3D Printing (Bonus tech toolkit)

3D printing is a technology that immediately made me think, "Wow. We're in the future."  I did recently learn that this technology was created in the 80's and simply was held back because of patents...but that only impressed me more! hopefully, now that those patents are expiring completely, we'll see a real 3D printing boom.

As you may have guessed, 3D printers are devices that can print actual 3D objects.  If you're not familiar with the technology this is a great short documentary on some of it's potential:


Obviously this technology is relatively expensive, but I think a several hundred dollar investment would be well worth the endless possibilities that come with being able to create real life objects with a printer. Not to mention, one popular company offers their printers with a "Buy 2 get 1 Free" deal for educational institutions.

When it comes to the potential classroom uses, as I mentioned before, the possibilities are endless. It might be tough to get our hands on a real fragile fossil, but we can 3D print a replica that school children can handle with no fear of damaging an expensive artifact.  We can print figurines for use in games or activities, or tools for very specific purposes.  I think part of the fun of a 3D printer would be bringing some of the children's ideas to life.

It's going to require a lot of new disciplines for me, but I really like the idea of creating open possibilities in the classroom. I like the idea of embracing tools that can make things possible that may have not been possible before. I imagine being able to take a childs idea, maybe about a strange structure or a small tool that they think could benefit them, and bringing them through the process of making it real.

As I observe more and more real life classroom hours, I've begun to realize that my assumptions of how teaching 'works' and how things happen need to be challenged and developed more, and I'm currently having trouble picturing specific paths because of this, but regardless I believe it's a tool thats adaptable enough to fit a lot of different goals and plans.

Digital signage in the classroom - with Enplug!

Enplug is a super simple digital signage software that's used in all sorts of places. I first saw it in the Goodwill store in Dinkytown where they use it to engage their customers with social media. The wedding venue I work in, also uses it so that guests can upload live photos and messages during a wedding. I've done more research into what it can do, and it turns out the answer is: a lot.

Enplug can be used for menus, social media feeds, graphics, news feeds and more.  I would mostly use the social media feed and graphics with the idea of having a constantly updating digital screen in the classroom that provides a fresh feed of content every day. It doesn't need to be a super fancy screen either, for the most part any t.v. screen would work.

The social media aspect would be used as a way to engage the kids with conversations taking place outside of the classroom. The nice thing with a system like Enplug is that it's filtered, and I can choose what content comes through from the vast unpredictable world of social media. I always imagine working with young kids, so this would be especially important for keeping offensive content out. As for the content that is let through, I can imagine a couple of fun educational uses.

The first would be in a sort of vocabulary capacity. The idea is for the students to choose specific words or subjects and to simply catch any content that is using those words or phrases. Depending on the subject matter, this could bring in some new ideas and interesting discussions.

Another option would be to have parents and students participate with a specific hashtag, and contribute content to a specific idea or project. This could be showing their families, their work, their home, something from home they are proud of, etc. It could be an ongoing show and tell project even. These screens wouldn't be part of an active lesson, but would instead create passive content for children to engage with before class, during recess/lunch, or even after school. If I can get kids to engage in the learning process outside of 'structured learning time,' then I think it would be an experiment that I'd consider a success.

The Great Gingerbread Man Escape!

I remember in first grade, around Christmas time, we were in school and got to make gingerbreadmen cookies. Everyone was excited to taste our creations - but the unthinkable happened. We returned to the school kitchen, and I knew something was wrong when I didn't smell any freshly baked gingerbread. My worst fears were confirmed when we opened the oven. The gingerbread were gone. The official story was a breakout. A mass escape. Some of the other kids accused instructors or even the lunch lady. "Gingerbread mans can't walk!" Nate Hazel proclaimed.  Regardless of what happened, we had to find them. We started searching different areas of the school, but went home that day empty handed. It was looking bleak, but on the chalkboard the next day we had our first clue. The principal's office. There we found a note left by gingerbread men themselves laying out their plans. They were going to hide above the chalkboard in our own classroom until they could escape! We returned to our classroom and found them lining the top edge of the chalkboard. It was way above our line of sight at the time, so they may have even been there the whole time. I'll never know. I still wonder, even though this all happened in December of 1999.

And now it's 2015, and I started thinking: How can I put a new twist an such a memorable classic? I have to come clean - this idea wasn't entirely my own, but a collaboration with my boyfriend who recently started working with the Raspberry Pi device that I discussed in my previous post.  It was also inspired by some of the concepts of gamification that I've been learning about as well. What if we can update the classic game of 'find the gingerbread man' to include technology?

The core technology behind this idea is called Near Field Communication, or NFC. The basics behind it are really simple. An NFC tag is an extremely thin small computer chip, and whenever an NFC capable device gets within an inch or so, it triggers a script on the device that can be used to launch a website, start a phone call, or simply to display a message.

The idea is still a little rough, but it goes a little something like this:
The day begins with the children making their gingerbread men and bringing them to the kitchen only to return later to find an empty cooking tray! Luckily, Ms. Gonsalez saves the day when she tells the children we can build a machine (a Ginger-tracker? a Cookie-Detector?) that can be used to track down the gingerbread men, but she can't do it on her own.

This would then lead into the very basic Raspberry Pi creation lesson, where the children work together to build this very simple device. Again, it's not important that the children actually attempt any complex processes like coding, or putting components together, what is important in this part of the lesson is the sense of accomplishment at having built a tech device to solve their problem, and the exposure to the idea of coding, computer science, etc. in the simple fact that it exists, and that they learn it's something they are capable of doing if it interests them. The idea is to end up with a device that looks like computer components put together. It looks like something we built in a classroom - something like this:

Once we have the device put together (again, this will be a really easy thing to do. I watched my boyfriend build a tiny photo booth in under 3 hours.) the tracking will begin.

The rules will be very simple. Over the next couple of days as the children move throughout the school they will keep their eyes open for any traces of the gingerbread men. I originally imagine they'll find laminated pieces of the gingerbread men (an arm that fell off, or a button, etc.) but there might be a better way to do it.(What would gingerbread footprints look like?)

When students spot these pieces they report back to the class, and we make our way out with the new device in hand. And this is where the NFC comes into play.

The tag will be hidden inside whatever clue is found, so when the device is powered on and makes contact the the clue, text will appear on the screen. Maybe it will give an exact location, or a general direction, or something else entirely, but the point is that each clue will bring the students one step closer to finding out what happened to the gingerbread men.

Of course once all the clues are found the final step is locating the gingerbread men themselves. That will be the ultimate reward for the children for a job well done, and will hopefully leave the children feeling like they actually participated and succeeded in finding the gingerbread men through their own actions.

The exercise won't only reward them with a mouthful of cookie and a fun memory, or at least that's what I am hoping. If everything goes as imagined they will be left with their exposure to the idea of how computers work, the confidence that building a machine is within their reach, and some experience and familiarity with the idea that technology can be used to interact with the real world.

I think exposing children to these wonderful ideas early is like planting a seed that has the potential to grow into something wonderful. It was simple experiences like these that I valued through the years, and looking back I think they had a great effect on me over time. It's hard to put into words but the memory of the hunt that I described above was a lot of fun, and over 15 years later I can't think about it without smiling. I hope I can give my students experiences that are that memorable, or even more so.

Everyone loves Raspberry Pi(e) - right?

Raspberry Pi

This weeks tech toolkit is going to go down a different path than my previous ones. This week I am going to talk about a relatively new product called the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a barebones, cost effective computer system that can run on very little power, and do very basic computer operations. It’s possible to build a camera, an alarm clock, a jukebox and more.

This is a little different in that I actually would be teaching the technology itself - however the takeaways for the students would be much more than that. As I dive deeper and deeper into the world of technology I’ve learned that coding is a very interesting way of solving problems. To code you first start with the idea of what you want to do, and then you dissect it into steps. Once you  know what steps and functions your idea needs you start creating, step by step, the code needed to do it.

A really basic example would be if you wanted to write a code that lit an LED up with red. First you have to tell the LED light to turn on. Next you need to tell it to turn red.  Two simple steps - but the point is to dissect every goal into manageable bite sized steps.

I think creating a jukebox or even alarm clock would be a bit too difficult and steep for any young student to take on by themselves, so I would implement this as a classwide collaborative project.  We would, as a class, decide what it is that we want to create. Do we want to create a button that plays a specific song? An alarm bell that goes off at lunch?

The idea behind this 'ideation phase' would be to allow the children to get creative. I can't even imagine what different things they would come up with that they'll want to create!  Once we dissect the ideas and land on an appropriate project (with a little teacher guidance, so we don't end up building a giant ninja robot) we'll move on to the next step.

The second phase would be the breakdown of the functions. If we are building an alarm clock what does that mean? It will need to know what time it is. How will it get that information? It will need to know what to display. It will need to know when to change. And it will need to know when to ring.

I would then separate the children into groups to do some research (these would be instructions that I provide) on how to write the code that will give them the result that they want. It's important to note that these pieces of code would be very simple and basic. I don't actually know anything about how to code yet, but I found this script online that would accomplish the 'alarm clock' task, and for the most part it's easy to intuitively get a sense of what code does what :

import time

import os

showhh = str(time.localtime().tm_hour)

showmm = str(time.localtime().tm_hour)

name = raw_input("Enter your name:")

print "Hello, " + name + "\n" + "Current Time:" + showhh + ":" + showmm

alarm_HH = raw_input("Enter the hour you want to wake up at:")

alarm_MM = raw_input("Enter the minute you want to wake up at:")

print "You want to wake up at " + alarm_HH + ":" + alarm_MM

def alarm():

   hh = time.localtime().tm_hour

   mm = time.localtime().tm_hour

   if hh == alarm_HH and mm == alarm_MM:

      print "ALARM NOW!"

       #os.system("mpg321 /home/pi/voltage.mp3")

   else:

       pass

  

def main():

   while True:

       alarm()

if __name__ == '__main__': main()

A lot of this code I wouldn't actually make the students write, because the actual code writing is not the most important part of the project.  By the end of the project the kids will have been exposed to the world of computer coding - hopefully enough for them to get a sense of if it intrigues them or not. I also hope that they get some valuable experience in a new kind of thinking, collaborating, and problem solving.

I think this kind of project is important because although it is highly technological and although it IS teaching the students 'how to use the technology', it also teaches them and exposes them to a whole new subject matter that they might not otherwise get to learn about or check out. I think we need to embrace and dive into technology as a teaching tool without being afraid of getting 'too technical' because I think that fear becomes evident to the students, and I certainly don't want to discourage them from diving into the subject just because it's intimidating and new to me!

Tech Tool Kit # 2

Tech Tool Kit #2 9/17/15

Cloud based communication has been growing exponentially throughout the years. From Dropbox, to Google, to Amazon, to Apple, there are many different ways for information to live on the cloud, and countless ways to access that information.

I envision the adoption of cloud based technology as something that will revolutionize education. The benefits of making information instantly available to everyone who could benefit from it are obvious, but the implementation is much more tricky. Identifying the ways that cloud based communication can increase classroom efficiency are tricky, and even trickier is figuring out the ‘how’ of that implementation.  

One current example of this is an app called ClassDojo (https://www.classdojo.com/) ClassDojo is an instagram-like service that allows teachers to share students work with their parents. According to teacher reviews, this app does a great job at encouraging active participation between school and home life. It also motivates the students to be more active because students know their parents will see their work. You can also push messages out to parents, and the app will notify you when a parent has read your message, or viewed your post.

Because this app is a mostly one way communication tool, it is very important for the teacher to use it consistently. Parents can show their appreciation with ‘hearts’, which are essentially the ClassDojo equivalent of Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, however they cannot write anything that other parents will see. This is a very important thing to consider, as ‘collaborative social media’ such as Instagram or Twitter invites everybody into the conversation - which would be important to me if I am dealing with a disgruntled or unstable parent.

For this technology to be beneficial there would be a crucial step at the beginning of every year to engage parents and convince them to download the app. It’s tough to anticipate how difficult this would be at first, but I believe with a positive history, good word of mouth, and consistent use, it would become easier to convince parents over time. It would be important for me to convince parents to download the app and participate, otherwise the technology becomes useless.

One plan for rolling out this app that I think is best for everybody is to take a ‘strength in numbers’ approach. If an entire school system uses a technology like this, and a parent is able to get updates on all of their children’s classes, including reminders for field trips, a communication channel to the instructors, and a direct feed of all classroom activities, then the value of the app to the parent grows exponentially as opposed to if it was just for one class.

With this in mind my first step would be to get the school board and other instructors on board to attempt a school-wide implementation, or at least create a plan for implementation over time.

This technology can be a great tool to benefit students in several ways, but again it only works if everyone is on board and puts forth the effort. I’m very interested in continuing to find ideas and ways for students to connect their school and home life for more immersive learning and more parental engagement, but the idea that the biggest obstacle will be teaching the other adults (parents and other instructors) is a bit daunting. It can be very difficult to change someone’s mind, or to convince them to try a new approach, especially if they are already doing what they perceive to be working well. The key here would be to convince them of the critical role that technology has in the classroom, and that adopting these changes will present challenges at first, but opens the door to a much better educational experience for everyone involved, and overall I think we can all agree that this is the number one priority.

Tech Tool Kit #1

Tech Tool Kit #1  9/3/15

If you haven't heard of Google Cardboard I would recommend looking into it. It's a simple device made from cardboard, a couple lenses and a magnet. You insert your smartphone and it becomes a virtual reality device that is both fun and engaging. We're talking about interactive 3D virtual reality! The thing I love about this technology is that you can take your students anywhere; an art museum, a historical site, into nature, or even underwater. A lot of the places that you're able to visit virtually are places that they've probably never been and might not ever visit, at least until they're much older. Google Cardboard could allow for a more engaging, more entertaining, way more memorable and immersive classroom! A major pro to google cardboard is that it's cost effective. A google Cardboard device only costs 15-23 dollars new, but it can easily be found used for much cheaper. However this does not include the cost of a smart phone that is required for the device. A con that still needs to be addressed is the issue of Google Cardboard requiring a smart phone. Where would I come up with smart phones for all of my students? Some students may have access to their own cell phones, however it would be supplemented to not exclude students who do not. Perhaps parents could send their student to school with their phone if possible, although this might be a challenge again if the family doesn't have a smart phone, or if they don't wish to part with their's for the day.

I would roll this out by introducing the technology to the students with a very exciting demo first to get them interested in using it. I think it could add immersion and activity to textbook lessons about history, geography, art etc. And let the children really see the scale of some of the places that are discussed. The technology is absolutely an integration tool, as the content is the same content you'd teach from a webpage or book, but with an amplified 3D, fully interactive experience. Of course some of the places to 'travel' to via Google Cardboard might not fit into lesson plans. Google Cardboard may not have a specific place or concept that I'll be teaching. I think Google Cardboard is more than just a teaching tool. I think it adds an interactive visual experience for restless students. I hope to one day teach 1st or 2nd graders, and I know that a lot of kids at that age have a lot of energy. I think Google Cardboard may act as a way for them to release some of that energy while learning. They can feel like thy are in a museum, aquarium or even outer space. They'll get to experience wonder IN the classroom.

 The device itself is extremely easy to use, and the set up and technical side of the technology is completely separate from the application. They aren't learning about 3D visual effects, accelerators in cell phones that track movement, or any other concepts of virtual reality, it is strictly an education based on the content that virtual reality provides.