Information Technology Education

Continuing from my last post where two of my students designed phone stands...a third one rose to the challenge and designed one that holds the phone in a stable way both horizontally and vertically.  Not only this, he managed to make it in less than one-third the amount of time of the original version. It was so interesting to watch the process of iteration and how the phone stand design changed. From this... To this... What is even more awe-inspiring is that due to technology, my students have the opportunity to actually put the engineering-design process to work.  The work of designing and prototyping is not something for their future, but it is here and now.  

This year I have used Blendspace to create project-based learning modules for my middle school.  It's a great way to easily integrate multimedia into the learning experience and reach a diverse array of interests.  Recently, my students have started the 3D printing one which has them consider the history, possibilities, and challenges faced with this new technology.  As the culmination, they design an object and print it, after which they consider further iterations and how to make improvements. Here's an example of a student who printed a stand for his phone so it can sit horizontally as he uses it for viewing purposes, monogrammed with his initials and all. Total printing time was over 3 hours and the phone was not completely stable in the stand, so I asked the students to redesign their phone stand to reduce printing time AND have a more stable stand.  So they did and here is their redesign. Print time went down... I have another student working on a third design...

We just finished creating our first hummingbird robot with servo, motor, voice, lights and all. The video below and the link to our story HERE in pictures, words and motion tell it all!

I recently received a grant from APS to get my students started with hummingbird robotics. Here is a summary of the grant proposal from the APS site: Explorer Middle School, Phoenix Students Impacted: 97 Project Title: Middle School Makers Grant: $1,950 Description: "Middle School Makers" will involve programming and creating robotics, kinetic sculptures and animatronics using Hummingbird kit materials.   I envisioned it as a way to have them make, create, and program.  Using an Arduino device and a variety of LEDs and sensors partnered with the CREATE Lab Visual Program, my students are off and running already on day one! There are a series of video tutorials that make it easy for anyone to wire and program.  They created a variety of sounds with the text-to-speech feature and are well on their way to creating animatronics.  The CREATE Lab makes it simple to create expressions and then sequence them.  We will work on exploring loops and getting our creatures...

I got to thinking the other day about the myriad of STEM competitions and challenges that are out there any how many emails I receive on a regular basis about them...app inventing challenges, science fairs, math competitions, essay contests...the list goes on.  They are such valuable learning opportunities for students and add what Volkwagen calls the 'fun' theory to life.  Bring a challenge into the classroom and it adds a whole different level of motivation and engagement. Fun Theory As a teacher, while I always saw the value in challenges and competitions, they were also a bit stressful due to deadlines and coordinating school schedules and worktime.  This year, though, I tried to integrate them with the standards that I am teaching anyway and bring them into my classroom.  It's been great!  The powerful thing about these STEM challenges is that they are open-ended and that there is no limit to how high or far you can go.  The limit is the students' imag...

These words were spoken by Barbara Beskind, who at 90 years old, is working at IDEO and giving feedback in the design of new products in the Silicon Valley.  I just love everything she had to say on npr here .  Wow.  Talk about inspiring.  We all change and our situations all change, but the important thing is to problem solve and design for this change. Here is a video about IDEO "in a word…" As I begin a new semester with a new group of students, I try to emphasize from the beginning the engineering-design process and how we can use it to solve problems.  I have them go online and study the myriad of engineering-design process images on Google images and then have them compare them, looking at similarities, differences, unique and outstanding characteristics.  They then work in pairs to create their own version of the engineering-design process.  Through this, I hope they learn that there are multiple perspectives and pathways to design and create w...

Where else can you celebrate CS week, ring in the holiday season, and incorporate bubble sort into a dance performance?  Watch this video to find out... Code and dance? No problem!