By Mike Greife,
June 3, 2016
WARRENSBURG, MO – The University of Central Missouri and the KC Social Innovation
Center are working together to bring an “Internet of Things” workshop to area teachers
to continue SensED pilot development of IoT curriculum and solutions through funding
awarded by Mozilla’s Gigabit Community Fund.
The SensED IoT workshop is scheduled for July 25-July 28 and is open to middle and
high school teachers and educators throughout the Kansas City region.
The workshop is an immersive experience and offers hands-on training primarily for
high school and middle school teachers, but also may be valuable to technology-oriented
elementary school teachers. The sessions will help teachers understand and learn to
use Raspberry Pi processors, sensors, Python Programming, GitHub, and the SensED design
challenge curriculum. The program is intended to help students identify and design
innovative solutions to problems within their community, utilizing working prototypes
of internet connected innovations.
UCM and KC Social Innovation, along with Cisco Systems, Inc., and Summit Technology
Academy in Lee’s Summit, developed and initiated the program as a pilot to share IoT
know-how with middle school, high school and college students during the fall of the
2015-16 academic year. This professional development workshop is a continuation of
the pilot phase of the program.
The SensED IoT programprovides Internet of Things recipes to educators and students
so they can learn about the underlying technologies and applications and gain a critical
understanding of emergent technologies.
“UCM and KC Social Innovation Center are moving forward with the design of the workshop,
and the grant from Mozilla helps us reach more educators and accelerate our deployment
even faster,” said Joe Mullins, consultant with Workforce and Professional Development
at UCM Lee’s Summit. “This phase of the pilot will help us deploy the technology even
further in the region.”
“With the SensED program, we’re building tomorrow’s experts in emerging technologies
and social innovation,” said Kari Keefe, executive director of the KC Social Innovation
Center. “We strongly believe that early literacy is critical to ensuring that students
not only understand how technology works, but also see the personal and social impact
of their experience. This program can do just that, and we’re thrilled to see a formal
training experience and curriculum join the program platform as we expand our reach
to meet the demand.”
For more information about Internet of Things teacher workshop, contact Joe Mullins
at UCM Lee’s Summit at jmullins@ucmo.edu, 816-347-1612.
