We can rebuild it!

I am not sure if the part pictured below sheared due to user error (me doing something silly) or if the part that we received was a sub-par print.  Either possibility is as likely as the other.  But, it is all part of the build experience.  Actually as I type this, one of my students is resolutely tearing down the x-idler and x-idler motor mount to recover all of the hardware.

I was worried about these parts from the start, as they have a VERY thin wall, and one or two of the bolts pulled through the plastic when we were installing the stainless steel rods on the x-axis.  My plan was to print replacement parts as soon as we got ABS printing nicely.  Sadly, that did not happen before this part failed.

The great news in this 3D printer repair can be done with the help of . . . a 3D printer.  One of the parents at my school has been very helpful in getting us started, and he has agreed to print out the needed parts and we should be operational as soon as we receive them.

Google’s Developers Conference

Today I am trying to keep an eye on the coverage of the three-hour keynote that will begin around noon today.  Google I/O is really for the developers, but this is the place where they announce the newest developments in the Google Platform for the upcoming year.  I am looking forward to hearing about moves forward in Chrome OS and Android, always on the lookout for how those products may impact the Educational Technology market in the next few years.

Last year the folks at Google set a pretty high bar with their skydiving introduction of Project Glass, which is slow coming to market, but we are slowly learning more and more about.  This seems to be the year of wearable technology, and a heads-up display has interesting implications about what we call a computers.  Predictive search and just-in-time information is the direction that his is headed.  This year should prove to be pretty interesting, but I will be disappointed if nobody bungee jumps into Moscone center.

The Canadian ISS Commander, Chris Hadfield and two crewmates returned safely to earth yesterday aboard a Soyuz capsule in Khazakstan after five months aboard the International Space Station.  Congratulations to Commander Hadfield and the crew of Expedition 35 for their commitment to science and technology and for sharing that passion with a whole new generation of  explorers who are casting an eye skyward.

Social Media in Space

Commander Hadfield was possibly the most prolific user of Social Media from space that we have ever seen, posting countless youtube videos about life in zero gravity, and the science that is going on aboard the ISS.  He used twitter and Reddit to interact with thousands of fans around the world.  More than anyone in recent memory, Chris has inspired the imagination of a generation of kids to look toward space and imagine what the future there holds.

It seems that Nasa too is learning to use these new high tech tools to communicate about the Science happening with the Space program as thousands of space-eyed landlubbers watched the Curiosity Rover touch down in the middle of the night, and follow the first-person tweets from Mars.

Best (First) Music Video in Space

But this is my favorite part of all.

“Sorry, College Grads, I Probably Won’t Hire You . . .”

Kirk McDonald writes in the Wall Street Journal that a basic level in computer code literacy is rapidly becoming a must-have skill for entry-level jobs, and MANY college graduates are attempting to enter technology-driven fields without taking the time to learn how to be conversant about coding, what an API is and does, how basic computer logic works, write a little python.

From the article:

According to one recent report, in the next decade American colleges will mint 40,000 graduates with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, though the U.S. economy is slated to create 120,000 computing jobs that require such degrees. You don’t have to be a math major to do the math: That’s three times as many jobs as we have people qualified to fill them.

Schools Must Push This Message

We are working on it, but it is taking time to change cultural impressions of what matters.  STE(A)M programs push engineering, but most people don’t first jump to software engineer when they thing of STEM.  Many are in the traditional mindset of what the word engineer means.  A big push has to be down the pipeline to encourage schools, teacher training programs and  STEM programs, kids of all backgrounds to embrace programming as a vital skill for the future.

A couple of groups are already working on this, but they need more visibility.  The two that I have my eye on this afternoon are:

Code.org brings together cultural, industry and political leaders to encourage kids to learn to code, and to bring coding to High Schools around the country.  The site also links to different resources and communities for getting started in coding.

Girls Who Code aims to provide computer science education and exposure to 1 million young women by 2020.

Together with leading educators, engineers, and entrepreneurs, Girls Who Code has developed a new model for computer science education, pairing intensive instruction in robotics, web design, and mobile development with high-touch mentorship and exposure led by the industry’s top female engineers and entrepreneurs. In its inaugural program, Girls Who Code empowered young women from New York City’s five boroughs and will launch programs in New York, Detroit, San Francisco, and San Jose in 2013.

Warning: possible overstatement above.

Everything about this story is so right it hurts.  I want Jennie Lamier, 17 year old coder, to be a role-model to my daughters and kids everywhere who are getting started in technology.  Jennie was the only female to enter the TVHack event in Boston this April, and presented her awesome project.  Her winning project “Twivo” is a way to filter out spoilers from your Twitter feed for those of us who like to time-shift our TV viewing.  In effect, fixing the Internet!

What a great story to read, about a young person striking out and being successful in the field that she is passionate about.  Good work Jennie, and keep on inspiring young women to follow you into hacking & coding!

Edit: Note to self — make this happen — > http://www.girlswhocode.com/

The GIMP grows up!

After a long-time in the making re-image of my MacBook Pro, I have begun the epic journey of re-installing some of my go-to programs as the need arises, and making some exciting discoveries along the way.  Today I was delighted to learn that the most current release of my favorite Photoshop alternative now runs as a Native OSX app!  No more having to remember to use control instead of the normal OSX command key, no bulky bloated X11 hanging out on the dock reminding you why your computer is so laggy! (Apparently this happened in August, but I am just getting around to installing this new build now.)

For years I have been an avid user of the open-source GIMP software (GNU  Image Manipulation Program) as an alternative to Photoshop.  Even though I have had an Educationally Licensed copy of PS on my machine.   I can’t really speak with any authority as to the actual replacement value of GIMP over Photoshop, but for what I need, the program is perfect.  Today I was able to install it on OSX without tracking down some outdated version of X11, dealing with the bloat and headache of that mess.

Installing and maintaining X11 is such a high barrier that it rendered GIMP out of bounds for regular computer users.  It was not something that I felt comfortable inflicting on others.

 This XKCD.org comic sums up how I feel about X11.

Adobe’s new pricing & the open-source market

This week, Adobe announced new subscription only pricing plans for its suite of Adobe products that knock a  dilettante like me right out of the market of these professional-level tools.  Adobe’s products are EXPENSIVE at the best of times, but I still have a copy of CS3 knocking around in the office, and if I really needed to use it I could get by on that old-familiar platform.  Lots of budding artists don’t bother upgrading, or stretch to make their old copy of Creative Suite work until they can save up for new products.

I don’t really disagree with Adobe’s strategy, and I tend to side with CNET’s Stephen Shankland who calls this “not very greedy” noting that over a three year period this means that top-level talent gets the latest updates, and pays less than purchasing each new version of Creative Suite.  But it isn’t the top-talent that I worry about.  I worry about the young kid trying to learn the ropes, about the young struggling freelancer who can’t shell out that kind of cash up front.

I presume that Adobe will continue it’s aggressive educational licensing discounts, but does this make space for the Open Source world to grow?

A growth opportunity for programs like GIMP?

My hope is that this shift in the way that Adobe is pricing will incentivize GIMP and similar products to fill out the niche for high-quality, clean-installing software that can build the skills needed for young designers and creators (and dabbling educators)!

A quick post  with some snapshots of our Innovation Greenhouse Club’s 3D Printer build.  Shooting for a mid-April wrap up of the build process!

I’m also testing out a Google Plus Album importer plugin — for the full album with Captions visit the Album on Google Plus:

TAP

It’s a mathy week at mrplatts.com! It must be the scent of PSSA testing in the air!

Is Game Learning finally coming to maturity?

I will admit to being a skeptic of the idea of game-based learning in the past.  I’m not saying that the concept is bad, but some of the early examples of game-based learning that I have seen were a clumsy implementation of traditional practice problems into a virtual environment.

A game-based masterpiece!

DragonBox is a paid app available on more or less every platform, from iOS, Android, Mac or Windows, it’s out there for the device that you have.  The main idea of Dragonbox is that you are presented with two “sides” and your job is to manipulate the cards on each side until you have isolated the “Dragon Box” on one side.  You idolate the X, by following certain rules — each card has a “night” card version, that when you put it with it’s opposite, creates a Vortex that will vanish when you touch it. Other rules are slowly added into the game as you play.

It feels like playing Angry Birds, or Cut the Rope, with all the polish of a hit entertainment app, but is obviously (eventually) geared to teach the fundamental concepts of Algebra to kids.

At $5.99 I though it was a bargain, especially when you compare it to the price of other educational materials available for my preschoolers .

The best way to understand is to watch the gameplay:

And Suddenly  . . . Algebra!

The beauty of this game is the slow reveal of actual algebra in each chapter — eventually kids need to realize that the vortex is no longer a swirling green blob, but is a zero, which behaves in the same way.  Likewise, the DragonBox becomes an x (which still has a halo of sparkles, so it is pretty clear what to do next) — this slow reveal is key because eventually you want kids associating the basic algebraic skills that they are building (while having fun) to be tied to actual numbers and variables.

My Test Subjects!

“Daddy!  How ’bout I play DragonBox for a while?”  – In an experiment on how young this game could go, I enlisted my always willing and close at hand focus group: my three & five year old.

Whoa.  They love the game.  The concept of “night cards” as negatives is very approachable by kids of all ages. The simple and easy to follow rules, along with a fun, easily playable experience makes the game captivating.  With a little bit of help and some fun time playing together, my oldest is proud to have completed chapter 3, and the little one is working on  chapter 2.

I suspect that as we get into some of the more complicated concepts, like breaking up a bonded (multiplication) card with the same card below, we may run into more challenges, but Nora (5) is powering through that  already.  Valerie (3) seems to always come along and bring her best at whatever big sis is working with.

Really?

No, I am not naive enough to think that my kids will be doing Algebra before entering Kindergarden (though sometimes I wonder) — but why not give all the opportunities that I can to making math fun, interactive, and to encourage a little bit of struggle, and hard-thinking through how to solve a problem.

My verdict

A win for game-based learning! But I think it could do more — in an instructional environment I would love to have access to the data that is generated by this game.  You could really build a pretty telling picture (beyond the three-star rating) by collecting the frequency and types of errors, the amount of time that students spend considering the problem before attempting could all come into play.

My techy math friend  and colleague Andy Lucas passed me an awesome link this morning, with a warning: “Do not open unless you have an hour to waste.”  Of course, it is a flash-based geometry game, with all the trimmings of a challenging, engaging and fun game experience.  And to top it off, your score gets ranked agains the actual performance of others.

The basic idea of the game is to eyeball geometric tasks, like finding a right-angle, or bisecting an angle, or finding an equidistant point in a triangle, or the centerpoint of a circle. I discovered that I am pretty good at bisecting angles, not terribly bad at finding the center of a triangle, but pretty miserable at making parallelograms or right angles.  Which may explain why I am not a carpenter.

Play it yourself: http://woodgears.ca/eyeball/index.html

I could see this being a fun and educational way to engage some students as a “sponge” activity for a Math class focusing on geometry.

I was sent an email by Professor Mueller at CalU, with whom I will be working this weekend on developing some integration of Aerial Photography into our middle school curriculum through a project done by the Innovation Greenhouse.

Today is Earth Observation Day, an outreach of the Americaview in engaging students in remote sensing and earth observation as an educational tool in the classroom.

Innovation Greenhouse students are exceited to get started on our quest to launch a camera on a baloon high above Fort Couch Middle School and then to gather, analyze, and present the data that they gather.  This is an exciting hands-on tie in across many areas of our curriculum including:

• Our Changing Earth – 7th grade science
• Man’s Impact on Earth – 7th grade MYP guiding question
• The growth of cities (Pittsburgh and our local area in particular) – 7th grade Social Studies
• Earth Science – 8th Grade

Unfortunately a global helium shortage is limiting the number of flights that we will be able to make, but that too, seems like a fairly relevant social studies tie-in for the project.

Pictures to be posted here soon!