IRobot - iSTEM update March 30- April 3

Greetings to iROBOT and iSTEM Students and Parents from Mr Rogers.

A few things as we all adjust to this new “School at Home” thing.

First -  I haven’t forgotten about you guys. Ever since school ended so fast on 3/13, I have been awaiting some sort of a clear directive of how we (teachers) should be handling things on our end. 

We are starting to get some direction from TSD. I am sorry if some of you have felt confused about what to do now. 

What I want to assure you is that I miss you guys and have been mulling over ways to best carry out “distance learning” as we move forward. 

Second -  It looks like much of our learning will be taking place through Google Classroom. 

I have posted some “enrichment options” for the week of March 30-April 3 on Google Classroom for students in iRobot and iSTEM. Parents, I encourage you to have your students explore some of the activities. 

Make sure to encourage students to check in during the week - I plan on posting other ideas next week to enhance learning. 

As for the online learning.

It is to my understanding that these options I will be posting for you are exactly “options”. To be even more clear...it means that the motivation to do the work is completely on you. This learning is not graded, and not required. However, I encourage you to frame the activities as a means to improve and maintain the learning already covered before the school closure.

I am working with the Robotics teacher at Tumwater Middle School to explore other online options to keep enriching your learning. One difficulty is both iRobot and iStem would be moving into hands on activities with the OzoBot and EV3 Units - which is difficult to impossible to replicate with distant learning.

You are free to explore and research whatever you would like outside of what I give you. I will try my best to provide “enrichment options” that are worth your time and will help prepare you for your next steps in life and education. Feel free to ask questions about this as you have them. As more clear directives come my way, I will be sure to pass them on. 

Below are a few STEM - Technology options we will be exploring 

www.CODE.ORG  https://code.org/

KHAN ACADEMY  - https://www.khanacademy.org/ - Computer Science

Typing Club - https://www.typingclub.com/ - Typing Jungle

Students should use the “Sign in with Google” if they are using the Bush Chromebook - which aligns the Bush login/password with classes I set up via Google Classroom and Code.Org and Khan Academy

Thanks again - Feel free to contact me for any questions at 

tim.rogers@tumwater.k12.wa.us

I will be monitoring email and Google classroom during normal school hours.

Thanks again - Mr Rogers

Days OFF
Friday April 3 Thursday / Friday April 16/17 Thursday / Friday April 23/24