Welcome to the TeacherCast Podcast. In this episode, Jeff sits down with Margaret Weigel from Lego Education to discuss the amazing LEGO Mindstorms products and how they can fit into your STEM Education Curriculum.

About Lego Education

For 35 years LEGO® Education has been working with teachers and educational specialists like to deliver playful learning experiences that bring subjects to life in the classroom and make learning fun and impactful. We have a wide range of physical and digital educational resources that encourage students to think creatively, reason systematically and release their potential to shape their own future. We believe that expanding knowledge and building academic and 21st-century skills will create active, collaborative, lifelong learners. Together with educators, we aim to enable every student to succeed in education and be prepared for future life challenges.

What is Lego Mindstorms?

The LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education EV3 Core Set contains the software and elements to start teaching STEM subjects using robotics to middle school students. Through hands-on learning, LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 will enable students to understand forces and motion; graph and interpret rotation sensor data; develop robots capable of complex thinking using logical structures and sensor feedback; understand that complex system are created from subsystems; and design, build and program a fully-functioning robotic system.

Key Points of Focus/Facts & Figures

LEGO MINDSTORMS® Education EV3 is now currently available for Chromebooks™. The introduction of this new technology expansion meets the growing demands of school administrators and teachers around the number of Chromebooks currently being used in classrooms.
The LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 platform includes customizable curriculum and digital workbooks; a hardware platform based on real-world robotics technology for engaging, hands-on activities; an intuitive software platform consisting of both programming and data-logging interface and a science expansion pack.
LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 is being used in 1/3 of middle schools in the U.S. and more than 3 million students over the course of the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education existence (18 years) have had an experience with the platform – starting with RCX, through NXT, now to EV3.
FIRST®LEGO® League, a global robotics contest, had more than 230,000 students involved using LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 for the competition.

Links of interest

What can you do with Lego?

About our Guest

Margaret Weigel is the Senior Marketing Manager, Segments for LEGO® Education North America. In this role, she oversees their middle school product portfolio, including LEGO® MINDSTORMS Education, as well as the team which manages their elementary and preschool portfolios. Prior to LEGO® Education, Margaret was Director, Curriculum and Learning Experience Design at Six Red Marbles. Margaret has been dedicated to the education industry throughout her personal and professional life. In addition to writing about education issues for the Huffington Post, Margaret has also served on Common Sense Media’s Editorial Advisory Board and is currently an advisor for the Medford, Massachusetts public schools where she has lived for the past 13 years. Margaret loves the mix of theory, testing, play and flow that makes learning extraordinary.

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