What are some ways to purposely plan for and add technology effectively into your STEM lessons? We are continuing our STEM in Action series, where we kicked off the series with guest experts in the field to help connect the different elements of STEM. In this second half, I am sharing my insights and practical lessons that you can implement in your classroom. In the last episode, episode 166, we talked about science as the main focus of your lessons.

In this episode, we are diving into technology as the main focus, with everything else falling in underneath. I know technology is such a broad topic, and there are many ways to approach it depending on your goals. In fact, you might even have technology embedded in your lessons throughout the entire year.

I will be sharing a mixture of topics and ideas to help with your planning and implementation, whether you're using technology throughout the year or focusing on it as your primary tool. Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast, a show that will help you with lesson ideas, systems, and actionable tips to apply in your classroom. I am your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned current STEM teacher and coach.

With over a decade of experience teaching and a master's degree in STEM leadership, I am here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students. Grab your earbuds and let's get started. If you are looking for more ways and support when getting started with STEM, and you need resources that you can use on the go and in your own time, I invite you to join my on-demand professional development.

I have a couple of options for you. If you enjoy hanging out with me but want to do it in your own time, I recommend my STEM Teacher 101 course. This is perfect for teachers who have taught STEM for one year or are just diving in and want to know what to do to get started.

The course covers setting up your classroom, basics of lesson planning, and grouping students. If you are interviewing, there is a whole section about what it could sound like in your interview, including potential questions and how I would answer them. The course is self-paced and includes certificates for professional development credit.

If you are ready to level up your planning after teaching STEM for a while, I have several workshops for you. They were originally live but are now recorded so you can interact as if you were there live. There is a K-2 STEM planning workshop and a 3-5 workshop. Many teachers start with the K-2 workshop and then proceed to the 3-5.

These workshops include tips and tricks for lesson planning, one-day challenges, and longer projects. Additionally, if you need school-wide news ideas, I offer pre-recorded school-wide video news workshops, with templates, emails, and the entire system and processes. There is also a workshop on setting up your own STEM career day. You can find the links in the show notes or check them out at NaomiMeredith.com.

In today's episode, we will focus on technology as the center of your lesson, with all other STEM elements embedded within. Technology is a broad topic, so where do you begin and what should you do? I like to use the ISTE standards for students as a base. These standards help clarify what you want students to do with technology, whether they are creating, collaborating, or learning about digital citizenship.

I then merge these standards with science standards, like the Next Generation Science Standards or your state science standards, to create content that goes along with the technology use. You can see this integration in my K-5 STEM year-long plan, which is available for free. All my lessons combine these standards to ensure comprehensive STEM education.

When it comes to technology tools, there are many options. I will focus on what I use with students. If you are interested in hearing about the technology tools I use on the teacher side, let me know.

For documenting and sharing resources with students, I use Seesaw. It allows students to record their voices, take pictures, and draw on digital interactive notebooks. This platform helps me create a library of notebooks for students, making it easy to add elements on top. Major projects from my shop come with Seesaw versions, Google Slides, and PowerPoint.

For coding platforms, many use Hour of Code or Code.org. Another great platform is Make Wonder by Wonder Workshop. It uses block-based coding and offers free challenges and lessons. Upgrading provides a virtual Dash robot for coding at home. This platform is excellent, especially if you plan to use Dash robots.

For video and audio projects, I highly recommend WeVideo. I used it for school-wide video news and classroom projects. It supports green screen, is very visual, and easy to understand. WeVideo is cloud-based, so you can use it on any device. For 3D printing software, I love Tinkercad by Autodesk. It's free and offers teacher features for creating classes. Another option is Doodle 3D Transform for younger students or those needing more support.

For stop motion, I use the Stop Motion app. The free version is great, and the paid version has extra editing features. I recommend importing stop motion projects into WeVideo or iMovie for additional editing.

Now, let's get into some lesson ideas. For a project, a great starter is creating a 3D-printed birdhouse prototype. Students can study how birds create nests and design a birdhouse using Tinkercad. This project is suitable for second grade and up.

For a STEM station, I did day and night robotics coding with first graders. Using Bebots or Code & Go mice, students coded robots to different items on a grid based on day, night, or both. This station helps students understand day and night concepts through coding.

For a one-day lesson, focus on digital citizenship and media balance. Students built a balance using various materials and categorized activities as screen-free or screen-based to understand the importance of media balance.

As a recap, we discussed standards for planning technology-focused STEM lessons, favorite technology tools, and lesson ideas, including projects, stations, and one-day lessons. All mentioned lessons are available in my TPT shop, Naomi Meredith. For more information, visit my website, NaomiMeredith.com. Join me in the next episode, where we will focus on engineering. Thank you for listening to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. Connect with me on Instagram at NaomiMeredith_ or email me at elementarystemcoachpodcast@gmail.com. Check out my website, NaomiMeredith.com, for show notes and K-5 STEM resources. I look forward to hearing from you.