Hi, my name is Jason McKenna. Welcome back to the VEX Classroom, where today we're going to be talking about using VEX IQ activities. Now, if you're familiar with our STEM labs, whether they're for the first generation or the second generation VEX IQ robot, you know that our STEM labs can last a couple of days to a couple of weeks, depending upon what it is that you are doing. It's a very scaffolded experience for the students and really allows you to present the material to them over the course of a few days, a few class periods, or even a few weeks. For example, in your VEX IQ second-gen STEM labs, students can compete for a longer period of time.

We wanted to create activities, and we have these activities that are similar to this for both 1, 2, 3, and Go. We got a lot of great feedback, so we want to create these same activities for VEX IQ. These activities are very simple, one-page Google Docs that allow you to supplement what you're doing with your STEM labs or whatever it is that you're doing with your VEX IQ robot to really be able to get the most out of it. We know that all classroom implementations are different. In classrooms, you're going to have situations where you just might need that really quick activity. Maybe it's a Friday before a long weekend, and you don't want to start a new STEM lab. Maybe you have a substitute coming into your classroom, and you don't want the substitute to start a new STEM lab. Maybe you have a learning center in your classroom where the students are looking for more enrichment or more things to do with their VEX IQ robot. Whatever it may be, we want to be able to provide you with more tools and more flexibility so that you can fit the needs of your individualized classroom implementations.

Now, there's a bunch of VEX IQ activities I'm going to show you. Understand that we're going to continue to add to them. These will not be the only activities that you'll see a month or two from now. We'll continue to add to them, so you can see a lot of really nice things with these VEX IQ activities. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and take a look at them now.

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As you can see, I'm on education.vex.com. I'll go to VEX IQ STEM labs, and right here, you can see the VEX IQ activities. Now, if I was interested in one particular subject, so if I wanted to see all the activities that pertain to coding, I can filter by the subject. Now I can see all of the coding activities. If I want to see all the ones that were coding and math, let's say, I can select those, and all of those will now come on. If I wanted to see just the math activities, if I de-select coding, now you can see all the different math activities that I have on there. If I de-select math, all of them will come up again.

Again, these are just one-page Google Docs. If I select color sensing, here's the Google Doc that I have right here. It shows you step-by-step what the students are going to do. It gives you an idea of how you can level up, and it also provides some help down below. All the way down here at the bottom, you can see this one aligns to a CSTA standard. You can see the standard it aligns to. Now, because it is a Google Doc, you can make a copy of this, and if you want to make a change to it, add to it, or take something away from it, we would encourage you to go ahead and do this. Again, we are trying to emphasize flexibility with these VEX IQ activities.

You can see also by the different categories that we have here. We do not have a STEM lab that's focused just on art, but if you wanted to do something that was more art-related, you could see how you can do it right here.

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Thank you for joining us today. We hope you find these VEX IQ activities helpful and adaptable to your classroom needs. Keep an eye out for more updates and new activities in the future.

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Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm for VEX education. We look forward to seeing how you implement these activities in your classrooms.

So we're trying to cast a wide net here and trying to find activities that fit into as many different subjects as possible. This way, we can try to attract as many different students as possible.

We talk about creating curriculum. We want to create curriculum that has a low barrier of entry so anybody can go in and have success. It should have a high ceiling, meaning that students will not encounter an artificial ceiling and can continue to be challenged. We also want to have wide walls, aiming to include as many different students as possible. You can see how we are doing that with these very simple one-page activities here.

Now, if you wanted to see how to incorporate these activities in a more structured way, you can take a look at our cubit of pacing guide, which I'll select right now. Here, you can see our full-year curriculum outline. This includes both first-gen STEM labs, second-gen STEM labs, and also activities. You can see they're labeled activities, and then I get to an actual STEM lab. This is a great way to see how you can supplement the STEM labs that you're utilizing in your classroom with the different activities that we have here. It makes it really easy if you wanted to make that full-year-long curriculum, or we have different versions for shorter periods of time, showing how you can incorporate the activities with what you are doing with the VEX IQ STEM lab.

So again, these are great one-page activities that are very flexible. You could use these in something like a maker space, a library, or if you have free time in your classroom. They are perfect for sub-plans if you're looking to do something before a long break or a long weekend. Whatever it may be, if you want to print all these up and allow the students to come and get them on their own, almost like a choice board, the possibilities are endless and are only limited by your own creativity.

Let's please have a chat about how you're using the activities in the PD Plus community. We would love to hear from you. If you want to make your own activity, you can do that using our community share in PD Plus. We would love to see what you're doing in your classrooms. Share your own activity with us, and you can do it there. That would be amazing, just adding to this content that we could all use, enjoy, and share in our PD Plus community. That's what the PD Plus community is really all about. Let's all work and share together so that we can create as many memorable learning experiences for our students as possible.

So, again, if you have questions or want to share what you're doing, let's chat about it in the community and share the results of these activities with your students.

Thank you very much.