bringing technology to #ISTE11

We've had some discussion in my office about what technology to bring to the ISTE conference. Here are my thoughts and what I'm bringing.

• iPad (or other tablet) for attending sessions
• with audiobooks, books, and videos
• laptop or netbook for writing and Skype/Google Talk
• iPod Touch for walking around at night, and probably for the plane rides
• also with audiobooks, books, and videos

Calling home:
Skype - for video calls between computers, iPad 2, iPhone, TVs, etc
Google Talk - free calls to Canada and US phones from within Gmail, free video calls to computers

And I'm leaving my phone at home, since even with a US plan it's still about $40 for 40 minutes and $30 for 0.01 GB of data.

While I'm at #ISTE11, I'll be posting to Twitter (@misterhay) and this blog.

amusement park accelerometer data

I collected some data with my phone accelerometer using the app AccDataRec. I've graphed all three axes on each of the spreadsheets in this Google Docs folder.

The best one is the Flying Galleon. I cropped off the messy data at the start and end so it's a nice sinusoidal curve.

Feel free to share and use these however you'd like.












This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Xbox 360 tool control mat

Inspired by a blog post about making tool control mats with a CNC router, I made a "tool" control mat for a video game club's shelf.

Using Inkscape I imported a vector drawing of the 360 gamepad by grumbel on the Open Clip Art Library as the basis for the outline of the controller, resized it to the dimensions on the Wikipedia page, and made 12 copies of it (since that's how many controllers the club owns).

The slots for the games were just rectangles using the dimensions from another Wikipedia article. I discovered that I had to convert these objects to paths (under the Path menu in Inkscape) before I saved the file as a DXF file (or PDF file, depending on which CAM program you're using).

I converted the drawing to G-code for a 1/2 inch end mill as a roughing pass, thinking that I'd then do a finishing pass with a smaller bit, but decided that it was good enough after the first pass. I milled it from two inch thick extruded polystyrene foam (Styrofoam), then cut it down to size on a radial arm saw (which explains the mistake you see on the side in this last photo).

Not bad for my first successful CNC project, if I do say so myself.

Edit: I also published this an an Instructable.

ideas of things to build

I have a number of projects on the back burner, or in most cases still in the cupboard, so I wanted to write some of them down here. You know, in case anyone is interested in helping or can point me to where these have already been constructed. Some are software, some are hardware, most are related to education.

1. web app for bulk deleting users from Google Apps for Education (using Google App Engine)
2. application allowing users to automatically add anyone who uses a particular hash tag to a Twitter list, similar to blastfollow (using Oauth, and perhaps Google App Engine or Chrome Web Store)
3. something similar to Blippy for automatic sharing of which library books you have signed out
4. an Android tablet app similar to Proloquo2Go for augmentative and alternative communication
5. interfacing Vernier probes and sensors with a LaunchPad or Teensy
6. locking shelf for securing (and syncing) multiple iPods in a classroom (using just a 2x4, a door hinge, and a lock plate)
7. iPad cart or shelf similar to the Bretford Mobility Cart
8. locking carrying case for six netbooks (for WISEST)
9. real time control of a Mitsubishi Movemaster RM-101 robot arm using a keyboard or joystick (in BASIC)

I'm no Ben Heck, so I'd appreciate any help or direction with any of these.

iPad Guitar with Mega Bloks

Playing with Mega Bloks tonight with my kids, I remembered Brian Tong mentioned on Buzz Out Loud about iPad GarageBand needing a guitar-shaped case. So we built something.

(Dis)Assembly video

Maybe I'll build something out of wood after GarageBand comes out. With pegs for a guitar strap.

---

Update I've built a better version.

recommended podcasts

A few podcasts that teachers may be interested in listening to:

Technology: This Week in Tech

Science: Quirks and Quarks, Science Update

Social Studies: Stuff You Missed in History Class

Math: Math Grad

English Language Arts: CSTW Writers Talk

Arts: CBC Arts Podcasts

Medicine: White Coat, Black Art

This is just a preliminary list to get you started, there are certainly others. Feel free to comment if there are others that you listen to.

levels of writing

In the literature world there are levels of writing and levels of reputability; for example a magazine article is different from an essay or a short story. I've been thinking about how there is a similar hierarchy online. Maybe blog posts tend to be more reputable than Facebook updates, which are higher quality than Twitter tweets.

And I'm not just saying this because my father blogs and mother-in-law uses Facebook, a researcher recently found, in a pilot study, that Facebook increases your IQ while Twitter probably weakens your working memory.

Perhaps all reading is not good reading.

Canadian copyright law consultation

If you are a Canadian, now is the time to make your voice heard on the topic of copyright law. The government has set up a site for public consultation at copyright.econsultation.ca.

The site is a little awkward to use, but I think it's worth it.

we use iPods differently

I had a conversation with a colleague this morning about student iPod use, and it came up that we (adults) tend to use iPods and other mp3 players differently than students do.

For students, iPods in class tend to be distractions and an escape. This is likely the source of teachers' objection to these devices, that they detract from student learning.

For teachers themselves, or at least for me, an mp3 player is more of a professional development device. I'm usually listening to podcasts, lectures, and audiobooks, and many of these are education, or at least technology, related.

And I don't listen to my iPod in class.

Facebook fan pages

If you are, like some schools, using social networking with your students, Facebook fan pages may be a better way to go than "friending" your students. Having students as fans rather than friends means you have more control over the interactions and you can't see their status updates, or in fact any of their private information.

Of course a Ning or even a Moodle would probably be a better idea for online social network-style interactions with students, but that would mean another login for them and for you. These are also less likely to be blocked by your school district's network policies. This is still relatively uncharted territory, though, so it is recommended that you proceed with caution.

thoughts on student laptop use

Last year I was able to briefly (for one unit of study) have a laptop for every student in my Science 14 class, and I had scribbled down some thoughts about a computer for every student in a non-academic class. I didn't do anything groundbreaking with them, the students basically used them for note taking, worksheets, and viewing the textbook's CD-based animations.

Using them every day is different from "computer lab" time.
Assignments are much neater and easier to mark.
There is a broad range of typing skills and technology comfort levels.
Motivation is increased, probably because it's something new and it shows that the teacher cares to do something different.
Perhaps a system could be used for "chat style" feedback during lectures.
Access to the Internet can be a distraction.
Power issues come up (extension cords and batteries).
They like mice rather than touchpads or eraserheads.
Desk space is an issue, textbooks ended up in their laps.
There are some digital textbooks available as PDFs or applications.
They sometimes get confused when you call them notebooks instead of laptops.
Many of them like to customize the colours, fonts, etc. of the OS and their documents.
Worksheets are all in their document folders ahead of time, this means less printing and I don't have to make sure I have each day's assignment ready to hand out.
I don't usually give them a copy of the PowerPoint notes, perhaps that's something to try.
Some students work on the worksheets while taking notes, and/or copy and paste from their notes into their worksheets.

Those were my thoughts, it will be interesting to see how this changes with things like 1:1 projects and allowing student laptops on the school wifi.

photo mosaics

If you're looking for a different way to present photos, especially on posters, AndreaMosaic is a free photographic mosaic creation program. It's great for sports teams, international field trips, or even for the school yearbook.

Basically you give it the image that you want to create, then a lot of other images to use as tiles. There are a few settings to tweak if you'd like, and the images it creates are very cool.


On the Mac, there's a similar program called MacOSaiX.

asynchronous interactions and personal Internet use

One of my favourite things about using "user generated content" or "web 2.0" tools for education is that it allows for asynchronous interactions with (and between) students. They can ask questions or even just interact with the course content any time they have an Internet connection. Not that these sorts of tasks can't be accomplished using email and basic web pages, but allowing the students more power and responsibility for things like editing a wiki can perhaps encourage motivation.

A related issue, though, is how many of these tools are blocked by school networks. My district has been very good about allowing YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter, and others, but I imagine that is not the case everywhere. It would be interesting to have a study done on the educational impact of allowing different types of sites in a school situation, similar to a study that found employess who use the Internet for personal reasons are 9% more productive.

audiobooks and podcasts

Our school library is starting an audiobook collection, as the start of a digital collection, and we were thinking to start with some creative commons and public domain titles.

I've mentioned before about some sources we use for free content, but I wanted to be a little more specific about some of the resources we're looking at for starting the digital collection.

Librivox - volunteer-read public domain works
Spoken Alexandria Project - creating audio books of creative commons works
Podiobooks - free serialized audio books
Lit2Go - a free online collection of audio stories and poems
Project Gutenberg - human read public domain audio books
X Minus One - a series of science fiction radio plays, not technically audio books
Cory Doctorow - an author who creative commons licenses his works, a number of them have been recorded as audio books by him or by fans

everyone's a geek

I've been thinking again lately that the bar for being a geek is continually being raised. It used to be that having an email address was enough to qualify you as a geek, back when we spelled it e-mail. But now everyone has an email address (although it seems that some are using IM, txt, Facebook, Twitter, et al more than email). We've seen a transition from encyclopedias on paper to CDs, then to the Internet. Almost everybody gets information, news, and videos from the Internet. Libraries have audio books, ebooks, and such in their digital collections. Regular people carry around digital music players, digital cameras, smart phones, and laptops.

So what does it take to be a geek these days?

crowdsourcing

I've noticed a recent trend of crowdsourcing amoung regular people (by which I mean non-geeks) on sites like Facebook as well as on blogs.  My wife's friends will post something like, "what's a good movie for us to watch tonight" or "I have to make supper with ground beef, what to you recommend" and they'll get a douzen responses pretty quickly.

I've been thinking about how to incorporate this into a classroom context.  Of course during regular classroom lectures I'll solicit responses from the students, but we're talking about more asynchronous interactions.  I've experimented with vocabulary wikis and forums, but students don't seem to be motivated unless there are marks associated with it.  As I see it, the motivations for responding to crowdsourcing requests are likely the desire to help, and to have your voice/opinions heard, so the challenge for us is to tap into that to get students engaged in the content.

Instructable - repairing Rock Band instruments

I've written a brief Instructable about some quick and cheap repairs and modifications we've made to our Rock Band (video game) instruments.

electronics kits

If you have students starting to solder and want to teach them a little about circuit design, I'd like to recommend the kits at http://ladyada.net/make/ . They are relatively simple to construct, if you students can solder a cable end, they should be able to follow the (excellent) instructions on the site and make a usable device. I recommend the MintyBoost kit, athough the TV-B-Gone is not much more difficult and seems to be somewhat more popular with the kids.

Make a lighted button out of an LED puck lamp

I've made a few of these for some classes at my school.



In case you're curious, here's the Instructable.

a gadgeteer

I'm somewhat biased, of course, but I think it's important to have someone in your school who is somewhat of a gadgeteer. Not that they need to always have the latest stuff, but it is good to have someone in the building that people can chat with in the staff room about technology in education, the gadgets that the students are using, or just about recommendations for a laptop for them to buy for at home.

Usually this sort of thing happens naturally, that there is some geek (or nerd) who fills this role, but sometimes this needs to be encouraged.