There is a summer event that once it rolls around we really begin to get excited about going back to school. LearnEast is a boutique learning event held in Fredericton, New Brunswick since 2005. In its 17th year, this event continues to be inspiring for educators who are interested in 21st Century Learning. Brilliant Labs is proud to be a programming partner with the talented organizing committee of LearnEast. While LearnEast will be held virtually this year, the theme of Learning Unmasked promises to provide educators with a series of technology influenced learning opportunities to refine their practice even though we won’t be physically together.
This year, our team of education specialists and technology advocates have put together a series of both synchronous and asynchronous sessions happening on August 23rd. These sessions are a great summary of some of the innovative areas Brilliant Labs has been developing in hopes that you integrate them into your classroom.
Take a look at the session descriptions here and join us on Monday, August 23rd via the official schedule provided by LearnEast. For the asynchronous sessions, those are available here.
Synchronous Offerings
Session 1 – “PL @ BL: Staying Brilliant All Year Long”
9:45 AM
Natacha Vautour & Jacob Lingley
natacha@brilliantlabs.ca / jacob@brilliantlabs.ca
Join us to learn more about the various professional learning opportunities from Brilliant Labs in the next school year. From innovation challenges that feature creativity, robotics, and sustainable making, your students will have a year of exploration starting on day one. What’s more, we haven’t forgotten about you, the source of all learning inspiration. We are announcing our latest Brilliant Cohort for educators across New Brunswick. It’s hard to handle all this brilliance that’s why we are thrilled to be able to share it far and wide across our beautifully creative province.
Session 2 – “Accessible Maker Activities in Your Classroom – Summer Camp Style”
11:00 AM
Kathy Martin & Jessica Smith
kathy@brilliantlabs.ca / jessica@brilliantlabs.ca
Brilliant Labs is dedicated to providing an inclusive and accessible learning environment where all can reach their potential. This summer-camp-style workshop demonstrates engaging, joyful, and inclusive learning through activities, stories, and discussions that focus on sustainability, digital skills, community consciousness, and the influence of technology. Furthermore, this session comes as we are wrapping up our 8 week long, virtual and in-person summer camp offerings that have reached participants all over Atlantic Canada and beyond. Join us as we explore changing perspectives to help us work towards a new and more sustainable ‘normal’.
Session 3 – “Futures of Biomaking”
1:45 PM
Alisha Collins & Natacha Vautour
alisha@brilliantlabs.ca / natacha@brilliantlabs.ca
Biomaking encourages innovation for a sustainable future, taking manufacturing with nature a step further. It inspires us to design innovative projects by collaborating with harmless microbes like fungi, bacteria, yeast, and algae. Join us to learn more about Brilliant Lab’s Biomaking initiative to spark your student’s curiosity to tinker with living matter. We introduce designing novel eco-conscious projects exploring nature’s biological systems in practical ways. Let us imagine a future where we harness new bio-based technologies and design new products, spaces, and systems.
Session 4 – “Machine Learning with Scratch”
3:00 PM
Peter Zhu & Jeff Willson
peter@brilliantlabs / jeff@brilliantlabs.ca
The idea of creating an artificial intelligence device through machine learning seems like something reserved for a computer scientist – not any more! Join us to learn how your students can apply their knowledge of Scratch to create a simple machine learning algorithm that will continue to learn the more the sketch runs. This session will focus on image classification: the ability for your students to create a ML algorithm in scratch that will allow users to continue to collect different representations of an image. Think about the classic probability game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. How many different hand gestures and pairs of scissors are there? Could your students design a Scratch sketch that could learn all of the different combinations in existence? Woah.
Asynchronous Offerings
Available on our website August 23rd: www.brilliantlabs.ca
Natural Making Resources
Brilliant Labs’ Natural Maker approach, inspired by land-based pedagogies, allows students to move at their own pace in and through the most authentic learning environment: nature. Through regular and meaningful interactions with the natural world, both students and adults build an emotional connection that we find essential to the development of an ecologically conscious citizen. These eco-citizens become leaders in their ability to concrete sustainable ecological and social actions. Through these eight short training modules, discover how every educator has the power to include nature-based pedagogies in their schedule. Brilliant Labs offers a wealth of inspiring educational resources and personalized support.
Brilliant Labs Resource Realm
The more we grow, the more diverse and abundant our resources become. Sometimes it is difficult for us to navigate all of the different learning opportunities we have available for K-12 students. For instance, did you know that we have more than 100 maker-centred projects available on our Project Portal? Or maybe you are looking for full-blown courses where you can dig deep into a topic like UnReal Engine or Microbial Leather Making – if that is the case then you are looking for our Learning Commons. We also have a Virtual Reality space, a solution for video conferences and our b.Board Cloud portal. Phew – that’s a lot of brilliance right there.
Prizes
We are pleased to offer Learn East 4 x b.Board Starter Kits!
Please meet the new Brilliant Labs b.Board! An Atlantic Canadian open source electronics hardware prototyping platform. Designed to be accessible to creators, researchers and inventors of all ages. Using this fun interactive device you can bring your IoT, robotics or other hardware project ideas from concept to reality! In this starter Kit, students will receive the following: b.Board with onboard blixels, motor drivers, servo drivers, microphone, speaker and WIFI, micro:bit V2, motion clickBoard, DC Motors, wheels, carrying case and screwdriver. Find more information at brilliantlabs.ca/bboard.
Official Schedule from LearnEast:
https://learneast.wordpress.com/1223-2/
