Technology Notes

There are a variety of websites and blogs that I check out on a daily basis, Tekzilla has joined the line up…

They have two types of episodes, daily and weekly. The daily episode is super short and has a single windows, firefox, or mac tip. The weekly episode is a half an hour long and the two hosts give reviews on various products and tools as well as answer letters from viewers. There is also an archive for both formats so you can catch up with previous episodes. You can pick up some really great and easy tips in no time flat!

While perusing the usual geek/tech blogs, I came across this ultra neat gadget on Geek Alerts that’s available on Gadget4all. Basically it creates a cooling space for all that heat your laptop generates as well as providing a hub for more USB devices.

SlideShare is a website that allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations to the web.
You can explore the site, view my presentations, or you can view the SlideCast I made that can guide you through the steps of registering and uploading presentations.

| View | Upload your own

This is a smaller version of the SlideCast, but you can view the full size version by clicking on the link I gave you above. Also, just like I’ve embedded the SlideCast here on my blog, you can use SlideShare to embed your presentations on HomeworkNow. I’d love to hear from people who have started using it!

| View | Upload your own

Yes! I am extremely excited because this year Pi Day will be bigger than ever!! Pi Day is of course celebrated nationally by math teachers and students on March 14th. I started the tradition of observing the special day at school— this year will be our 3rd annual celebration. In previous years I have gotten my students and other faculty members to order and wear Pi Day shirts on 3.14. I have also shown Pi videos, played Pi songs, and had students work on projects such as making Pi posters in my classes. This year is going to be amazing!!! Leading up to Pi day I will not only be giving my students many new activities to work on, but I will also be developing lessons for teachers of all subjects to use on that day. We are also selling Pi Day shirts in the bookstore that were designed by students. There will be a Pi contest to see who can memorize the most digits of Pi and there will be daily announcements made from now until Pi day with great facts about the mathematical constant. As we get closer to the big day I will be making updates so check back! Check out the links below for more information and get involved!!

Pi Day page on the Math Department Website that I will be updating soon.
My HomeworkNOW page on Pi Day that I will be continuing to update as Pi Day approaches.
My Del.icio.us bookmarks on Pi Day that I add to any time I find useful or interesting information on Pi.

Couple of updates for you…. my PageFlake was featured on the Smartboard Lessons Podcast Blog Not only did the writers of that blog leave my first comment, but to be mentioned on such a website with an incredible amount of ideas and resources was really, really cool!! You should definitely check out the site, they update it frequently.

Also, I’ve just branched out and started yet another blog… this one is specifically created as a resource for the Physical Computing course I am taking. So those of you who have been following my progress in that class should make note! If you’re new to my blog and are not familiar with it then you can click on the About page on my new blog for more info.

On a different topic, this past week some of our faculty attended a presentation given by an Apple representative on using our Mac Lab to create podcasts. Since most of the faculty was unfamiliar with the concept of a podcast, he spent most of the presentation explaining what a podcast is, how to subscribe to them and the basics of creating a simple podcast using GarageBand. I have been planning to use podcasts in my own classes and will be asking students to create one for their 3rd semester project grade. I need to purchase a digital camcorder and try my hand at making my own podcast– so for our next CST session I am thinking of creating a podcast on how to make a podcast That way I’ll not only get the experience of making a podcast, but I’ll be also be able to explain how it’s done both for my students and for other faculty members who are a little technology shy.

Still have not been able to make much progress on putting together a policy on blogging so that I can get my students blogging. I wanted to do it over the mid winter break but had major computer issues. (For those of you who have not read previous posts, my school does not have a policy on blogging and I have been told not to let my students blog until there is a policy in place.)  My monitor is down on my desktop and I had to reinstall the o/s on my laptop Let me tell you, it was a major headache!! So, the plan is to spend time over spring break getting that policy together. I’ve accomplished a lot this year, but I will feel very disappointed if I’m not able to introduce blogging into the classroom. I wish I had more support from the faculty and administration in developing blogging as a resource for students and as a professional development tool. Those of you who blog understand the many ways it can be used to support education (I also gave a CST presentation and have a list of Blogs used in education for those of you who are new to blogging or are looking for more information).  I have to carve out time to get that done….

So my laptop had a major meltdown this past week– had to reboot the operating system…  this means that not only did I lose every file (oh that was so painful) but I also had to reinstall the driver and software for the Arduino board (for my physical computing class).  Luckily I remembered to do that before class!  The night before class might be a little last minute, but still, it’s before class   Needless to say, I ran into some trouble, but after quite some time I was able to get things working, phew!!!

As I seem to be a glutton for punishment, I figured I might as well try and build some circuits– it has been a while that I’ve practiced.  I managed to get a LED to blink (yeah!!) but didn’t get multiple LEDs to work

 (cartoon from xkcd, an awesome webcomic
of romance, sarcasm, math, and language)

As I started packing things away I decided to sort out my wires and resistors because it’s getting a little crowded in my little pink box!!  Luckily I remembered I had a neat little craft box with compartments to organize everything.                                                                                                                                                          Feeling inspired, I decided to label the compartments to make things even easier to find.  Then I realized I totally forgot how to figure out the resistor strengths.  Since my class notes disappeared into the ether along with everything else on my hard drive I started with my previous post on our class message board.  Which contained a great chart… but no instructions   So I did some digging on google and found an AWESOME site that will actually calculate the resistor strength for you, cha ching!!  While as a math teacher I love working with numbers, as a very tired math teacher I totally appreciate this quick and easy shortcut   For my fellow classmate (and anyone else starting to work with basic electronics), if you’re having trouble figuring out those resistors, take a look at this site!!!  See ya later

Take a look at my Pageflakes!!  I had been using Google Reader for my RSS feed aggregator, but I think that I like Pageflakes better!!  It’s a little bit more customizable and I like the way you can have several pages organized by tabs.  On my home page I’ve got a cool podcast widget that features SmartBoard Lessons.  Then I have a page featuring RSS feeds from education, technology, and science sites.  I also have a page on some of the teacher blogs I keep up with.

Yesterday was the fourth meeting of the Physical Computing class I’m taking… every week gets more and more exciting!! We’ve learned how to manipulate the basic tools, create simple animations using the timeline, use action script (very, very basic though), and make buttons. I guess that might not sound that exciting, but these basics are going to lead to bigger and better things…. We had some time to mess around and try to create a scene, so I tried to recreate the ‘chute’ scene one of our instructors created…. Take a look!!!

Yeah, it doesn’t look that great, but it’s the concepts that count!! Using what I’ve learned so far I’m going to try to make a ‘real’ project this weekend that I plan on using in my senior PreCalculus class. In class today we worked on what I thought was a pretty straightforward word problem— however, instead of spending about 5-10 minutes on it, we wound up spending almost the whole period discussing it/working on similar problems. The problem involves a beaker of an acidic mixture in which x amount of pure acid needs to be added in order to achieve a set percentage of acid in the solution. It hit me that I could make this problem so much easier for them to visualize by using a flash movie instead of static images….. I can totally visualize what I want to happen in the scene, but I think it’s going to take a little bit of work to make it actually happen. We’ll see what I can do this weekend!! Between online tutorials and being able to contact our instructors via email for help I think I’ll be able to pull it off…… so hopefully next time I write I’ll be able to share a much cooler scene than my ‘chute’ movie!!!

Part 2:
Working with the timeline is starting to make more sense, but it’s still a little tough… More frustrating though is trying to draw!!! I don’t have Illustrator, but I was able to download an opensource version called Inkscape. I can see that it’s going to take me a while to learn how to manipulate the various tools, but I was able to do a slightly better job creating images in Inkscape than in Flash…. I need to spend more time creating my ‘acid’ movie, but I guess I have a pretty good start. Take a look:

I obviously have a lot more work to do, hopefully I’ll have more time this week to play around with it…..

chute

For anyone who is interested in getting an interactive whiteboard, but is a little short on funds, take a look at these websites to find out how you can put together your own system for considerably less money….

Multi-touch Whiteboard Under 100 Dollars- Using the Wii Remote
Video of Wii Remote/Multi-touch Whiteboard on YouTube
Johnny Chung Lee’s Website

Can you say AMAZING?!?! I wonder if you can use the Wii remote to create a cheaper version of the Airliner Slate and/or the Senteo (Senteo features)…

This past Wednesday was the first meeting of the Physical Computing class I am taking this semester. It was such an exciting first meeting! We received the laptops, printers, and software which are paid for by our stipend. We also learned more about what we will be learning and doing during the course of the next few months. Basically, we will learn how to use Flash and Arduino to create a project that will used in the classroom. Flash is a software program that creates graphics that can be used to animate designs. Arduino is a programming language that receives input from a variety of sensors to control actuators such as lights and motors. Ultimately we will learn to use Arduino to create a physical response that will be shown graphically through the use of Flash.

I’ve learned a little bit about Flash in a previous class that I took at St. Francis and I am very excited to learn more. Take a look at some websites that use Flash animations:
Al’s Relativistic Adventures
Pi Song
Map of the History of Religion
Yuichan Socratic Zen Conversationalist

I am also looking forward to learning how to the Arduino part of the course— I know very little about computer programming!! Our instructors showed us Pleo, a robotic dinosaur that responds to various stimuli in different ways. We won’t be working with anything quite as sophisticated, but we will learn how to create a device that responds to a stimulus such as temperature, sound, or light.

Also during the class our instructors gave us supplies and showed us how to create a “LED Throwie”.

What exactly is a “Throwie”???!
It’s a Light-emitting Diode (LED) that produces a narrowly
focused beam of light and is powered by a battery
which is then firmly attached to a magnet with tape. LEDs are used in objects like clocks, signs, some TVs, and works of art. Check out the create ways the Graffiti Research Lab has used them! Since my bookshelf at work has a magnetic surface, I’ve stuck my throwie on it….. I wonder how long it will stay lit

I can’t wait for our next meeting!! I will be adding websites on physical computing articles and resources to my del.icio.us, feel free to take a look!!