Information Technology Education

As you can tell from the blogs lately, we've been putting our Makerbot to good use with plenty of innovative and creative designs, not to mention iterations.  A student recently came up with the idea to design and print the parts to create an underwater robot. Here are labeled drawings of his initial design in his engineering-design notebook: Here is a picture of the 3D printed parts, motors, propellers, and joysticks: And, here is a short video description of his robot...

I have been exploring sketch-noting and brain-doodling lately and thought it would be a great vehicle my students to think, process, and organize information.  I started off with a class discussion and asking my students what they find challenging about note-taking.  Many of them shared that they found it hard to keep up with the speaker, and others said that they sometimes wrote so furiously that they couldn't understand their own handwriting when it came time to study for the tests.  Others shared how they found it difficult to make sense of their notes.  Sketch-noting seemed a great way to address some of these issues.  Introducing it through sample images of sketchnoting from Google images and sites like Sketchnote Army  was a great way to start.  For more tutorials and ideas of places to start with doodling, I went to Brain Doodle s. Here, there are lessons, videos, tutorials, and a gallery of images.  I  really like this sketch-note ex...

Turning my classroom into a creative makerspace this year has really brought out new ideas and uses for the design and 3D printing that I have not seen before.  Just this week, a student designed and printed parts to go along with an assignment in English class - to create a board game based on the novel Walk Two Moons.   Love, love, love that students are putting their newfound skills to use across the curriculum and in authentic, needs-based ways. Here is the student's board game.  The card-holder was customized to fit the cards and the title of the novel printed on it.  The game pieces were small cars in a variety of colors to correspond with the theme of the novel. Here's another project that a student has just designed and printed...LEGO bricks, customized LEGO train tracks and train wheels... And last but not least, a very original "8-bit Mario"...

Last evening, I was invited to attend an inspiring event during which COX Connect2STEM award winners were announced as well as an important inaugural announcement -  introduction of the Chief Science Officers initiative.   My school is one of more than 50 middle and high schools to pilot the Chief Science Officers (CSO) initiative.  In this role, student-body elected CSOs will work on raising campus-wide engagement in STEM by serving as the “voice” for  their schools.  They will work on identifying science opportunities such as speakers, field trips, science nights and ensure that these opportunities reflect the interests of their peers. They will be the contact and streamline the ability for STEM-based organizations throughout the state to meaningfully connect with their schools. In addition, CSOs will participate as a member of a state-wide “cabinet” of other CSOs to engage in Arizona’s conversation about STEM, education and the workforce. To prepare for their...

During my STEM lab, two students approached me and asked if they could explore graphic design as their next unit of study.  I set out to investigate options for them and got a recommendation for a MOOC from my district's director of technology - Human-Computer Interaction from UC San Diego . This went right along with areas that I have been experimenting with lately - rapid prototyping and designing with the user in mind.  Tying this online experience in with face-to-face interaction with them in class, I have been able to discuss the learning with them and come up with practical ways for them to use what their new knowledge and skills.  One of the initial projects involved interviewing someone about what they would want in a dashboard.  I arranged for them to interview another teacher about her preferences for a personalized dashboard and they got a better idea of what it meant to design for humans.  For example, she would want to be able to control the notific...

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...