Today I am presenting a workshop titled 'Super Simple STEM' at the NSW Science Teachers Association Annual Conference (ACSTA2017). During this session we will be exploring a range of simple activities that you can do in your classroom with resources that are very cheap and apps that have free versions.

Please find the resources that I will be referring to in my presentation below:

• Models of Ionic Compounds
• The Heart & Exercise
• Catapults
• Reaction Powered Boats
• My presentation


• For each of these activities we will be breaking them down to ensure that there components that match all of the aspects of STEM - ensuring that we have Science, the effective integration of Technology, some element of Engineering and Maths :) 
  
  I am hoping that each attendee will walk away with a solid STEM activity that they feel comfortable to take back to their classroom next week that won't cost a fortune to implement and also covers all 4 aspects rather than leaning too much towards one of the 4 components (especially Science!!) 

I have just submitted my final assessment for subject 6 of my Masters - Classroom Technologies. This has been one of the craziest subjects to date, especially doing it over the Christmas break. We had 10 modules that consisted of numerous blog posts, each that required references beyond the reading to support out writing. We also had to comment on other student's blogs, again with resources. Lastly, we had to create a website that is a portfolio of 20 digital resources that would help teach students skills around the ICT Capabilities outlined by the Australian Curriculum.

I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't as 'regular' with my blogging as I should be. Christmas and New Year got in the way, as did my enjoyment of my holidays! I got all written, but a huge chunk of them were written in the span of a week. My regularity of commenting on other people's blogs was even less regular. I have only done 10. This probably is no where near what the lecturer is hoping for - but we weren't given a benchmark. The portfolio I spent quite a bit of time on - researching, evaluating and then creating my website. I am quite happy with the quality of my blog and portfolio, so hopefully the two of those will outweigh the fact I sucked at 'contributing to the learning of my peers'.

I used the new Google Sites to create my website and WOW!!! Sooooo much easier than the old version. I have decided that our research task in term 2 as part of our Year 8 STEM program is going to involve the students creating a website using Sites to share their findings about the animal they are creating their zoo enclosure for!

If anyone is interested in looking at my blog, you can find the posts that relate to this subject here:
http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/theindependentvariable/category/esc515/

And if you would like to check out my website, you can find that here:
Kelly Hollis ESC515 - Classroom Technologies 

Feel free to share either resource with anyone who you think would benefit from them :)