I have to confess that I was never a big Lego kid.  I don't know if I just didn't have the patience or my parents just never thought to get those for holidays, birthdays, etc., but I never gave them much thought.  I'm starting to wish I had, though, because the possibilities are endless!  Through the generosity of several people on Donorschoose.org, I was able to procure six Lego Education sets.  These collections are great.

They come with hundreds of specialized lego pieces, as well as, a motor which adds movement to the mix.  I dove in right away during a planning period and created a windmill.

It's a little difficult to see from my camera phone, but the weight in the back lowers, which powers several gears to spin the windmill blades. Needless to say, I was hooked.

My plan has been to introduce students to robotics by using these kits.  I was originally worried that students would find them to be too "young," but that hasn't been the case.  There has been a lot of interest in the projects.  By far, the most popular has been this crane.

My students also just completed this amazing pendulum clock:

These projects have been a wonderful start to our robotics club.  Currently, students are creating these simple machines using instructions provided in the kits (think IKEA meets Lego).  The next step is to have students design their own machines using the sets.  From there, it's a short jump up to using Lego NXT Mindstorms (, which requires computer programming.  Once they are comfortable with that relatively simple system, we'll take the real plunge and crack open our brand new Vex set.

I can't wait to show off what we make next.

FYI: A student looking over my shoulder has just informed me that you never add an "s" to the end of the word "Lego."  Apparently, I'm going to have to do a push-up every time I say the word "Legos."

I was very excited about using Minecraft in my classroom, but I was not prepared for the shear level of excitement its inclusion would bring.  As a long time gamer myself, I was familiar with Minecraft, but I hadn't spent any real time immersed in its blocky landscape.  For the uninitiated, Minecraft is an open-world game in which players explore, mine, and add to a world.

The world is constructed entirely from cube-shaped blocks of various material (dirt, sand, stone, wood, etc.).  As the player, you can "mine" these blocks and re-position them into any configuration.  Of course, some enterprising players have created some truly awe-inspiring structures using Minecraft.  The pictures below is constructed from thousands upon thousands of blocks.

My initial concerns centered on the fact that Minecraft is nothing like Call of Duty, Madden Football, or any of the other games my students report to play in their spare time.  I wasn't too surprised to find that a few students had played the game on their own, but I was unprepared for the response of the rest of my class.

I know it's going to sound like exaggeration, but I have never seen students so happy and motivated in all my years of teaching.  The laughter and smiles continued unabated for an entire hour and a half.   In future updates, I look forward to sharing the projects we're working on with Minecraft.

If anyone out there wants to discuss how to use Minecraft in their classrooms, I have been made a true believer, and would be happy to share my experiences in more depth.