490 – Scrambled Eggs with a Side of Equity

The week’s edtech focused WELSTech episode features ideas for assisting students with broadband Internet access in their homes, the opportunity to host a movie theater screening of the new Luther movie, a new computer science curriculum for middle schoolers, a design tool for the church and school office, and some tasty(?) robotics.

The discussion:

Jason Schmidt, Technology Coordinator for Bennington Public Schools near Omaha, NE and one of WELSTech’s Semi-Regular Classroom Technology Correspondents, is just back from a exciting weekend of First Steamworks competition from First Robotics. Check out The Blue Alliance for live streamed competition videos.

Broadband equity for students – While Martin enjoys a little family time, Jason and Sallie discuss the topic of digital equity. Students inability to access the Internet via a broadband connection in their home environment can be caused by economic factors as well as lack of coverage in rural location. This inequity has been identified as a difficult challenge impeding technology adoption for K-12 students in the New Media Consortium K-12 Horizon Report 2016. We take a look at programs to assist with meeting this challenge.

• EveryoneOn.org – Low Cost Internet | Digital Literacy
• The 1 million project from Sprint

WELS now:

Learn how your congregation can host a movie theater screening of the new Martin Luther movie, A Return To Grace.

Picks of the week:

• The Catalyst from Tinkering Labs
  • Unboxing the Electric Motors Catalyst
  • See 16 inventions in 1 minute
  • Tinkering in Kindergarten
• Nebraska Educational Technology Association (NETA) Spring 2017 Conference – April 19-21 in Omaha, NE
• From Code.org, check out CS Discoveries, a computer science course for grades 7-9

Ministry resources:

• Avery Design & Print

Featured video:

Promevo TV featured this Head to Head: Asus C302 vs. Samsung Chromebook Plus. Who wins!? video review, a new addition to the WELSTech Product Demo YouTube playlist.

Coming up on WELSTech:

Episode 491 – Pastor Stephen Daly shares his experience with the Bullet Journal, the analog system for the digital age. Release date: Wednesday, April 5.

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