OSED.org

A Monday grab-bag of community cleverness | Raspberry Pi

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:06:17 +0000

This is what a creative community does: Takes a great idea and builds on it…and what better way to extend the “please be creative with this thing” message that by encasing it in Lego bricks! The model shown here (including an amazing logo) is a case for a Raspberry Pi. The link below will take you to the Raspberry Pi website, where there are links to several other great projects from users.*

I have three boxes of Lego in the lab at school and I really hope to be able to put them to good use in the Maker course this coming Fall. This is certainly a project I will keep my eye on as we have plans to add at least one Pi to the mix!

* Raspberry Pis are not even available yet, so I guess these are “proto-users” for now.

A Monday grab-bag of community cleverness | Raspberry Pi.

Filed under: art, Ideas, innovation, mod, open, Raspberry Pi

#DadLife: I wonder…

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:53:29 +0000

I love a good rhetorical question (“Why can’t every day be my birthday?” or ”Is there no one who can save us from Super Villain X’s evil machinations?”). The whole point of a rhetorical question however is that the question is either unanswerable or the answer is self-evident (“Uh, it’s just not physically possible to have endless birthdays.” or “Obviously Super Hero Y will come and save the day!”).

It really bothers me when rhetorical questions are misused to incorrectly imply that something is unanswerable or self-evident as is the case in this blog post from #DadLife. He proudly details how his child plays an iPad game for ten whole minutes and then ends his post with a rhetorical question: “[D]id she get to do anything like this level of problem solving in her 7 hours at school today?”

The author is implying one of two things here and I am honestly not sure which one to go with:

He has no means of knowing what his daughter might have learned in school today.
It is obvious to everyone that his daughter did not learn anything of value in school today.

I reject both of these implications. Clearly he could have spent those ten whole minutes of iPad time engaging with his child directly to find our what she was learning in her time at school. He could also have spent ten whole minutes speaking with his child’s teacher about his child’s engagement and learning.

Both of these easy solutions make his rhetorical question seem like a lazy cop-out…which leads me to my own rhetorical question: “Does this parent seriously think that ten minutes on an iPad is better than talking to his child about her day at school or engaging in a meaningful way with her teacher?” The answer is, in this case, self-evident: This parent believes that ten whole minutes of iPad time are more insightful to him than engaging his child or her teacher directly.

#DadLife: I wonder….

Filed under: apps, blogging, communication, Hardware, Ideas, ipad, philoshopy

“8 Big Ideas” from Gary Stager

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:44:40 +0000

As I write my new course for next school year (“MakeIT: A workshop for young makers”) I am looking for excellent resources to guide my own thoughts about student creativity and learning. Gary Stager, who was a keynote speaker at the school’s laptop conference, continues to provide me with highly nutritious food-for-thought.

This list of ideas (written by Seymour Papert by also part of Stager’s 2007 dissertation) is just what I need to frame the course and provide answers to the “What are we doing?” questions that this course will generate. My favorite idea for my students is “hard fun”, the idea that we learn more and actually enjoy learning more when it is enjoyable and challenging. This idea is already built into the Scratch projects in my 8th grade class and I like the idea of the young makers in 6th grade learning in a challenging environment, too.

(By the way, my fav idea for teachers is “do unto ourselves what we do unto our students.” These courses wouldn’t work if I wasn’t right in there demonstrating my own skills and continuing to learn new things with the kids each quarter.)

stager.org/articles/8bigideas.pdf.

Filed under: Constructionism, create, creativity

MAKE | Access Android Sensors from a Scratch Program

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:42:19 +0000

Now this is doubly exciting: an Android app that uses your phone’s sensors to send input to Scratch. Two of my favorite things (Scratch and Android) coming together.

I have already watch the video clip (see above) and downloaded the app itself onto my Nexus One. Tomorrow I will try it out at school with the kids to see how it goes.

It remains to be seen what exactly can be done with this additional Scratch input, of course. Would it make your phone into a game controller or scientific probe? Would it give you robotics, remote control-style interactions with Scratch?

I will post again on this topic when I have had the opportunity to explore this one further.

MAKE | Access Android Sensors from a Scratch Program.

Scratch Sensor – the Android Smartphone as a DAQ module

Scratch Sensor in the Android Market

Filed under: android, google, scratch

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE on Vimeo

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 17:48:00 +0000

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

Filed under: creativity, sharing, video

"Seriously, FirstClass?" (A short tragicomedy)

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:29:00 +0000

FirstClass: Did you mean “bog?”
Me: Seriously? “Blog” is a word that was coined in 1997 to describe a web-log, a sort of online journal. This site is a blog, for example.
FirstClass: Hmm…FirstClass was created in the early 1990s. Maybe I am too old to know this word.
Me: But surely your built-in dictionary is has been updated in the last two decades! How about the word “Google?”
FirstClass: What?
Me: *sigh*

Filed under: blogging, firstclass, google, humor

The 2011 K-12 Horizon Report: Too optimistic? | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:38:00 +0000

Ouch! Scott McLeod pulls no punches in this response to the 2011 K-12 Horizon Report. He echoes Gary Stager’s assertion that most technology growth is replicative in nature: SmartBoards replicating chalkboards, clickers/responders replicating multiple-choice quizzes, teacher-selected YouTube clips replicating filmstrips and VHS tapes. Even Moodle takes a hit as he claims that it is simply another environment created and controlled by teachers. (True, too.)

He laments the missed opportunities of new and emerging technologies: “We still have too many teachers who have no clue what Google Docs or Twitter are, for example. We still have too many administrators who are blocking mobile learning devices and are fearful of online learning spaces.”

This parallels so many conversations I have been having recently with colleagues and articles I have been reading online about the disparate expectations that Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Boomers have regarding technology, education and daily life…perhaps this will be fodder for a future post here on MSIT Next.

The 2011 K-12 Horizon Report: Too optimistic? | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think

Filed under: collaboration, communication, creativity, curriculum, learning, moodle, pedagogy, scott mcleod, teaching

Content Providers Old and New Partner to Make Searching Easier | MindShift

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

It is no surprise that Creative Commons is at the heart of this one as they have been working with educators for years to locate and share educational resources. They have even partnered with MIT* to provide OpenCourseWare under a CC license and have been doing so for seven years.

The “common metadata schema” mentioned by Casserly is already being applied to a re-visioning project that the HS library is undertaking, by the way. Our librarian is enhancing her collection’s MARC records with content “tags” for better keyword/category search results. Common search terms are often not enough to pull up high quality, educationally relevant materials and metadata can provide excellent results when one cannot see the forest for the trees.

* Yes, the same MIT that provides us with Scratch, which has its own built-in CC license!

Content Providers Old and New Partner to Make Searching Easier | MindShift

Filed under: creative commons, education, metadata, mit, scratch, search, sharing

25 Cents For My Thoughts: An online reading incentive program

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Wed, 25 May 2011 07:38:00 +0000

This URL was forwarded to us all recently by a fellow teacher with the enigmatic comment “Food for thought…”

My first thought was that this might be a snarky parody of Alfie Kohn by someone having a laugh. To find out more I visited the website and it appears to be legit. (There is no “Ha ha, just kidding!” text at the bottom of the page.)

My second thought was that maybe this example was somehow the exception that proves the rule. Many teachers here at our school have read and discussed Kohn’s ideas about learning in general and reward systems in particular. Does this blog contradict or support Kohn’s assertion that reading incentive programs ultimately discourage independent pleasure reading (which is the goal, right?) and push children towards thinner, easier-to-finish books that they skim and forget rather than truly reading, understanding, and enjoying.?

This child, who is paid to read and blog, has thus far produced entries that vary in length from several sentences to short utterances. For example “this iz a Good book abot money (sic)” is the entire entry for a book with the title Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday. Does this demonstrate enjoyment of reading or comprehension of the story beyond what is already apparent in the title? Thus far the Skinnerian behavior-reward scheme seems to have produced some cute photos and some amusing blurbs, but the jury is still out on the long-term effects for this little boy.

A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs (Excerpts from Punished by Rewards, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993/1999, by Alfie Kohn)

25 Cents For My Thoughts – I get a quarter for each book I read and blog about. (this child’s online reading incentive program)

Filed under: blogging, incentive, kohn, reward

Adjusting the Prescription | The University of Virginia Magazine

Aaron Tyo-Dickerson — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:49:00 +0000

One of the great things about our job is that we are often consulted about new and interesting ideas from The Great Beyond. This week the three of us were sent a link to an article in the online University of Virginia Magazine and asked to share our responses.

While it would be tempting at first blush to read this article as an endorsement of the “shiny, new things” approach to innovation, it actually presents a fascinating look at curricular re-imagining for this university medical school program. The photos seem to showcase the technology/tools (large screens, round tables, student laptops, high-tech mannequins) but the real star of the show is the dramatic changes in teaching and learning styles (professors as guides and co-learners, students as researchers and constructors of knowledge).

Adjusting the Prescription | The University of Virginia Magazine

Filed under: collaboration, communication, create, creativity, curriculum, higher ed, pedagogy, sharing