Middle School Nook - Tinker Space

Thanks to the efforts of one of our middle school teachers, our middle school nook has become a place for students to tinker and explore during their free time. Currently there are math problems of the week, design challenges with supplies, tinker construction sets, chess, a labyrith puzzle, and mancala. The activities change on a regular basis to keep the students interested and engaged.

I was recently asked me to help create a space within the nook where the students could watch pre-selected videos, play interactive math games, and further explore different math and science concepts. Her goal was to expand what they students were already doing in this space with the use of technology. 

After spending some time brainstorming about the types of activities that she wanted to provide and how she envisioned the students would interact with the activities and move around in the space, it was clear that a wall mounted iPad was the perfect solution. It does not take up much space, does not require any input devices (keyboard/mouse), and most importantly is an easy to use, familiar tool. Most importantly it would be about the content and interaction and not about the technology. 

Unsure of how popular the new activity would be (part of the beauty of the current tinkering options is the simplicity and tactile nature), we decided to start small with only one wall mounted iPad - we can always add more. We purchased an iPad security mount from Maclocks.com case and started by providing three selected TEDed lessons (Mathemagic, The Math of Online Dating, and Athlete uses Physics to Shatter World Records). Using the Guided Access feature of the iPad, we restricted students to only being able to use Safari. Guided Access allows you to restrict an iPad to any single app and lets you control which features are available within the app (volume, home button, etc). Restrictions were enabled on the iPad to limit students from navigating to any websites outside of TEDed. The students can navigate between the three bookmarked lessons, but can also search for other lessons within TEDed. 

We plan to add signage to the wall to help pull the students in - but for now with the end of the school year so close, we were excited to get the iPad on the wall and how much use it gets!  If you build it they, will come - right? 

US students checking out TEDed Mathmagic