BY SYDNEY HOOVER
Eudora teachers and students will soon have a new tool to enhance remote learning through Zoom.
The Eudora Schools Foundation is funding the printing of around 2,000 mirrors that attach to a computer camera to reflect a worksheet, book or other material without inverting it.
The frame is created with a 3D printer. Then a mirror slides inside the frame to reflect the document into the camera and onto Zoom. In total, the foundation is spending $1,300, plus a gift in kind, to make the mirrors.
“Whether it's the district side or the foundation side, we're constantly working together to try to really listen to our teachers and help fulfill their needs,” Hurla said.
Hurla first heard of the idea from Eudora High School chemistry teacher Morning Pruitt. Pruitt saw a similar tool on the Kansas Educators Facebook page and thought it could help students in Eudora with learning if schools were to go back to a remote model.
Pruitt said she’s lucky to have her own document camera to help with teaching remotely, especially when working through complex problems and characters in chemistry. For teachers who haven’t invested in a document camera, though, the mirrors are a cheap alternative to help with learning over Zoom.
“Sometimes just writing [problems] out carefully and slowly and having kids see how you're putting things together and ask questions as you're doing it, it kind of works a little bit easier,” Pruitt said.
The frames are also flexible to work with different devices like Chromebooks or iPads, Hurla said, and can help with not only math or science work but also with reading stories or working on handwriting.
With the help of Eudora Elementary art teacher Kania Shain, who has a 3D printer in her classroom, the foundation was able to print a prototype of the mirror.
“This was certainly something that the 3D printer could be used for that would benefit students and teachers during this time, so it certainly had a win-win aspect to it,” Shain said.
Each mirror frame takes around three hours to print, and because of the size of Shain’s printer, only a few could be completed each day. Now, the frames are printed in bulk by Jason Rugg, owner of J&J 3D Print Life in Bonner Springs. Rugg can make nine frames at once in each of his nine printers, and each one takes around two hours.
Rugg said in one week, he was able to produce around 100 frames for Hurla, who then took them back to the foundation to assemble the mirror and add a Cardinal sticker on the back. Rugg is donating some of the printed resources to the schools.
Remote learning teachers and students have first priority in getting the mirrors, but eventually Hurla said she hopes to get some to all staff and students in the district. Remote learning students will receive their mirror when they pick up weekly materials, and other students will receive them during an in-person learning day.
Shain said as Eudora Elementary went to entirely remote learning last week, she could see the impact the mirrors could make on teachers’ and students’ abilities to learn if the schools were to go back to a remote learning model.
“It gave the teachers a tool that they could be teaching in real time to their students,” Shain said. “And the same with [when] we get the [mirrors] in the hands of the students. Teachers can see in real time how a student is working a math problem and where they might have an issue.”
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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