how they work.
So recently, my youngest two children asked about computer programming and robotics and they wanted to know more. So I sought out to find classes or activities they could attend in the area. What I found was that the closest class was almost two hours a way. And the two organizations that had previously attempted to offer such activities in the area had closed for various reasons over the last couple of years.
So here I am trying to put together what I see as a needed service so that more kids can get interested in the STEAM world and hopefully grow up to fill some of the needed technology positions in the future.
That's probably enough for now, so thank you for reading this far. And I'll add more in the next post.

Where to begin?
I'm not really sure where to start.

But first, let me say thanks for being here and reading my post.

Second, let me explain a little about what I am trying to do and how I'm going about doing it.

So I have a separate webpage and that page contains (or will contain) all the information about the general goings on for Rocket City STEAM Works (RCSW). As we are getting started, I have a section where I am trying to keep everyone up to date on what's going on to get up and running. With that said, rather than repeating what is on the webpage, I plan to use the Facebook site as more of a "behind the scenes" happenings and an area to both receive and provide information related to RCSW.

Don't worry, I'll definitely post new classes and information here, but I don't plan to spend a lot of time making this a re-hash of what is on the website.

So, I think I'll stop here for now on this post. But be sure to check out the next one for a little more information on what RCSW is and what my plans for it are at the moment.

Thanks again for your time and attention!