ITM 3: Living in 3D

ITM #3 is finally here! In this episode we share tips and tools related to visual design. So put on your cool 3D glasses and let's go for a ride.

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Show Notes:

NASA's team at the Lewis Center for Educational Research runs the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) in a desert region outside Los Angeles, CA. They conduct a full educational program where students team with scientists to conduct cutting edge research leading to discovery. This is a great learning opportunity for kids to control and operate a deep space radio telescope. GAVRT provides training for teachers and detailed lessons plans, such as Mapping a Radio Source. And you can even see the live video feed of the GAVRT operation control center.

Since we're talking about space, you might want to check out NASA's education site, the NASA Kids Club, Space.com, and the xPrize Foundation.

The EVS-Islands website is produced by "Mr. Minton" - a teacher from San Diego, CA. With the help of his students, he is creating and sharing vector-based images of shorelines from around the world. Basically, he's combing basic shoreline maritime maps with real satelittle images and turning them into stunning, colorful maps that can be used by the rest of us. Much of the work is done with 20-30 students afterschool. His map collection is impressive, and you can download and use all his maps for FREE. He even gives us detailed map making techniques, so we can can join in the fun.

Sharing videos on the Internet is extremely popular with kids. If nothing else, you need to check out YouTube, MySpace, and Google Video, just so you know what kids are up to these days. While much of the videos are produced for fun, a growing number of teachers are using video sharing websites in the classroom. These websites make it extemely easy to post videos, and, in some cases, you can even control who sees them. How are you taping into this craze? Post your thoughts in our comments section.

And don't forget about sites like the Internet Archive, which houses thousands of PUBLIC DOMAIN videos that students can download and re-edit. Some of my favorites are Thomas Edison's news reel on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1952 classic"Duck and Cover" , and a 1963 production on how to use film in the classroom.

SketchUp is FREE software that empowers students to be 3D designers. SketchUp is a great tool for easily teaching kids to construct 3D models of buildings, trees, cars, and anything else they can imagine. You can use it as a stand-alone tool or in conjunction with Google Earth and the 3D Warehouse. On the main SketchUp website you can find a gallery of student examples, case studies, tutorials on how to use the tool, an educators forum, and even a book on how to use it in the classroom.

As one of the original inventors of the Internet, Vint Cerf is widely recognized as a leading thinker on how 21st century technologies are transforming our daily lives. Learn more about Vint on Wikipedia. In this segment, Vint talks share his thoughts on how technology is changing how we design things.

Learn more about the convergence of design and technology at the Designing Interactions , a book, DVD, and website from Bill Moggridge, one of the founders of IDEO. Check out the other feature articles on design on the IDEO website.

ITM 3 Homework: See if your kids can help you find out what the image is and where it is located. It's tougher than it looks. If you don't have any luck finding the answer, let me know, and I may release a few hints in the comments section. : )

Thanks to the students from Mr. Hernandez' class at Price Elementary School in Anaheim, CA, for helping us explain what the Infinite Thinking Machine is!

What’s in Your Digital Bag of Tricks?

In this era of burgeoning internet resources, how does one choose the right tools when developing a professional work flow? Assistive tech expert Brian Friedlander recently shared via his blog a web site that catalogs a plethora of Web 2.0 applications called Go2Web20. While I am a huge fan of these user generated content sites, I am sure the available choices must be overwhelming for some of us! It occurred to me that every teacher seems to incorporate “a bag of tricks” into their teaching repertoire and while keeping it simple, I’d like to share a few resources that I’ve found to be essential additions to my own digital repository.

The other Lucie mentions in her previous ITM post a web site called NoodleTools. NoodleTools, and in particular the tools NoodleQuest and Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need, have long been in my digital bag of tricks. Both of these services match digital search tools to the needs of the user, and I appreciate that guidance.

Another amazing resource has been ALTEC’s 4Teachers web site. Numerous tools for both teachers and students are available here including an online quiz creator, a floor plan designer, and a lesson plan builder. Because much of my teaching revolves around digital projects, I regularly use this site’s rubric tool, Rubistar, to create and store evaluation tools online. I also am a big fan of their customizable project-based learning checklists.

I also often find that comprehensive resource databases are helpful when looking for activities and lessons for my students. My personal favorite is the Michigan Teacher Network which contains annotated descriptions of educational web sites. Visitors are also able to rate and comment on these sites as well.

And finally, as a computer science teacher, I use a great deal of software. I recently found a nifty Web 2.0 app for cataloging the software I use and sharing it with others. It is called MyProgs and you can look specifically at some of my software mainstays here. Best of all, for my fellow RSS geeks out there, you can subscribe to this list of software in your newsreader and you will be able to track any updates.

The aforementioned sites are just a few of the resources I’ve incorporated into my professional life and I’d love to hear what you consider essential to your success as a teacher. Please share any ideas in the comments section!

Photo Attribution

Blogging to Learn English

Craig Wherlock teaches English as a foreign language in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, to 13- and 14-year-olds during the day and adults at night. He estimates that only 1-2% of homes in Greece have access to broadband, and recently read that only 27% of Greeks have ever even used the Internet--so while he would love to involve his students in podcasting or video sharing, it's only realistic to do blogging right now. And blogging his students do!

Each class has a class blog, and he gives assignments to the class to write posts from home in English. One of his most successful assignments was to ask each of the students to post "10 special things you have done that very few other people have done," for which he got very enthusiastic responses.

Blogging can have an incredibly powerful, transformative effect for some students, and Craig describes the excitement when students realize that they can quickly have an international "audience." A great place to learn about educational blogging ("edublogging") is at SupportBlogging.com, a collaborative wiki built by "edubloggers" themselves, and that lists (and allows you to search) over 300 blogs, websites, and articles on educational blogging.

Listen to Craig describe his blogging experiences in a quick five-minute audio interview here, visit his own blog here, or visit one of his class blogs here.

Why Do People Share?

Are you one of the many educators who have struggled with how to provide students with music and photos that students can ethically use in multimedia presentations? The increased access to photos and music available on the Internet increases our responsibility to model and teach computer ethics and help our students understand copyright. The Read/Write Web has created a wealth of opportunities for anyone to publish text, images, video, or music. With these increased opportunities for creative works to be shared, came the need to redefine the way we share.

Along came - Creative Commons with the mission of "Enabling the legal sharing and reuse of cultural, educational, and scientific works.” Creative Commons has changed the way I teach "intellectual property". While I still use valuable resources like Kathy Shrocks's Copyright and Citation Resources as a reference and the free NoodleBib MLA account by Noodletools , I no longer start by introducing students and teachers to "what they can't do" because of copyright and the restrictions of Fair Use Legislation. Instead I start by introducing them to what they CAN do because of new ways to share and grant permission for others to use your work. Creative Commons new comics and videos make it fun and easy to help students understand copyright and also spread the spirit of sharing.

I still stress the importance of proper documentation and respecting copyright. I show them my email correspondence with author Tom Friedman granting permission for me to use some of his materials in my presentations as testimony to how the Web has made it easier than ever to contact authors of copyrighted materials for permission. But now I start my lessons with a different 'essential question' --- "Why Do People Share?"

We explore Yvonnie Kim's insight that "Some might share because it is more fun, some might share because they believe it is for social goodness, and some might share because they want more people to see what they have done. No matter what motivation individuals might have for sharing, it seems obvious that ’sharing’ is related to the issue of how people are motivated and eventually how they are rewarded.”

I have discovered that the approach to teaching intellectual property combined with the spirit of independence and sharing that is an inherent part of adolescent development makes the students desire and seek out legal resources instead of grumbling that they can't use "Green Day" as the music to their presentation.

Consider the Simple English Wikipedia

G'Day all,

Wikipedia has certainly altered the world in the last few years. It seems people have a love / hate relationship with the upstart encyclopedia. I'm not going to try to change anyone's mind, but to point to a few sites that contribute to the discussion and then share an activity.

Background & Reading

• Two great articles: from The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
• The hullaballoo fom Nature magazine.com: Internet encyclopaedias go head to head, including the list of the peer-reviewed encyclopedia entries revealing 162 and 123 flaws in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.
• Some fun - Colbert has a go at “Wikiality” and Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence from The Onion

Class Activity for Middle - High School
Of course everyone knows about the main Wikipedia site. It's the one that always comes up in Google when you search for just about anything these days. Most people also know that Wikipedia is translated into heaps of different languages (see the bottom of this page).

What a lot of people don't know about is the Simple English Wikipedia. Designed for people with different needs: students, children, and adults with learning difficulties or of limited English ability. Take a look at some sample topics with links to both the regular Wikipedia and the same topic in the Simple English version:

• Steve Irwin in Wikipedia & in the Simple English Wikipedia
• Thanksgiving in Wikipedia & in the Simple English Wikipedia
• Culture in Wikipedia & in the Simple English Wikipedia
  

The clever viewer will notice that the only difference in the Web addresses is "en" or "simple" as the sub-domain (the first bit of the URL). So here are two ideas:

1. When studying a topic, either model or have students compare the "en" and "simple" pages. This is a good way to represent the range of learning possible on the topic. Also, reading the Simple version can help students set up their cognitive schema, to see the "big picture" of the subject, before getting into the details.
2. The real problem - as I see it- with Wikipedia is that students and schools largely see it as a source to learn from, not a knowledgebase to add to. How about having your students contribute to the Simple English Wikipedia? Simplifying a complex topic can be a good exercise. Especially when trying to stick to the Basic English. Why not give it a go?

Carbon Trading in Wikipedia & you can create it in Simple English Wikipedia