Last Thursday we were invited to present at Collaborative Solutions sponsored by NSW Trade & Investment.
It was an event for technology companies working in the education sector to meet with research, education and multinational corporations to explore new online and interactive educational solutions.
We presented ideas from BitScope Ed.
You can listen to our four minute pitch on the subject of project based interactive learning in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, also known as STEM.
Our focus is on using computer programming as a facilitating platform for problem solving projects built around low cost electronics such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino with BitScope.
BitScope networking together with online learning platforms offer both remote and local access and leverage cloud hosted syllabus materials and associated technologies such as WebRTC. These can be deployed for use by a range of web compatible and other devices.
Audience at Collaborative Solutions
We are advocates of project based learning (PBL), especially in STEM fields but PBL solutions should go further than simply using online delivery and interactive collaboration. When deployed to develop problem solving skills and improve understanding of how systems actually work, PBL solutions need to provide immediate feedback for students and educators.
The difficulty is that problems in the "real world" are often quite unpredictable and depend on factors that can be very hard to simulate in online only learning systems. This is not to say that online learning and computer programming are not powerful tools with which to build PBL solutions but when combined with with physical electronic projects where BitScope provides realtime feedback about project operation, these solutions become more powerful and engaging as students see how projects work and learn what may be wrong when projects do not work as expected.
There were a number of other interesting related projects presented. We'll blog about some of them soon.