TinkerCad Reflection

The 4th grade students have been creating miniature golf courses in TinkerCad. The teachers are tying in geometry to the lesson by having the students incorporate right triangles, obtuse triangles, acute triangles and various other shapes. The students are designing their golf courses on paper first, then are modeling them in TinkerCad. Once the students have completed their models, the teachers are going to 3D print them.

Some things we learned:

• Give the students some "free" time to investigate the TinkerCad software. There is a learning curve to navigating and creating objects in the program. This will take a day or two.
• Reduce the 3D standard build size of TinkerCad to 85mm x 85mm. This will make is print directly on the 3D printer without having the scale down the final model.
• Match up their hand drawn designs to the 3D model by adjusting the scale. We used a 1/8" scale and 1/4" scale on paper. This makes it so the students can directly line up their shapes from the graph paper to the 3D model.
• Create a ground layer that is a ~3mm thick rectangular prism
• Have the student "sink" their shapes into the "ground" before they group everything. This should prevent the shapes from being detached when printed.

GCISD Expo Reflection

I attended the GCISD Expo as a representative for Cannon and GMS. We did a great job of highlighting the STEM programs at both campuses. For Cannon, there was a table for every grade level to display some of the projects they have done throughout the year. GMS had tables displaying the student projects created during their design days. We had great questions and feedback from the parents visiting our tables.

Some thoughts for next year:

• Test print a model to ensure the 3D printer will function the entire evening.
• Avoid the projects that require water. This wound up being a mess.
• Find out how many tables will be provided. We brought extra tables that weren't needed or used.
• Come up with a plan for packing up at the end. The mad dash to leave caused some pieces to go missing for a while

The venue:

• The gym had a ton of space and we did not feel cramped.
• The gym had a good sound system, but it was too loud. We had difficulty hearing the parents talking to us.
• Give a better explanation of the performance groups. Many parents were confused as to why there were singing and dancing acts, when we don't have a "performance school." I believe these performances were to highlight the "Leader in Me" program, but that's just a guess.

Arduino's and 5th Graders

I started co-teaching with Mrs. Hagar today. We were introducing Arduino's to the 5th graders. The students had worked with them last year, but many of the students transferred in this year. As you can imagine, there was a wide mix of ability and comfort levels.
Mrs. Hagar asked me to help strengthen the students' understanding of the coding side of Arduino's. So, we started with a simple blinking sketch. The first class used the Sparkfun "Circuit_1" sketch. This is a good sketch and it is VERY detailed with explanations. In the classroom setting though, these explanations actually made it harder to use the sketch. There were 200+ lines of comments with <10 lines of actual code. The comments are good if you are self-teaching, but they became a distraction when trying to teach.

The 2nd class comes in and I changed tactics. We loaded the built-in "Blink" sketch that comes preloaded with the Arduino software. This is the exact same sketch, minus all the superfluous explanation. This sketch worked much better.

We started with just the Arduino and  and the computer. I walked to the students through the few lines of code and explained what each one did. We talked about the different between analog and digital. I described what the { } meant and did. We learned how to read the comments to get a better understanding of the code. All was going well. I then had them Verify and Upload the sketch to the Arduino so we could see how the LED #13 flash. I challenged the students to speed up the flashing and then slow down the flashing. The students simply changed the delays in the code. But, they were changing both of the delays (on and off). So I challenged them to have a long ON with a short OFF blink pattern. The final step was the challenge of Morse Code.
I originally wanted SOS (. . . _ _ _ . . .), but shortened it to just (. . _ _) The students completed this with 80-90% success. They were still struggling with the difference between the ON and OFF delays and many of them still had them "tied" together.

Now was time to build a circuit. We used the first example in the Sparkfun Inventors Kit Codes book (SIK Codes). They wired in an LED with a 330 ohm resistor to digital pin 13. This LED was now blinking with the onboard LED. We discussed why that was (because they are both pin 13). We then discussed how we could change them so that they blinked at separate times. The last challenge was to make the necessary changes to the code and wiring to have the LED's blink separately. (don't forget to add a pinMode(xx, OUTPUT) for the new pin used, otherwise the LED will not be very bright.

This is code from the sketch we were using:

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin 13 as an output.
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(13, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(13, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
}

Magic IT Dust? or Evil Genius?

I either have some Magic IT Dust or am an Evil Genius that breaks things to cause problems, then fixes them to make it seem like you are crazy. At least that is how I think people see me.

I get frequent requests to come assist with a technology problem; printers on the fritz, interactive whiteboard being spastic, etc. But when I arrive, the problem is no longer there. The technology gremlins have been banished by my mere presence.

I wish I had that much power. But, alas, the glitch is just that, a glitch. And it has fixed itself. To the user, I do believe you. The technology gremlins happen to me too. I just walk away, do a little research and it usually fixes itself.

Or am I really an Evil Genius that is pulling the strings, or plugs, behind the scenes?!?

Tues Tech Tip - 9/22

There is a great feature in Blogger to help your parents more easily connect with your blog. They can follow your blog by email. Unfortunately, this feature is not turned on by default. So let's work through the steps to turn it on.

This is a quick video of the process:

First, you need to go to the "Layout" option in the main Blogger page.

Second, you will "Add a Gadget" to the sidebar-right-1.

And finally, you will add the "Follow by Email" gadget. You will have to scroll down a bit to find it.

Thank you to Mrs. Gable for asking the original question.
The article where these directions were derived is:
http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/03/engage-your-audience-with-follow-by.html

STEM Design Day - Explorations

Our first Design Day has come and gone. The students went through rotations and tried all four STEM projects. They will then choose their top 2-3 and work on these in more depth. The students got to work on coding with codecombat.com, Aurduino's, Sphero's and LittleBits.

The Arduino group was the most technically challenging and was where I spent most of my time. I was able to teach the 45 min course to 3 different classes. We led the students through an Blinking LED example build. We used this video from MIT as the basic guide. We are using Sparkfun Redboards and Chromebooks, which required some modifications of the lesson.

The biggest breakthrough for pulling this lesson off was Codebender.cc. Chromebooks are becoming very popular with school districts, but they do have some downsides. One main drawback is that you cannot run additional software on them. Codebender saw the need and developed a Chrome App to get Arduino's running on Chromebooks. And, since it's a Chrome App, it technically works on any machine that runs Chrome. The setup process for Codebender is very easy and they streamlined the connection process into just 5 quick steps. We had an entire class of 6th graders running Arduino sketches on their Chromebooks in less that 5 minutes.

This is my sample build and the sketch we used is located here on Codebender.

New Job, New Journey

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of change. I had fully intended to return to Singley Academy for my 4th year. I was going to be the CTE Department chair and I was excited to grow my leadership experience. My teaching position was great, the people I worked with were great, and the school leadership was great. Everything was good.
Then, my friend applied for a job in Grapevine and listed me as a reference. I filled out the reference check for her and this is where GCISD is sneaky. Once you finish the reference check, you are dumped into the open jobs listings for GCISD. One particular job title caught my eye; "STEM Technology Integration Specialist." Clicking on it showed me a job listing for every fun technology used in schools, including robotics, coding, Arduino's, Raspberry Pi's etc. I had to apply. It was a Wednesday evening that I submitted the application. Thursday morning, I dropped the kiddos off as Wesleyan Academe for their summer programs. There was also a big church garage sale going on and I was perusing the wares when I got a call from an unknown number. I answered and a VERY energetic woman started speaking. She was talking a mile a minute and described the job, asked a few questions, and scheduled an interview for later that day. Her enthusiasm was very clear and I wasn't sure what I had just gotten myself into, but I was excited. I ran home and started researching the school district, the campus, teacher blogs, etc. I had a great job already, but I take interviewing very serious. And everything I saw about this new job seemed awesome.
Interviewing for a job is much easier when you don't NEED a new job. If I didn't get the job, I would still have my current job to go to. I felt very comfortable going into the interview and, to both of our surprises, a previous coworker was on the interview panel. The interview went well and my new principal called that evening to offer the job. To recap, I applied Wed. night and, less than 24 hours later, had a job offer on Thursday night. This was fast and I had to talk it over with the family and sleep on it. But, it was fate and I accepted the offer on Friday morning. There was some stickiness getting out of my contract with Irving, but that was sorted and I started this new journey with Cannon Elementary.
I started the job and had to hit the ground running. I'm learning as fast as I can, helping as many people as I can and trying to figure everything out. I still haven't finished unpacking my boxes in my new office. I'll get to that eventually, I'm having too much fun right now.