Meet the Hosts of Family Maker Camp
Empire State Maker Faire 2020
October 16th-17th
This March when schools closed across the country, Family Maker Camp stepped in to fill the void. At the helm were a team of maker educators serving as hosts, offering inspiration, encouragement, and support for kids across the world. Each week they joined Make online to provide exciting and engaging projects through social media and the maker Camp website. Though the spring and summer, these makers gave their time and expertise to their community. By the end of the season, 50 makers had created over 200 free online sessions.
In this Meet the Hosts session we'll share our experiences learning at home and online, offer ideas and support for making with your family, and answer questions from the audience. Our hosts are educators and parents just like you. This special session will include Maker Camp hosts Sandy Roberts of Kaleidoscope Enrichment, Andy Forest of Steamlabs, author, artist, and educator Kathy Ceceri, Michael Carroll of Scrappy Circuits, and Kelsey Derringer and Matt Chilbert of Code Joy.
Sandy Roberts
Sandy Roberts earned her B.S. in Chemical Biology from Stevens Institute of Technology with a Minor in Literature and Certificates in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science. After working in both publishing and pharmaceutical research for several years, she changed careers and became a middle school science, math, and engineering teacher. In addition to a formal classroom, she owns Kaleidoscope Enrichment, LLC, offering after school, homeschooling, and other local programs. Recently, she became the Makerspace Coordinator for the Warren County, NJ Library System and founded the system’s first Makerspace. Roberts regularly brings her Maker Camp projects to MakerFaire in New York and has earned multiple ribbons for her team’s work. She’s also presented at Maker Faire three times, sharing her Maker Camp success tips with fellow educators.
https://www.kaleidoscopeenrichment.com/
Kathy Cerceri
Kathy Ceceri is an award-winning writer, instructional designer, and Maker, with a focus on science, technology, history, and art. The author of more than a dozen books featuring hands-on STEAM activities, Kathy travels throughout the Northeast and around the country presenting workshops for students, teachers, and families. In addition to programs at schools, museums, and libraries, she creates learning materials for STEM programs that serve local communities as well as national organizations. They include the Girl Scouts of the USA, where she helped create a series of robotics badges and worked on teaching guides for regional cybersecurity competitions. Kathy lives along the Hudson River in Upstate New York.
https://www.kathyceceri.com/
Andy Forest
As a technologist and entrepreneur, I've built hundreds of solutions for clients. Machine learning algorithms, interactive electronic installations, educational games and websites. People come to me to build them something amazing. This led to teaching at colleges in Toronto to help others build and participate in our increasingly digital world. When I had kids, I realized that the education system was not adequately preparing them for this world. For 21st century digital citizens, rote learning needed to be replaced with creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. My passion and purpose became to nurture these skills first in my kids, and then the world's kids. My medium for this is science and technology. As an early pioneer in connected learning, I have been given many awards and invited to speak at many events around the world.
https://steamlabs.ca/
Michael Carroll
Michael Carroll is a third grade teacher at Overlook Elementary School. He has a passion for low-cost, high-tech projects so ALL students can learn about making and science. Michael is the writer of the first Dewey Mac Maker Mystery called Dog Gone Dog. It's a story about Dewey and his best friend Ched. They are horrible detectives, but great friends. Dewey is a young inventor who builds gadgets throughout the story. They often result into the two getting into more trouble than finding clues. More information and instructions for all of the gadgets can be found at www.deweymac.com.
https://www.scrappycircuits.com/home
Matt Chilbert
Matt is a filmmaker, educator and tinkerer with a passion for learning and entertainment.
https://codejoyeducation.com/
Kelsey Derringer
Kelsey is an educator, maker, and writer with a passion for learning and sharing best practices in teaching with technology.
https://codejoyeducation.com/
