KidsLab - a podcast for parents and educators passionate about STEAM education

This recording is by Solomon Menashi, the CEO and Co-Founder of BlocksCAD. BlocksCAD is a cloud-based 3D modelling tool that encourages users to learn math, computational thinking and coding concepts through visualization and designing models to be 3D printed. Follow the links in the shownotes of this episode for a special parents guide as well as information for educators and schools. The full episode with Solomon about BlocksCAD is here.Background:At the beginning of this week (March 1...

This recording is by Brandon Satrom from Austin, Texas, USA. He and his wife are long-time home schoolers and he does provide lot's of great advice for all parents who find themselves suddenly in this situation. The full episode with Brandon wil be released on April 14, 2020 - please be sure to subscribe to the KidsLab Podcast if you have not done this so far. Background:At the beginning of this week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the...

In this recording, Pranati Bagchi, Founder of The Lavender Spaceship Project from Singapore explain the local situation. While schools are still open, measures of social distancing have been undertaken and her daughter already has online classes. If you are interested to hear more about Scratch, we have a full episode with Eric Rosenbaum about it. Background:At the beginning of this week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the Corona Virus will seve...

This recording is done directly by Marc Pous, the founder and CEO of the IoT platform thethings.io from Barcelona, Spain. He's got young kids at home that are learning to read - so he's focusing on experiments like conductive dough for example. He's also describing how they are teaching the teachers in Scratch and using the BBC micro:bit. Here's a full KidsLab Podcast Episode about Conductive Dough: Squishy Circuits with Dr. AnnMarie Thomas!Background:At the beginning of this week (March 16th...

I am sharing our situation here in Germany, we're close to Munich and schools are closed since the beginning of the week. We use a mix of digital technologies to work and also educate the kids - lot's of video-conferencing via Google Hangouts, sharing via Google Classroom and various messengers. Background:At the beginning of this week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the Corona Virus will severely impact our lives. While I was working from ...

This recording is done directly by Giles Booth, the Educational Content Manager at the BBC Microbit Foundation. He's describing the current Corona / Covid19 situation in the UK and how it impacts their lifes. He's also describing great resources for remote teaching with the BBC micro:bit - one should note that some lessons don't even require a physical micro:bit!https://classroom.microbit.org/Interview with Giles Booth about the BBC micro:bit:https://kidslab.dev/2020/02/10/the-bbc-microbit-wi...

In this episode, we’re talking to Dr. Pen Holland and Dr. Sarah Wyse about Pieter, the Seed Eater. This project is really cross-over, there’s lot’s of biology, math and computer science involved. Dr Pen Holland is a lecturer in ecology, and a RPi certified educator at the University of York. She is also is a quantitative ecologist whose interests range from using simple models to understand complex ecological problems, to developing novel ways to teach, disseminate research, ...

In this episode, we’re talking to Eric Rosenbaum - mainly about Scratch, which is a block-based visual programming language. But there is so much more he’s involved with, for example Makey Makey, Drawdio or Singing Fingers. The first line of Eric’s biography says it all - it reads: “I design for creative play”. This could not be more true just look at the array of creative educational projects he was and is involved with. Foremost, there is Scratch - a block-based visual programming...

In this episode, we’re talking to Andrea Mayr-Stalder about TurtleStitch. TurtleStitch allows kids to visually code a stitching path, export it and then have a real embroidery machine produce it!Andrea Mayr-Stalder is an artist, educator and the project lead for TurtleStitch and is from Vienna, Austria. Turtlestitch is based on Snap!, a browser-based educational programming language, and is used to generate patterns for embroidery machines.(c) episode image with Andrea is by Georg Oberweger.

In this episode, we’re talking to John Phillips, Director of the AustSTEM Foundation about the Kookaberry - which is like the BBC micro:bit for Australia with some really interesting twists!I got in touch with John via Damien George, who is the creator and key maintainer of MicroPython, a python implementation for microcontrollers. And as you may guess now, the Kookaberry is running MicroPython, too. While the Kookaberry can be programmed in visual and textual ways, the features that make it ...