the STEM room

Moving over to Jux

2013-01-29T07:42:00.000-06:00

Well guys - it's been a while since I've posted anything here (such is the life of a blog, eh?) - and I've decided to move my content over to the new platform Jux. We'll see how it goes, check it out yourself: https://qd.jux.com

-Q

Space Jump: Inspiring a new generation of big thinking?

2012-10-17T16:39:00.000-05:00

If you missed last weekend's "space jump" (Felix Baumgartner's jump from 128,000 feet above New Mexico), you really missed quite the generation-inspiring event. On an otherwise unimportant Sunday afternoon I tuned to the Discovery Channel after watching a forgettable show with my wife expecting to see some pretty-cool daredevil type event. As soon as the channel was flipped we were presented with a seated Felix who had already ascended to a remarkable 117,000 feet and who apparently had been sitting in that position for over 2 hours on his journey up. Thanks to the on-screen information (which was wonderfully presented in both U.S. customary and SI (metric) units) we were well aware of Felix's altitude, flight time, cabin pressure, and the incredibly harsh outside environment (essentially zero pressure and very, very cold).

Do you remember the last time NASA live-streamed a camera view from inside the space shuttle while simultaneously commenting on the extreme danger with which the subjects of that view were then presented?

At that moment I became quite aware of a couple things: this was no "pretty-cool daredevil" type event - this was seriously perilous, and an incredible feat of engineering. RedBull has been working on this project for the healthy part of a decade - this is something no one has ever, ever done before, and the highest any other man has come to such a thing was in 1960.

1960 - the inaugural year in a pretty good decade for space stuff as it turns out. The decade that Kennedy said this:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" - John F. Kennedy, 1962

The same decade that we actually went to the moon. The decade that this country was captivated by the extraordinary achievement of science and engineering. The horror of the first Apollo test (later named Apollo 1) which ended in a cabin fire and the loss of the crew was honored not by a near-decade-long review of safety protocol but by the subsequent victory over the prevailing challenges and at length an actual landing on the moon.

When Columbia disintegrated over the Texas skies I was a student participating in a high school debate tournament, and "Space" was a last-page mention (at best) in most newspapers across the country. Space shuttles were going to space, regularly, and most people had no idea. NASA was a line item in a government budget relegated to the backs of everyone's mind. Somewhere, somehow, since 1960 this country no longer thought big. Truly, the Columbia disaster was the most publicity NASA had received in years; it really is no wonder then why so many had (have) a negative view of space sciences and would rather have that line cut from their tax strains.

For years the government reviewed the tragedy while the public marveled at how such a horrible thing - the death of several fine men and women - could ever happen. Many thought how possibly NASA could survive if such things from them were to be expected. But then - the death of a few men and women has never been reason to shut down the military, or public transportation; why now should such deaths kill a program which costs the taxpayer orders-of-magnitudes less than either of those items?

Well, quite simply: space didn't matter. The achievement of going to the moon was just not that big of a deal. Building a space station cooperatively with the rest of the world was just not worth the sacrifice of a handful of people. Of the important things, the great ideas, the big thinking that was going on in this country - space was just not welcome as one.

So Sunday, sitting there next to my wife, watching Felix sitting in a tiny balloon carriage 20-something miles above the Earth, I was shocked. Shocked to see someone taking a chance; shocked to find an organization willing to broadcast live, to the rest of the world, that hey - this is a really big deal. For the first time in a long time, I was on the edge of my seat for what was a public demonstration of nothing more than incredible engineering and blatant, ballsy human curiosity. This was freaking awesome.

When Felix started depressurizing the cabin, I was struck by thoughts of his suit exploding - did they design it right? Does RedBull know what they are doing here? It's a vacuum out there! Good gracious this could be really, really bad!

From time to time Felix wouldn't respond to the commands of his land bound counterparts - was he listening? Was he having second thoughts? Was he going to make it?

When the door of his little capsule finally opened, an icy-mist blew into the cabin and a striking view of the Earth emerged. I can only imagine what Felix thought as he saw our little globe through that doorway. Completing the checklist, standing out on the limb, miles above where any man had ever before jumped, Felix said these words:

"Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are" - Felix Baumgartner, 2012

And then he jumped. He vanished to a dot below the door in just a few seconds. The ground-based cameras followed his descent but soon showed he was spinning quite quickly. Can his body take it? Was he going to die? Am I actually watching a man's life come to an end on live television?

Quite honestly this was the most dramatic, heart-pounding, suspenseful event I've seen in many, many years. I can only imagine what the Apollo 13 adventure was to the audience of that time; but in my imaginings it was not to dissimilar from what I felt watching Felix fall from that balloon.

Finally he steadied and in just a few moments he was back on the ground, alive. Felix did it; RedBull did it; and a ton of people saw it happen.

This was a scientifically significant event - the data gathered from this experiment will help us in our development of high altitude escape mechanisms, balloon flight, and space-suit technology among many other things. But more important than the data gleaned is the profound sense of "that was awesome" that has hopefully struck many, many children across the world.

For the first time in a long while people are talking about space, about engineering, and about taking risks for science. I truly believe this "space jump" has inspired a new generation of curious boundary pushers. We can only hope that others like RedBull and Felix will pick up the flag dropped sometime after the 1960's and push our imagination back into space.

Space is a big deal, not a line item. We need more of this and more of that kind of thinking. If you haven't seen the video, you must.

Leap Motion: Any Surface is a Touch Surface

2012-10-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

If you are just dying to get a Promethean board, or a Smart Board, or any other sort of large "touch screen surface" and have been yelling at some administrative contact for years now to get one, you may want to hold on for just a minute. Personally, I think the large, expensive, and immobile "smart boards" are anything but smart choices for your classroom. I can only imagine what our district paid to have one of these in each math and science classroom, at every school, but I'm sure it was quite the pretty penny. My experience with the technology has left a resounding "meh, whatever" in my head and I would counsel districts who are contemplating such a purchase to seriously reconsider.

In line with what I see as a ubiquitous problem in schools today - most teachers and districts blindly buy "cool" technology and hoping to fix problems extant in their rooms. If the tech is cheap - sure give it a shot - but more often than not it is expensive and wholly not worth that expense.

Enter the Leap Motion. What we have here is a compact replacement for the smart boards of the world. Essentially you'll be able to place this, well, anywhere and turn the 'air' above the device into a "touch region." Walls, screens, TV, whiteboards, hallways, or even open space could be turned into touch surfaces in a snap. Check out the promo here:

If you're not convinced that this can step into the role of the "next-gen smart board" check out the price: $70. That's right, for the price of your kids next X-Box game (that you really shouldn't buy anyway), you get touch-screen capabilities anywhere you want. You can buy more than one, chain them together, and turn entire walls into touch regions.

The catch? Well, it's not available, not yet anyway. The Leap devices should start shipping early next year, just in time for your 2013-2014 budget plans and you can already pre-order them. If you are a district official and are looking for a pilot device program, I would seriously consider taking a look into this device.

Sell the lessons you create; make money

2012-09-30T21:21:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago my brother sent me this article about the website teacherspayteachers.com. The gist of TeachersPayTeachers is simple: you make a lesson and people pay you to download it (or, of course, you can offer it for free). TeachersPayTeachers takes a cut off the top, but in the end you can actually make money on the education material you create.

So I've spent the last couple of weeks taking a look at other people's material, downloading free lessons, and creating my first couple of resources that I've uploaded to their site. Teachers from all over have made available tools from simple worksheets to hundred-page e-books; all of them priced from nothing to more-than-I-would-want-to-spend.

I find it hard to imagine that a teacher could make a substantive profit with worksheets and the like which are uploaded with little care. Rather, those few teachers who have the time to create original, complex, and successful lessons will be themselves successful in potentially raising a respectable profit.

So - if you are in the business of making quality resources and would be interested in making a penny for your work - check out TeachersPayTeachers. I think this could actually be worthwhile for those extremely hard-working teacher friends of mine, who I'm sure would appreciate this heads-up (and for whom this short post has been written).

For those of you with a million teacher friends who haven't heard of this site, you'll be happy to know that there's a referral program as well. (Here is my personal referral link - thank you!)

I think there is potential here, it is most certainly not for everyone, but I strongly suggest you all check it out - if for nothing but to see that there are a ton of free resources that may be helpful to you in your classroom. Good luck to all those who attempt to make something here!

Use Your Phone as a Document Camera

2012-09-25T10:32:00.003-05:00

Smartphone as a "portable document camera" using Google+ hangouts

Way back in the day classroom teachers used an archaic contraption called the "overhead projector" to present handiwork to the class. I've been told these monsters used bright lights, a mirror, and an exorbitant amount of glass to project some scene to the masses. The best ones came with a big 'ole knob to focus your image...

Ok, I'm not that old (and I promise to only sparingly use "way back in the day"), but this is the second decade of the new millennium and most of us don't rely on what we can universally agree is yesterday's technology. The presenter du jour is now the "document camera." The glass, lights, and mirrors are replaced with an auto focusing camera whose video is digitally flown to a projector facing a nearby wall. Some of these "document cameras" are quite sophisticated with a lighted surface over which a piece of paper can be placed and illuminated from below. Others are more accurately described as a "web-cam on a bendy stick".

Just as our old friend the overhead was ubiquitously adopted by districts as a tool teachers could not live without, I see in almost every single classroom I've visited recently some form of this document camera. I suppose someone, somewhere, again decided that this thing, this bendy stick with a camera tip, was just absolutely necessary to learning. You may feel the same way, but if you don't already have one and can't afford it, don't fear: you can create the same tool with what you already have in your pocket.

What you'll need

- A smartphone (Android or iPhone) with a camera that works

- The Google+ app

- A Google+ Account (which is free to set up)

- Possibly a second Google+ account you can log-in to

For this tutorial I'll be using the "Hangouts" feature in Google+, but if you've found another video-casting service (such as Ustream or FaceTime) you should be able to follow the steps not related to Google+ and produce a similar result. I've found that Google+ hangouts is more reliable than Ustream and can reach a larger audience. Also - I have ~~a bias~~ an affinity for Google products (especially with using their phone apps) and you'll find plenty of Google support on this blog.

You could probably use an iPad or Android tablet and produce similar results - but those are a bit bulky for this application - I'd recommend using a phone over a tablet.

Start a Google+ Hangout

Now this can be a bit tricky - once you've done it the first time it should be simple for you thereafter. Prepare to start a Google+ hangout by choosing "hangouts" from the Google+ app. To start a hangout you either need to make it "Public" or invite a specific friend to the hangout.

If you make the hangout public, then anyone on the web can view the video stream from your phone - which is something you may be interested in. This would be a great tool for hosting help-sessions or doing live-tutoring to the masses.

Many of you will not want your cell-phone camera public to the world; if that's you then you'll want to follow these steps.

1. Go to Google+ on your COMPUTER

2. Login with a DIFFERENT account than the account you're using your phone with

Yes, you'll need two different Google+ accounts. I recommend logging in on the computer with one of your student accounts, with your husband/wife's account, or simply create a "dummy" Google account.

3. Once you have two separate accounts, start a Google+ hangout from your phone and "invite" that other account to join.

4. From the COMPUTER join the hangout you've been invited to and you'll be able to see the stream from the phone's camera.

5. "Full-Screen" that window and show it to the class - you now have a "document-camera"

Naturally, you could also invite people individually so anyone (anywhere) can watch the stream from your camera.

What you will see on your computer

Now, the quality of your screen cast will depend on your internet connection and the quality of camera on your phone.

Things to Watch Out For

You're going to want to prop the phone up some how, or rest it on a ledge so that you can work underneath it - but come on - is that really so hard to do? You may also have to increase the lighting in your work space such that the image is bright enough. Again - this shouldn't be so hard to do.

If you're worried that this approach might not work - who cares! This takes a little bit of time to set up and (assuming you have a phone with you) costs you nothing to set up. Go ahead and give it a shot. Google+ is valuable to the classroom in many other ways and this would be a good introduction to that tool even if you don't end up using Google+ & a cell phone as a document camera.

Document cameras are expensive

So are cell phones - but you probably already have a cell phone - you might as well use it for more than its standard utility. Additionally, you can take this "portable" document camera with you anywhere and stream a lesson from wherever you can find internet access.

I'd like to see the results of you (out there) using your phone as a document camera; report back, let me know how it goes.

Which Graphing Calculator to Buy?

2012-09-23T22:46:00.002-05:00

From students, students' parents, other teachers, former students, and even my parents on occasion comes the question asked of every math teacher since the days of the slide rule: "What calculator should I buy?" The trouble with what seems to be such a simple question is that the answer is certainly not simple. Here is my best attempt at it though and I hope this will help those of you out there currently plodding to Staples with a big question mark in a bubble over your head. Please keep in mind that this advice is almost exclusively for a high school or middle school aged student - undergraduates should talk to their professors to understand exactly what is expected of them.

Before I get to my specific recommendations, let me throw out some general wisdom:

You probably don't need to buy one

That's right, you don't need one. No - this isn't coming from some old curmudgeon who insists that every student do arithmetic by hand lest his fingers get rapped - rather, it is important to understand that your math teacher more than likely has a calculator that you can use during class time. Bringing your own calculator to school exposes you to the liability of losing it, having it stolen, or broken. Further, you may find that your teacher is less willing to help you with "technical" difficulties if you bring in a calculator that is significantly different that the class-set of calculators available in that class.

I bought a TI-89 my sophomore year in high school for my Pre-Cal class and it was stolen less than a month after I had it. That was a very, very sad day for me - but I have not bought a calculator since. Yes, it is nice to have your own, but you really don't need one.

You might not be allowed to use it anyway

In just about every single upper-level engineering course that I took at Texas A&M I was not allowed to use a calculator during the tests. At home studying we almost always used online tools like Wolfram Alpha or even simplier, Microsoft Excel, to do all the math we needed.

Many high schools prohibit the use of personal calculators on standardized testing as well, so your fancy $100 toy that you've been studying with for the last several months turns into a brick that you can't use - I'd rather not be put in that situation.

HP 32sII - Just Awesome

You don't need the best, or newest

The funny thing about calculators - not much has changed in the last several years. We're not talking about the mobile phone race here kiddos - the software behind plotting y=2x+2 has remained relatively unchanged since I was in high school. That means you can go on Craigslist, buy a 10-year-old calculator, and be just as equipped as the next guy. Another funny thing about calculators is that they last for a really long time. One of the few things that routinely dies on a calculator is the battery - which can be replaced!

An "old" TI-82 does most of what the latest-and-greatest TI-eighty-something can do but can be found used for probably less than $10 without looking too hard.

You might not even need a graphing calculator

Since that TI-89 was stolen from me back in high school, I've been using my trusty HP-32sII RPN scientific calculator just about every day (and have replaced the batteries maybe once in ten years). Unfortunately, HP stopped making the 32sII but eventually replaced it with the 33s, and then the 35s. Any of these scientific calculators is more than an adequate tool and (once you get the hang of them) may actually be more handy than any graphing calculator.

HP 35s Scientific Cal.

Interestingly, the 32sII can only be found at exorbitant prices because it is just such a novel find. A used 32sII in decent condition is easily several times the price of a brand-new 35s.

So after much ado, here is my list of calculators you should think about buying.

1. Hewlett Packard 35s Scientific Calculator

The HP-35s is a more than capable scientific calculator which can be had for about $40 and does everything you'll ever need a hand-held calculator to do.

2. TI-Craigslist

If you really must have your hands on a TI-something-or-rather (which, quite frankly, are all very nice machines) I strongly recommend doing a craigslist search for "TI-82" or "TI-83". If you can find either for about $10 go ahead and buy it. Honestly, there is no sense in wasting ten-times that amount on a TI-89 that provides marginally more utility.

3. Microsoft Excel (or similar)

My last recommendation is not a hand-held calculator at all - please do all of your future engineering professors and employers a favor and learn how to manipulate numbers in a spreadsheet function. Your graphing calculators skills become almost useless after high school, but your spreadsheet skills will become more and more relied upon. Please, please, please learn Excel. Please. Thank you.

So that's that - I supposed if I could answer our title question more succinctly it would be : "well you don't need a graphing calculator at all!"

Trello: An online collaboration platform

2012-09-19T16:06:00.000-05:00

I am continuously looking for collaboration tools that are simple to use, that work and are (ahem) not blocked at school. If I could use Google Docs with my students on a regular basis I would probably stop there - Google really has put together quite the user-friendly collaboration experience. As budgets get tighter across the country I would not be surprised to see more districts drop their Microsoft contracts and opt for Google's free suite.

That day has not arrived where I'm at - and unfortunately Google Docs is just not a viable option for during-the-school-day collaboration. But hey - this isn't a post lamenting the lack of Docs for my students - rather I want to share with you a very cool tool I've been using to replace my fix on Docs.

Trello's logo, from www.trello.com

Let me say - a new collaboration platform I've found is even better than Google Docs. If you knew how much I love the Google infrastructure, you'd know how tough it was for me to write that; but this new tool is absolutely that good. For those of you who didn't read the title - I'm talking about Trello.

What is Trello?

Trello is a collaboration tool that, well, in their own words:

"Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process."

-www.trello.com

Trello is a monster "to-do" list that you can modify with team-mates. Let's say you wanted to create a new task, assign that task to someone, give it a due date, upload an attachment to it, color code it, vote for it,... that's Trello. Trello was built for project management; specifically it was designed by a company whose business is making project management simpler. (Even more specifically it was designed by FogCreek Software, check them out, for software developers to help them manage their development tasks).

My brother turned me toward Trello a few years ago and I've been using it since for my own software projects. It only recently occurred to me - what if I used this as a collaboration tool for my students? What if I showed my students how to use this tool, a tool which is being used prolifically in the contemporary software industry, and have them build their own projects with it?

Why didn't I think of this before?

The sign up page

How do I get Trello?

When you go to Trello you'll be confronted with the typical sign in or sign up mechanisms. Go ahead and create an account (you can even just sign in with your Google account - and interestingly you can allow your Trello account to talk to your Google Docs account - which is AWESOME. But seriously, this is really cool).

You'll need an email address - something any effective collaborator should have already - if you don't have an email address I'm calling you out (high school students, this means you).

Important note - Trello does not work on antiquated browsers. If you're using Internet Explorer, I'm talking to you (and interestingly, so is Germany). I'm using Chrome and Firefox and have no problems. If you get the "browser is not supported" warning, just head over to chrome.google.com and download away.

I've got a Trello Account; now what?

Options on the right

Trello may automatically direct you to a "Welcome Board" - this is your own personal sandbox to play around with and get acquainted with how Trello works. It's fine to play around on the Welcome board, but you'll eventually want to graduate to your own, self-made, boards. To do to that, go back to the main trello page (www.trello.com).

On the right you should see some options. You can change your profile here, see which organizations you belong to, create a new board, or create a new organization.

I think it's best to start off with creating a new organization - this will just be your group's presence on Trello. The organization can be public or private and will be used to collect all of the "to-do-lists" you will eventually create. After you've created an organization, create some boards!

The boards...

The meat-and-potatoes of Trello are in the boards. Here you can create custom lists, such as "Today's Assignments" and within each list create individual cards which you can populate with attachments, due dates, check lists, etc.. A student who logs into Trello and visits your "assignments" boards knows exactly what you are doing that day, when it's due, and can download attachments directly from cards.

One of the best features of the boards is the "drag and drop" mechanism of the cards - when you want to move something from "Today's Assignments" to "Past Assignments" just drag it over! I've been using Trello in developing my calculus course and love the option to just move a "planned" task to a "completed" task with the drag-and-drop of a mouse.

Drag and Drop - Move a card from one list to another in a snap!

Trello Android App!

I strongly recommend playing around with Trello before using it in your classrooms - but you probably will because it is that great. If you use it for nothing more than a personal "to-do-board' I feel like this will please you still. Perhaps the icing on the cake is that Trello has recently released an Andriod and iPhone app that is quite well polished. Your students will love that as well.

A wrap up

If you are looking for an effective collaboration tool, check out Trello; it is my favorite (and I'm picky). It really is nothing like anything I've used before and it works, period.

If you teach a class where students are working on projects together this is a great tool to teach them project management skills.

Give it a shot!

How Manual Transmissions Work - An Instructional Video from 1936

2012-09-18T16:47:00.000-05:00

Here's a quite fantastic instructional YouTube lesson on manual transmissions. You read the post title correctly - this comes to us from before the war (the second World War kiddos). No need to muddle this with a fancy caption - it's just awesome. Enjoy.

Thanks to my brother for sending this my way!

Mobile Spectrometer (Kickstarter Project)

2012-09-10T07:55:00.000-05:00

Back in June I briefly spoke on the uses for a cell phone in the science of spectroscopy. As it turns out, there is a group of folks out there who have a pretty awesome project to turn the everyman's phone into a mobile spectrometer using their web-based, open source, software. From the kickstarter project:

A spectrometer may not sound like what you wanted for your birthday, but it's a ubiquitous tool for scientists to identify unknown materials, like oil spill residue or coal tar in urban waterways. But they cost thousands of dollars and are hard to use -- so we've designed our own.

Now we need your help in collecting data to build a Wikipedia-style library of open source spectra, and to refine and improve sample collection and analysis techniques. We imagine a kind of "SHAZAM for materials" which can help to investigate chemical spills, diagnose crop diseases, identify contaminants in household products, and even analyze olive oil, coffee, and homebrew beer.

It's clear that they aren't building these spectrometers for their explicit use in the classroom, but I can already see a huge benefit for them there. Physics, chemistry, and astronomy teachers might want to take a look at this on-going project and perhaps fund their kickstarter to get your hands on one of the simple paper-folded spectrometers to play around with.

I'm quite certain this could be used to really modernize the classical spectrum labs done in secondary schools these days, and they really aren't that expensive. Plus, you can go ahead and check out the software if you already have a portable spectrometer. Check it out here

Big props to this group for their awesome idea, if anyone gets a chance to use it in their classroom, report back to the STEM Room and let us know!

qCalculus: Online Short Courses in Calculus

2012-09-06T10:37:00.001-05:00

Introducing qCalculus (qcalculus.appspot.com): a free online tool for learning the basics of Calculus! I've been working on this project for the past several weeks and am excited to officially reach out to you - my friends, colleagues, and blog readers to help iron out the kinks of what has become quite the consuming hobby.

What qCalculus is at its heart is a collection of online calculus short courses aimed at the beginning calculus student (someone with no prior calculus instruction). My AP Calculus students are all utilizing this website as a supplement to the in-class instruction they are receiving.

There are two major components to this site: Lessons and Discussion. My lessons are very short ~1 minute videos. I feel strongly that long recorded lectures don't quite reach the online audience as effectively as shorter videos which perhaps don't lose kids in their ever shorter attention spans. Following each video is a focused quiz question that the student needs to correctly answer (or achieve a streak of correct answers in some cases) to unlock the next lesson video.

The discussion board is simply a forum for students to ask for and give help pertaining to the lessons they are currently working through. As students ask good questions (determined by the community at large through the simple vote-up vote-down mechanisms popularized by similar discussion boards currently extant on the web) their reputation grows. Students can earn ribbons for their accomplishment in the lessons and for their reputation on the discussion board.

I hope that this new approach to "homework" refreshes the average student and reaches those who otherwise struggled in Calculus. Please feel free to sign up for a class and participate, that will certainly help me work out the kinks and you may just learn some math along the way.

Link: qcalculus.appspot.com

Engineering Design Tools for All Ages

2012-07-03T11:25:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I posted a topic on raising your engineering child using the free software Google Sketchup. After a bit more searching the internet I've found there is actually a healthy variety engineering design platforms, from beginner to professional, all of which will help your kid pick up the basic tools needed to succeed in STEM fields. I therefore wanted to jot down a roadmap for taking your aspiring child from the developmental stages of using an engineering design tool to a professional designer.

Pre-Stage 1: Legos

Age: Start in Pre-K through adulthood

Yes, legos. If you haven't bought your kid Legos and are thinking about ways to nudge them toward engineering - buy them Legos! Note - this is not free (or even cheap) but probably the best "toy" you can award your child with. I'd start them off with a basic LEGO brick box, like this one and slowly buy them more and more. My parents got us a couple large sets of basic bricks, then we'd get one "fancy" set each Christmas. Of course, that set was completely integrated into the other generic pieces by New Years day each year and we'd be off making our own creations.

Why are Lego blocks so expensive you ask? Well, the interesting thing is that Lego blocks are manufactured with very precise "engineering" tolerances. This essentially means that each tiny little Lego piece is made to a very precise dimension so that it will lock quite nicely into any other piece. Other toys are made with very imprecise "toy" tolerances (when you try and take an arm off of one doll and put it into another, exact same one, it barely fits).

Step 1: Lego Digital Designer

Age: Start when learning the computer (1st grade maybe?) through adulthood

Now this is where things get, well, awesome. Lego has created an engineering design platform specifically geared toward making Lego kits! Download this program to your Windows or Mac computer and let your child create a virtual Lego model using a huge selection of virtual Lego pieces.

The software Lego has put out here is an incredible transition for young engineers. When they graduate to more advanced 3D modeling software, having used this will be an advantage to them.

Oh, and this is absolutely free!

If you have a elementary-aged child and are reluctant to buy Lego kits because of their price, why not download this free program and tell them if they want a Lego kit, they must first build it on the computer. If they manage to actually build a virtual model on the computer... well you'll probably feel gushy enough to go out and by them the real thing now, right?

Step 2: Google Sketchup

Age: 6th grade - adulthood

A great tool for the intermediate skill levels. If your child has been doing great with the Lego Digital Designer but is looking for more of a free-form challenge (not constrained by the rigid Lego bricks) it may be time to graduate them to Sketchup.

See my post on this

Step 3: Autodesk Inventor

Ages: Middle school - professional career (adulthood)

Until recently I was unaware that Autodesk (company making professional engineering software) offered their software FREE to students. That's correct: if you are a student you can download and utilize several of the quite impressive (and professional grade) engineering tools straight from the Autodesk website at no cost to you.

Check out the Autodesk student center for details

Inventor is an industry standard in engineering modeling that your child will probably use in his undergraduate education (or he will use a very similar platform that will seem easy to learn should he already grasp Inventor). It really blows my mind that you can download this for free, and I urge all who are interested in engineering to go ahead and download this to play with.

So there you have it...

If you are looking for free tools to nudge your children into engineering, start with the Lego Digital Designer, then Sketchup, and finally Inventor. These three platforms offer to all age levels the wonderful world of engineering modeling at absolutely no cost.

Next Mars mission lands in August

2012-06-24T23:34:00.001-05:00

Just a reminder: the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the Curiosity rover will touch down on August 5th, and the following video shows what is actually going to happen assuming things go to plan. (Caution: this is animated, but is accurate; it may blow your mind)

To learn more about the MSL mission, visit the NASA site (here). If you are looking to get Mars into your classroom, check out some of the NASA resources here.

Raising an Engineer on the Cheap (Part 1)

2012-06-19T20:37:00.001-05:00

This is directed to those parents out there with a child with an obvious affinity for math and science, a definite aspiration for engineering, and a parent (yeah that's you) with no clue about how to personally support their growth as an engineer other than to shrug your shoulders as they head out the door and say "heck, they've forgotten more math than I ever knew!" I like to call that the "my teenager knows more than me" approach, and I think that's pretty much giving up. Fortunately, I think there are several ways that you ("dumb old mom") can actually stimulate your child's growth

"heck, they've forgotten more math than I ever knew!"

-Parents about Kids These Days

This first piece will be an introduction to computer aided drafting or "CAD." Back in they day (many thousands of years ago, back when my parents lived) folks would have great ideas, write them down on a napkin, and then finish lunch. Back at the office, if the idea was decent, it would be taken to the drafting board - a physical drawing board where blueprints were created. These blueprints would have all the detail and measurements needed to go out and physically construct that idea or product.

Today, engineers still jam out ideas on napkins, but back at work they take them to the computer and digitally draft them up. This computer aided drafting offers many advantages, not the least of which is the fact that any Joe with a computer can theoretically perform professional drafting activities without the need of an expensive engineering studio. I also can't image the amount of pencil smudges that would show up in random places!

Unfortunately, though professional drafting programs are nearly entirely digital, they are still crazy, crazy, expensive. Most firms and universities with engineering programs have licenses of Autocad Inventor, SolidWorks, ProEngineer, or some other professional quality design platforms. If your child is in a Project Lead the Way class, he'll be using Autocad Inventor (which is a great platform).

For the rest of us, there is a very nice free platform which you can use to teach your son or daughter all the great things they'll need to know as a budding engineer.

I'm talking, of course, of Sketchup, and here is what I want you to do...

Step 1: DO NOT DOWNLOAD SKETCHUP YOURSELF

I'm talking to you Mrs. "They've forgotten more than I'll ever know" Louise: do not download this program yourself. Have your son/daughter do it for themselves. If there was one thing I did over and over again without any guidance in college it must have been downloading programs and installing them on my computer with nary an instruction manual to be found. (Ok, I may have done some more things without any guidance in college...) Forcing your kid to be comfortable downloading software is an important lesson.

Realistically, you've already relinquished control of your computer to your kids a while ago, so this should be no problem. Remember, you want to do as little work as possible but still seem smart.

Step 2: Have your kid download Sketchup

Which can be found by clicking here. Download and install, that is their first task.

A Box with a Hole in it

Step 3: The Box

This is where you get to play smarty-pants. Once they have the program installed, tell them they have to create box with a circular hole through it. DO NOT HELP THEM, this is part of the challenge. Probably, they'll figure it out rather quickly. When they are done, ask them to show it to you - you don't have to be a genius to know what a box with a hole in it looks like. Whatever you do, don't just droll over your kids amazing achievement "holy cow honey that's so cool, you're so much smarter than I ever was at your age..." STOP, remember, this is you giving your kid a task, you can be proud on the inside!

Step 4: The First Project

Once your kid has shown you a box with a hole in it, find something "boxy" in the house and hand it to them. "I want you to make this now, in as much detail as possible." If you have an iphone, that's perfect. Try not to give them something with curves - curves are pretty tough on first time drafters, they just are. Stick to right angles and flat surfaces. Again, you don't have to be an engineer to grade his effort - if you gave her an iphone and she has drawn something that looks like a blackberry, well, she did it wrong. Even when she says she's done the first few times, tell her it needs more detail. Unless she's the most gifted drafter in the world, it could always use more detail, and, again, it sends the message to her that you may actually have the upper hand here (1 point - mom).

Step 5: Advanced Stuff

Once your kid has shown they can handle a simple household object. Give them a big project. Modeling the kitchen is great. Probably at this point he/she has starting taking off in new directions modeling whatever it is they want to model. This is great - remember they are building skills they will definitely use in the coming years. If you want to really push them, tell them to model the house TO SCALE.

That's it! You really don't have to do anything as the parent and you've given your kid an incredible tool for preparing his mind for engineering. Good luck parents, don't ever be afraid of stepping up to your "so smart" kids and pushing them.

More ideas on raising an engineering child in coming posts!

Udacity High School Challenge

2012-06-09T15:24:00.001-05:00

Let me go ahead and re-assert my opinion of Udacity: it is the best college-level online learning experience on the internet. They only have a handful of courses online right now, but I'm confident that most Udacity students share this sentiment. Now, this incredibly innovative group of educators (who have previously focused their instruction on college-level computer science courses) is hosting a contest for high school students. The play? Form a team of your friends and complete as many free online classes at Udacity as possible. Teams with the most completed courses will win a free trip to Stanford. Did I mention that all of this is free?

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HIGH SCHOOL CHALLENGE

Here's a blurb from Udacity folk:

" Recently, there has been a wave of amazing new online college classes offered for free. The frenzy started with Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Class in October 2011. Tens of thousands of school students - some as young as 13 years old - have already successfully passed college level computer science classes. And now there are courses available in fields such as physics, business, humanities, and statistics.

So, we decided to run a worldwide competition. At stake is an all-expenses paid visit to Stanford University and a tour of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence lab, including the famed self-driving car. (And there might be a chance to ride in a self-driving car!). Professor Sebastian Thrun will be welcoming the winners personally and showing them around.

If you are a high school student, you should go ahead and check out their new introduction courses in statistics, physics, and computer science. Heck if you are ANYONE you should check out these classes. Now is always a good time to learn new things, and learning something new, regardless of the topic, is what stimulates us as humans.

Cell Phone Spectroscopy

2012-06-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

My phone and a spectrometer (your school probably has some in the chem. lab)

Secondary teachers have been waging the cell phone battle for the better part of the last decade now. Most of us are frustrated that students choose to be entertained by that little device rather than be educated by our instruction. Or, as I've heard it somewhere: we can't come to grips that a 3-inch screen is more captivating than a lecture.

My plan of attack is to use cell phones for good, so to speak, and fold them into the instruction. What I've found is that if the student is using the phone for science he cannot also be using it for any other purpose. Most importantly, I've found that students actually enjoy using their technology as a tool in the science classroom.

Here's a great little lesson that I've found is quite engaging.

Required Materials

Smartphone with camera (preferably one per student)

Spectroscope (most high schools have these somewhere, get a bulk set )

) Various light sources (noble gas tubes, fluorescent lights, incandescent lights, and an LED will give a nice set of results)

Making Your Own Spectroscope

NASA has a nice link on how to make your own spectroscope if you want to be really cheap. (how to make one yourself). Of course you'll need some diffraction gatings

Procedure

Point the spectroscope toward a light source (slit towards the light). For best results, be sure that no other light source is on (you don't want to gather photons from several sources if you are trying to determine the spectrum of a particular source). Hold the cellphone's camera flush against the diffraction grating (leaving a gap produces bad results; try it, you'll see quite readily this is true). When you have a nice set of spectral lines, take a picture.

Our kitchen's fluorescent lights

Ambient sunlight

What I love about this

Most high school physics teachers have done a lab with the spectrometers (actually, if you haven't you should probably look over your required standards - you're most likely missing something) but it is often tedious for students to hold the spectral tube toward the light and observe the various colors. Students will say "yeah I see the lines, but it's hard to tell what colors are there." If you've done this lab, you know what I'm talking about. With the cellphone you can capture a still photo and analyze it 'til the cows come home.

So there you have it - this isn't anything fancy, and it's not a complete lab in itself - but methinks this is quite the supplement to your existing spectroscopy unit.

A note about the phone...

My Phone - you don't need one this fancy for this to work...

The phone I'm using in this demo is a Galaxy Nexus, a very new "smartphone", but even my student's most "basic" camera phones can do this task with ease. So don't feel like you need the best and the most expensive to pull this off.

Moving Your Lectures to the Cloud

2012-05-11T14:07:00.003-05:00

I've been slowly working toward moving my Calculus class online over the last several weeks in anticipation for next year's crop. Through this process I've learned some very valuable lessons that I think teachers at large should consider when doing the same.

Don't record in-class lectures
Yes, this is contrary to what your first impulse is when you think about moving your class online. However, I think it's important to consider the following:

Long classroom lectures are ineffective at engaging students, this has been routinely proven time and time again. Recording ineffective lectures and putting them online does nothing to increase the effectiveness of that lecture. Students who were bored in person will be bored at home.
Recorded in-class lectures alienate the online student. When in the presence of a speaker a student is captivated and can interact with the lesson. The online student cannot interact with the speaker and is never the focus of the speaker.

On rare occasion I'll find recorded lectures in front of an audience that captivate me online (TED talks are good examples). But even these lectures leave me with a sense of "I wish I was there in that room to appreciate this even more." MIT Open Course Ware system is ineffective in driving student engagement precisely for this purpose; their videos are not made-for-the-web, but are rather made-for-the-room and adapted to the web. The online student feels distant and not connected. I don't think this is a good solution for the future of online learning.

Record short videos with the online student as your audience

Videos are important and will be your tool to teaching online, but you MUST make the online student your audience. If you have a long lecture prepared, break it up in chunks of 1-2 minute clips and create an outline for the lecture on your webpage with each topic referencing a youtube link. I've found that students are more likely to work their way though a logical sequence of short videos than a very long, continuous lecture.

Check out Udacity's youtube channel. Now, these videos are embedded to their website and are followed by built-in quizzes, but you could make video lectures broken into 1-2 minute bits like this yourself with no problem. This format is infinitely more accessible than MIT's hour-long-recorded-lecture paradigm.

Interact with the online student

This is actually not as hard as you might first imagine. At the end of each video clip (or every-so-many video clips) ask the online student to perform some task on the computer. After several weeks of the course, post videos which respond to questions students have raised in email, in-class, or forum situations. This will give the students the feeling that they are actually in contact with the person behind the internet producing their instruction (which in fact they are!)

At Udacity the instructors will post weekly "office hours" and answer questions they see in the forum. You could think of one or two stumbling blocks your kids have encountered and insert a video about those things as the course goes on.

Provide students an opportunity to collaborate

This could be as simple as asking students to leave comments on youtube (by the way, you can restrict access to videos on youtube to certain users), holding "twitter" office hours, or monitoring a facebook group. The important thing here is to provide online an analogous tool to in-class discussion. Students will have questions about your lessons - let them talk about it!

Above everything, go for it

Students are consuming the internet more than any generation before; it makes little sense to resist that. Rather, take advantage of this trend by producing quality online content for your course which can be accessed online. Don't be fooled though; bad instruction plus technology does not yield better instruction!

Harkness Tweeter - Twitter Discussions for Class

2012-04-18T11:55:00.001-05:00

Earlier in the year an esteemed colleague of ours, Jennifer Isgitt, expounded on the quite splendid instructional technique called the "Harness Disucssion" made famous by the Phillips Exeter Academy. From the latter link:

" It's a way of learning: everyone comes to class prepared to share, discuss, and discover, whether the subject is a novel by William Faulkner or atomic and molecular structure. There are no lectures.

The general idea is that lectures are replaced with a structured discussion during which students discover the minds of their colleagues, air their own thoughts, and learn the content at hand. Yet, for what seems like such a fantastic method for a group of much less than 30 students, I have struggled to implement this mechanism into my classes (most of which exceed that number by a healthy margin).

But it still is a great idea, and I'll suggest that by utilizing a little technology that this tool can be accessible to large classes. Let's start by so-naming this adaption "Harkness Tweeter" (please dismiss what visions you may have of plaid-coated professors...)

What you need

Twitter accounts for yourself and as many students in your classroom as possible
Tweetdeck, which can be downloaded here or from the same site used on the web
Phone/Computers which can tweet (1 per student is nice)
An internet connection that doesn't block Twitter

What you'll do

Have all the students log into Twitter. From there you have some freedom. Here's one way to do it:

Tweet a conversation starter from your own account: What's so special about supernovae? #astroTalk1234

Notice that I just made up a random hashtag. Direct your students to tweet comments in line with the topic, and each must end with the same hashtag.

Pull up TweetDeck onto your projector and show the students all the tweets with that hashtag. Students can also search for tweets with that hashtag from their phones to keep up with the conversation there.
Direct your students to compliment other student's comments by re-tweeting them or replying to specific tweets they find particularly interesting. An example conversation may go like:

Mr. Anderson: What's so special about supernovae? #astroTalk1234

Michelle: I read that a supernova is the result of a white dwarf exploding #astroTalk1234

Nick: @Michelle Well, it could also come from the core collapse of a massive star #astroTalk1234

Michelle: @Nick good point Nick, thanks! #astroTalk1234

Students will love the personalized discussions that emerge. As a teacher, you can monitor who has posted quality material and who hasn't. If someone is just sitting there with nary a comment to their name, force a tweet their way.

Mr. Anderson: @Susan why would a star's core collapse... that's weird #astroTalk1234

You can't interrupt people on twitter; students will have all the time they want to formulate a thought and respond to it. Many studies have shown that these types of discussions significantly improve participation from students who would otherwise be labeled as "shy."

Most importantly, a class of any size can handle twitter discussions. If you have a student without a phone/computer, just have them write down comments on a piece of paper and tweet them yourself! Students sick at home or on vacation can still participate.

Discussions are easy to grade (if you need to grade them). Assign points every time a student replies respectfully to another comment, asks questions directed specifically at other students, etc. Students should have to collect enough "points" to receive a satisfactory grade. The great thing about these discussions is that they are saved for you to look at later in the day. Student's parents can also tune in from work if they want.

Worried about students using profanity or being disrespectful to their peers? Do you worry about this during normal classroom discussions? Twitter isn't going to promote or discourage rude behavior - that's up to you as the teacher to direct. We should teach students how to be respectful on the internet just as we have taught them to be respectful in conversation.

So, give it a try. Give your students a bit of a notice before the discussion takes place so they have time to set up twitter accounts. I think this refreshing take on the already successful Harkness Discussion technique may rejuvenate collaboration in your classroom.

Cell Phone Doppler Effect

2012-04-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a fun little experiment that can be done with any working cell phone. Please be careful, your cell phone may not be working at the end of this experiment if you throw caution to the wind and your cell phone, well, yeah if you throw your cell phone then it will probably break.

Yes. This is real safe. I blame physics...

What You'll Need

Cellphone (preferably an Android or iPhone)
Snug holster for the phone (original packing materials work fine)
Rope
Sound-making app (signal generator app on Android works fine, the mosquito noise that the kids love to use as their ringtone is also great to use)
Microphone
Audacity (free download)
Sonic Visualizer (free download)
If you've gotten then you can probably guess you'll need a computer

What You Do

Make sure the phone is secure. Yeah, this could really cause problems, especially if you're using your mom's phone (or worse - your mom using your son's phone). You are going to be swinging the phone around your head - I want you to think about that statement before you go any further.

Attach the rope to whatever is snugly wrapped around your phone. I used the original packing material for my cheap Virgin Mobile phone. You can't tell in the picture above, but the rope is woven through a hole so that it is not coming out.

Signal Generator (Android)

The rest is rather straightforward from here. Open the signal generator app from your phone and start generating some noise. Now start swinging the phone around. You should immediately hear the Doppler Effect. But what's so special about that? You've done this demonstration a million times before, right?

You know that mosquito ring tone that is so high pitched that you can't even hear it if you are too old? Wait, what's that? Oh, well, there's this high pitch mosquito ring tone that you can't even hear if you are too old. Go ahead and slide the signal generator frequency to 20 kHz. No one in your room (except your dog) will be able to hear this noise.

Before you start swinging your phone around, start recording on your computer with Audacity. As you are swinging this around above your head your students will probably snicker about the lack of sound and how the Doppler Effect doesn't work for inaudible things.

After you have a good several seconds of recording, go ahead and stop Audacity and save the file as a .wav file somewhere on your computer. Open up the Sonic Visualizer program and from there open the .wav file you just created. Then add a spectrogram view by navigating to Pane > Add Spectrogram from the menu bar.

If you look in the right spot (the right spot being near 20 kHz) you should see that good 'ole Doppler Effect, and the students should be pretty amazed.

After the students have seen one spectrogram in Sonic Visualizer they will want to try and make all sorts of sounds and then visualize them. I really like the mosquito noise exercise because it's a great segue into other types of inaudible waves; as an Astronomy teacher that's pretty powerful.

Why Do I like this Activity?

Well first of all, it shows students that a cell phone can be used to create a pretty elaborate physics demonstration on a classical phenomenon. Further, students can't text on a phone that is being swung around their heads.

Go ahead try it! Let me know how it goes...

Modeling Instruction

2012-04-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

We are always looking for ways to innovate instruction in the classroom and especially ways to mitigate the uselessness of the ~~boring~~ traditional lecture mechanism. A catchy thing to say today is that "we need to do more hands on learning, yay!" Ok, fantastic. But what the heck does that mean?

Take a look at the research being done over at Arizona State University. The concept is called "modeling instruction." Essentially students are faced with a typical physics situation or phenomenon but instead of being given a cookie-cutter laboratory packet to explore the phenomenon they are tasked to model the behavior of the thing by recording data and looking for mathematical patterns.Or, from ASU's own description:

For example, in a physics experiment students are asked to develop principles of motion for a pendulum. With the teacher as recorder, students brainstorm about properties of the pendulum that might affect its period. Teacher and students decide which properties should be investigated. In this case they decide to investigate how changes in mass of bob, length of string and amplitude of motion affect the period. Students then work in teams and determine their own procedure for collecting data. After collecting data, they plot it to look for relations among variables and then relate it to equations of motion. Then, in a technique called "whiteboarding", groups present results to the class. The class reaches consensus on an appropriate model to describe the behavior of the pendulum. They do this without being given the answer.

Of course I like this approach because it replicates the nature of science in the classroom. Students are essentially forced to work through an actual scientific process and discover patterns on their own without being fed formulas. Further, the research team at ASU has shown this method to be highly successful and as a result many (if not most) of Phoenix area schools use this technique today to teach Physics.

For those interested in learning more, ASU offers summer workshops and a Master's degree program, both of which capture the essentials of modeling instruction.

Udacity - Free CS Classes

2012-04-17T07:56:00.000-05:00

Late last night Udacity (www.udacity.com) pushed updates to their website as a new round of classes started up. If you haven't ventured over to their site, you should - there you will find a handful of totally free, totally online, college-level computer science courses with engaging lectures and homework.

Online platforms like these will be popping up in the coming years, especially in the private sector - and I'm aware of several groups pushing public school platforms as well (which are, in my opinion, behind Udacity at the moment).

Check it out, sign up for a class, and learn something.

Khan Academy-style lectures

2012-04-16T15:07:00.001-05:00

I've been enamored with the Khan Academy since my brother turned me on to it several years ago. If you haven't taken a look at the Khan Academy, stop reading now and go over there.

Over there you find some very basic tools and a very basic layout. Nothing about the pieces is novel or revolutionary; however, the combination of all those pieces really compiles into a wonderful resource for the science and math classroom. The many videos and practice exercises are already a great supplement to any math/science classroom; I would just want the ability to create my own videos in the same style as I can imagine a use for personalized videos of this type.

You'll need these materials

Let's start off with the hardware you need. You're going to want a computer. I'm sure you could churn out lectures of a decent quality with the minimalist computers that most school districts have provided teachers/students. You'll also need a microphone and a drawing tablet.

For this particular application, a Wacom Bamboo tablet at $80 is a fantastic purchase and is the same tool used to create the Khan Academy videos. I have a 7 year old wacom tablet which still works great.

Next you're going to want to get the appropriate software. Any drawing program will work; the Khan Academy uses Smooth Draw and so do I. You'll also need a screen-casting program, CamStudio is free and perfectly fine for the job. If you find that you want to do more elaborate videos, you may want to bite down on a more expensive platform, and Camtasia ($300) is what you'll buy. Of course you'll want to showcase your videos and YouTube is just fine.

Now make a video

The rest is just, well, the rest can be frustrating to be honest, but it's worth it. Here is a youtube video which does a pretty good job of demonstrating the ins and outs of making a video with CamStudio. You'll find that you want to start over frequently; something didn't go just right, or you said something wrong, or you drew the wrong thing. Don't worry about it. Your students will appreciate the fact that you are a human being and the humor of mistakes and self-correcting often make lectures more enjoyable to watch.

You'll want to adjust the frame-rate in CamStudio so that your drawing doesn't appear so jittery. You'll notice in the video I posted below I didn't really do that!

Speaking of that video, here it is; you'll notice that it is obviously my very first attempt, there are some errors, but it it's not so bad.

What I like about screen-casting

Your students can watch your lectures over and over, and when they are absent they don't miss the lecture. It is also a way to journal - in 5 years you can look back and see all of the lessons you've produced. If you are real bad a lecturing, it will become obvious because you can actually see what you sound like!

More than anything, this resource is silly cheap. For the price of a drawing tablet and a microphone (all less than $100) you can create thousands of lectures.

The STEM Room: A STEM Education Blog

2012-04-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, so the plan for this blog is to create a repository of useful resources for the STEM classroom. STEM - that is: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics - education is a buzzword in the industry right now and currently an up-and-coming vein of secondary instruction. I look forward to sharing my ideas and thoughts on the subject and hopefully creating a useful resource for STEM teachers.