Introduction
"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery"-Mark Van DorenBe patient with yourself when learning something new.
Education by design is a one-week intensive workshop for educators in lesson design and emerging technologies. The workshop bridges your experience in the classroom with new tech tools and design strategies. You will be encouraged to find ways to utilize technology to your advantage.
In the workshop you will design a fully actionable lesson through a design process. Through visualizing, storytelling, and making iteratively you will design a lesson that excites your students and satisfies your needs.
Our objectives are to
- Make students responsible for their own learning outcomes.
- Foster important questions in the minds of learners.
- Build cooperative learning opportunities.
- Encourage personal exploration in the pursuit of common learning objectives.
- Focus on rapid prototyping and testing.
- Emphasize continuous documentation and sharing.
Soldering
Parts
- toothbrush
- 3V battery
- pager motor or other tiny motor with an unbalanced output shaft
- Small switch
- Double sided tape
Image from: Evil Mad Scientist
Assembly
- Cut off the handle of the toothbrush
- Solder wire leads to the motor terminals.
- Apply a small piece to the top of the toothbrush robotic platform, which will be used to hold the motor in place.
- Battery and motor placement, bristle shape (one stray long bristle can interfere with the motion, and motor rotation direction all influence the behavior. Try flipping the battery upside down if you have trouble getting your bot to go straight.
Image from: Evil Mad Scientist
Night Light
What is an LDR
LDR stands for Light Dependent Resistor and is also known as a Cadmium Sulphide (CdS) cell, a photoresistor or a photocell. An LDR is made of a high resistance semiconductor. It is similar to a normal resistor with the exception that a normal resistor has a fixed value and the LDR's resistance is dependent on ambient light, the light that exists in the LDR's vicinity. So a photocell is a variable resistor, which produces a resistance proportional to the amount of light it senses. It is very hard to use an LDR to determine the exact amount of light in a given setting but these components are great for determining light in a broader sense, whether it is dark or light. There are two basic circuits that use LDRs:- circuits activated by darkness
- circuits activated by light
Image from Adafruit
To measure the resistance of an LDR you will need a multimeter:
Image from www.doctronics.co.uk
- Write down the resistance value you measure when the LDR is exposed to the room lights
- Cover the LDR with your hand so that it is in the dak. The resistance of the LDR will increase. Write down the new resistance value
- To create a voltage divider you would pick a fixed resistor in the middle of the the values you wrote down
Night Light
- Soldering
- Reading Schematics
- Sketching
- 3D modeling
- 3D printing
- How does an LDR work?
- How does your nightlight work?
- If you could design any kind of enclosure for your night light, what would it be?
- What kind of compromises did/will you make
Introduction to Transistors
A transistor is a semiconductor with 3 leads:
- Emitter
- Base
- Collector
There are two types of transistors: bipolar and field-effect transistors (FETs). Unlike bipolar transistors, the leads of FETs are referred to as gate, source and drain.
Bipolar transistors can be divided into two categories: NPN and PNP. NPN transistors act like normally opened switches. PNP transistors act like NC switches.
Function
Transistors can amplify the current or can be used as switches.Operating Values
These values vary and you must refer to the datasheets.Basics
Bipolar Transistors are composed of three layers:- An Input Layer, the emitter
- A Control Layer, the base
- An Output Layer, the collector
Layers are formed by doping silicon with traces of impurities. Silicon treated with Boron produces negative type material. It is negative because it has a surplus of electrons. Doping the silicon with Phosphorous produces positive material, or material with a surplus of electron holes.
Silicon transistors are considered semiconductors because they conduct only a small amount of current unless a change in voltage is applied at a juncture.
When current is applied to the input layer, or the emitter of an NPN transistor, electrons flow to the P-type base and fill the positive material, or electron holes. When the holes are filled, the material no longer conducts current. But when a small voltage is applied to the control layer, or base, that current will produce additional holes which in turn allows current to flow from the emitter through the base to the collector.
The difference between a PNP transistor and an NPN transistor is the polarity, or proper biasing of the junctions. Transistors restrict the amount of current passed according to a smaller, controlling current. The main current from collector to emitter (PNP) or from emitter to collector (NPN) depends on the type of transistor it is. The small current that controls the main current goes from base to emitter (PNP), or from emitter to base (NPN), depending on the kind of transistor it is.
The arrow always points against the direction of electron flow.
Bipolar transistors are called bipolar because the main flow of electrons through them takes place in two types of semiconductor material: P and N, as the main current goes from emitter to collector (or vice versa). Two types of charge carriers: electrons and holes, comprise the main current through the transistor.
All currents must be going in the proper directions for the device to work as a current regulator. The small, controlling current is usually referred to as the base current because it is the only current that goes through the base wire of the transistor.
The large, controlled current is referred to as the collector current because it is the only current that goes through the collector wire.
NPN transistor
- The base-emitter junction behaves like a diode.
- A base current IB flows only when the voltage VBE
across the base-emitter junction is 0.7V or more.
- The small base current IB controls the large collector current Ic.
- The collector-emitter resistance RCE is controlled by the base current IB:
- IB = 0 RCE = infinity transistor off
- IB small RCE reduced transistor partly on
- IB increased RCE = 0 transistor full on ('saturated')
- IB = 0 RCE = infinity transistor off
Transistors are not a good choice when switching large currents (> 5A). When switching large currents, you need to use relays.
Switches
If there is no current through the base of the transistor, the transistor shuts off the controlled current like an open switch and prevents current through the collector. A base current, turns the transistor on like a closed switch and allows a proportional amount of current through the collector. Collector current is primarily limited by the base current, regardless of the amount of voltage available to push it.
Parts
- Breadboard—Jameco
- Wire—Jameco
- Battery Clip—Jameco
- 9 Volt Battery
- BC548 or 2N2219 or 2N2906 transistor—Jameco
- 470Ω resistor—Jameco
- 1KΩ Resistors—Jameco
- 1 LED—Jameco
- 1 LDR—Jameco
- 1 10K potentiometer—Jameco
- Dual Mini Board with 213 Holes Protoboard—RadioShack
The BC548 is a general purpose silicon NPN BJT transistor.
Which transistor is the BC548:
Instructions
Schematic
- Breadboard the circuit first to test it.
- Place the trimpot in the breadboard so that each lead is in its own row:
- Connect the center lead of the trimpot to the power bus:
- Connect the anode of the LED to the center lead of the trimpot:
- Connect the cathode of the LED to the 470Ω resistor
- Place the transistor in the breadboard so that the cathode of the LED is connected to the collector of the transistor through the 470Ω resistor:
- Connect the base of the transistor to the right lead of the trimpot through the 1K Ω resistor:
- Connect the base and the emitter of the transistor through the LDR:
- Connect the emitter to GND
- Connect a 9volt power supply and test. You may need a screwdriver to adjust the trimpot:
- Place the trimpot in the breadboard so that each lead is in its own row:
- Freeform solder or use the protoboard to make your design more permanent.
- Connect the cathode of the LED to the collector of the transistor through the 470 Ω resistor:
- Connect the base and emitter of the transistor through the LDR:
- Connect the 1K to the base of the transistor:
- Connect the other side of the 1K to the right lead of the trimpot
- Connect the anode of the LED to power:
- Connect the anode of the LED to the center lead of the trimpot:
- Connect the emitter to GND
- Attach a battery and test:
- If everything was fine, clip and strip the power line and attach a switch:
- Connect the cathode of the LED to the collector of the transistor through the 470 Ω resistor:
3D Databases
- Thingiverse
- youMagine
- GrabCad
- X 3D Smithsonian
- NIH 3D Print Exchange
- GB3D Type Fossils
The UK repository for digitized type fossil specimens. - African Fossils
African Fossils seeks to increase public knowledge about prehistory by harnessing modern technology. Through digitizing otherwise inaccessible discoveries, the organization is dedicated to creating a growing repository of 3D models of significant fossils and artifacts, thus making them freely accessible to all. - Digital Morphology library
This collection of 3D models of fossils is generated at the National Science Foundation's multi-user CT lab - Smorf
A website that allows you to interactively render crystal structures on-line and buy 3D-printed models at $10/piece. - UK Natural History Museum
- Human ear from McGill
- TurboSquid
Makey Makey
MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It's a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween:Introduction
3D Printer maintainence
- Make sure belts are not loose
- Keep metal parts lubricated. To lubricate the extruder, dip filament in vegetable oild (canola) before loading
IFTTT
IFTTT is a service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement: If this then ThatClick here browse IFTTT channels
Science
- The Netatmo Weather Station contains a unique set of sensors to monitor your living environment's temperature, barometric pressure,
humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, noise pollution, and more.
The Netatmo App displays your Station's indoor and outdoor measurements into clear and comprehensive dashboards, graphs and notifications. - Surfline specializes in providing live and predicted ocean weather information and editorial content to surfers worldwide.
- The Weather Channel is a native IFTTT Channel that provides a set of Triggers specifically for weather conditions and temperatures in your area. Data provided by Yahoo! Weather.
- Log rain in your city to a spreadsheet as it happens
Humanities
- The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan non-profit organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater U.S. Government openness and transparency.
Email me when Congress schedules a vote on a bill
- Founded in 1851, The New York Times is an international news organization. Its mission is to create, collect and distribute the highest quality news, information and opinion.
Follow how the U.S. Senate is voting from your inbox
There are many interesting ways to use IFTTT, but combining the virtual and the physical can really engage your students. Two IFTTT channel that are particularly interesting are the Belkin WeMo, a home app system that uses mobile internet to control electronics from a smartphone or tablet and Philips Hue.
Belkin WeMo
The WeMo Insight Switch, monitors the energy consumption of your electronics and sends notifications to a smart device. If you have a Wi-Fi or 3/4G connection, you can turn your electronics on and off and monitor their behavior.The WeMo Light Switch replaces your standard wall switch and installs quickly and easily. It is Wi-Fi enabled and lets you turn room lights on and off from anywhere.
The WeMo Switch and WeMo Motion kit allows you to set schedules for home appliances and electronics and turn devices on and off remotely. The sensor detects movement up to 10 feet away and wirelessly signals the WeMo Switch to turn the connected device on or off, depending on your preference.
The WeMo Switch and WeMo Motion kit allows you to set schedules for home appliances and electronics and turn devices on and off remotely. The sensor detects movement up to 10 feet away and wirelessly signals the WeMo Switch to turn the connected device on or off, depending on your preference.
The WeMo Maker is in development and is a tool for hobbyists who have wiring knowledge and enjoy taking electronics apart, the WeMo Maker can connect to nearly any device controlled with a DC switch (24v DC at 1 amp or 12v AC at 2 amp). Once connected, the WeMo Maker allows you to monitor a variety of 5v analog sensors. To control WeMo devices using your smartphone or tablet, download the free WeMo app, available for iOS, Android, and Kindle. Users can then set up rules that manage any WeMo device, based on the status of the WeMo Maker sensor.
Philips Hue
The Philips Hue LED bulb allows you to create your lighting environment with a wireless bridge. The bulbs can be controled with iPhones or iPads. You can connect up to 50 Hue light bulbs to a single system, while using as much as 80% less energy than traditional bulbs. Each Hue light bulb delivers 600 lumens and produces all shades of white, from warm to cold, and a wide variety of color. Each bulb uses 80% less power than a traditional light bulb.What can you print with?
Large scale printers, including those made by Stratasys can use different types of additive manufacturing materials, including clear, rubberlike and biocompatible photopolymers, and tough high-performance thermoplastics.Here are examples of different printing processes:
- Composites and Ceramics
- powder bed and inkjet head printers
This process uses inkjet-type heads to deposit tiny droplets of liquid binder on top of a thin layer of powder. The final object is a stack of powder layers finely glued together. This type of printing can use ceramic powder to create food-safe objects.
- powder bed and inkjet head printers
- Plastics
- Stereolithography (SLA)
In this process liquid plastic resin is selectively hardened by exposure to high intensity light. - Selective Laser Sintering
This process uses high powered lasers to melt and fuse particles of very fine plastic powder - Photopolymer Jetting
This process uses moveable heads, like an inkjet printer, to deposit droplets of resin onto a build platform through a number of very small jets.
- Stereolithography (SLA)
- Metals
- Direct Metal laser sintering (DMLS)
This process uses lasers to directly fuse certain metal powders, such as titanium, in a way similar to SLS printing. - Direct Metal Printing
This process uses a multi-step method to create powder-based metallic models, mainly from stainless steel. First the object is printed on a bed of fine stainless steel powder using the inkjet-binder process. A carefully controlled heat treatment then burns out the plastic binder and fuses the steel particles together. Lastly, the porous sintered model is infused with liquid bronze, which fills the empty spaces. - Indirect Printing Methods
This process uses casting methods to create metal parts.
- Direct Metal laser sintering (DMLS)
Creating MakerWare Custom Profiles
In order to change the print speeds you will need to create your custom profiles by using a text editor with the script, or you can try this profile editor from Nothinglabs.comHere are examples of different filaments:
taulman3D makes a Nylon Co-Polymer as well as t-glass, a high strength material.Taulman Nylon 618 is stronger than PLA. Not only can it take some abuse, but it is also flexible. It is more difficult to print with nylon than PLA. Nylon will absorb moisture from the air and reacts poorly in humid environments. If you see bubbling and steam or are getting stringy prints, this is the result of absorbing moisture from the air. To print with this material, you want to print hot and slow: adjust the temperature to 250° and change the speed to 45mm/s, the interlayer to 35 mm/s and the perimeter to 20-25 mm/s. You might need to turn off the PLA cooling fan as well. In script:
doFanCommand=false
To help the nylon stick to the tape, rub a glue stick over the surface of the blue tape.
Warning: nylon may emit trace amounts of cyanide at high temperatures. Make sure you are printing in a well ventilated space.
3ntr also makes a 3mm polyamide 6 filament (nylon). Similar to Taulman Nylon 618, this filament only comes in 3mm.
LAYWOOD-D3 This filament from Germany is a mixture of 40% recycled wood with a binding polymer. This wood/polymer composite allows the filament to be printed just like thermoplastic filaments, such as ABS and PLA, but gives your creation a wooden-like appearance.
Print between 175°C and 250°C. After printing, your object will look and smell like wood and it can also be handled like wood. After printing you can cut, grind and paint your creations similar as you can do with wooden objects. This filament sticks well to tape. You can print up to 90mm/s.
Depending on the temperature at which LAYWOO-D3 filament is printed, it will take on a different shade of brown. This means that by intentionally varying the printing temperature, you can simulate a tree's growth ring effect. At 180°C your LAYWOO-D3 prints will have a light color and at 245°C your print will become darker.
This filament comes unspooled, but you can print your own spool with
member 3Dprintergear file Spool for Laywoo-D3 3mm and 1.75mm
Here is a python script to simulate banding:
member MoonCactus file Generate wood patterns with temperature changes
LAYBRICK This filament prints like sandstone. It contains natural mineralic fillers (super-fine milled chalk) and harmless co-polyesters. Printing between 165°C to 190°C will produce a smooth surface. Printing at higher temperatures around 210°C will produce a rougher surface.This filament must be printed in the replicator 2 because it needs the fan. Leave the finished print on the bed for several minutes to allow the material to set.
Flex Eco PLA This material is a rubber-like 3D printer filament which allows you to print flexible objects, such as rubber machine parts, soft toys, flip-flops, and other rubbery items.
This filament has a much lesser carbon footprint than typical co-polyester 3D printer filaments. Printing with a 5% infill produces a flexible model, while a 100% infill produces a model with a vulcanized rubber-like quality. You can use this filament to create molds, drive belts, toys, etc.
Print at 230°c and slow down the printing to 20mm/s. You will need to create a custom profile in MakerWare in order to use this filament.
Orbi-Tech, a filament-maker in Germany makes BendLay, a 3D fibre that is tough, bendable and resilient. BendLay's transparency is similar to that of Plexiglass. It can be extruded between 215° - 240°C, with 240°C recommended for best layer adhesion during fast printing. It's thermal stability is like PLA (65° - 70°C).
A modified Butadiene, BendLay is not a material found in nature, but it is safe for household and food products. Its water absorption rate is 30% that of ABS (this matters, because evaporation contributes to warping/curling). Bending will not cause the clear color to change due to stress. It is high-impact resistant and sticks well to both ABS and PLA, for multi-material print jobs. Acetone will turn it crumbly.
Applications range from straps and belts to anything requiring flexibility, thin walls, or light emission. It is relatively easily bent, depending on wall thickness, and highly resilient.
Polyethelene Terephthalate (PET) This material is easy to print. Print at 230° at 90mm/s. It is more rigid than PLA, but can print crystal clear. Use a layer height of 340 microns. This material absorbs water from the air, so make sure you store it in a bag with silica.
Shapeways prints with a flexible, rubbery plastic material called Elasto Plastic. It features high impact resistance, flexibility and compression. The material is made of laser sintering powder and has a rough, grainy finish. It is quite strong when printed with thick features (greater than 5mm). Though not strictly water-tight, it can hold liquids, but it does not like high temperatures or fire.
Shapeways also can print with:
- Alumide, a brittle Nylon Plastic that's filled with Aluminum dust.
- Detail Plastic, an acrylic based polymer that can print fine details. Smooth and slightly shiny.
- Frosted Detail Plastic, a UV-cured acrylic plastic that prints fine details and walls. Smooth and translucent.
- Stainless Steel — surface is slightly pitted & rough.
- Sterling Silver (92.5% silver).
- Gold Plated Brass, highly polished material
- Full Color Sandstone, gypsum printable with color textures on the model surface. Feels like matte clay.
- Ceramics Food-safe glazed ceramics. Available in glossy and satin finishes, and a variety of colors.
Source:Rich Olson at NothingLabs
Resources
- Sweet 3D Printing
- Ethical Filament Foundation
- For Cheaper 3D Printing : A Review of Filament Recyclers
- Got Milk? Then Youve Got 3D Printer Filament at a 99.7% Discount
Scanning
Capture accurate dimensions of objects and environments so that you can manipulate and or print them.3D Software
- 123D Design is free software from Autodesk that allows you to use Sketches, lofting, extruding and revolving.
See tutorials - Autocad—CAD design, drafting, modeling, drawing, and engineering software.
- Maya—Innovative tools for 3D modeling, animation, effects, and rendering.
- OpenSCAD—The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller
- SketchUp—friendly and forgiving 3D modeling software
- Shapeshifter
- MeshMixer
- NetFabb
Documentation
Internal Tools
- Evernote
- GoogleDocs
- Pinterest—Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that you can use to find ideas for all your projects and interests.
Have students create private boards that they share with you. See what inspires your students and protect their privacy. Your students can upload, save, sort and manage images, known as pins, and other media content (e.g. videos and gifs) through collections known as pinboards. - DropBox
External Tools
External tools- iMovie
iMovie in Education - Tumblr
- YouTube
- GoogleSites
-
Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas.
The product employs a zooming user interface, which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media, and allows users to display and navigate through information.
click here for a tutorial - Slideshare—Share what you know through presentations, infographics, and documents
- Coroflot—Designer Portfolios
- Wix/Wordpress/Squarespace
Electric Imp
The Electric Imp platform features fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs and cloud service, providing your devices with intelligence, scalability and flexibility.Introduction
Spark Core
The Spark Core is a Wi-Fi development kit for internet-connected hardware. The Core has a microcontroller, which runs a single application (often called firmware or an embedded application). Microcontrollers have a set of pins that are called GPIO (General Purpose Input and Output) pins, or I/O pins. They can be hooked to sensors or buttons to listen to the world, or they can be hooked to lights and motors to act upon the world. The pins labeled D0 to D7 and A0 to A7 are hooked directly to the microcontroller's GPIO pins.Arduino
Resources:
Conductive Thread
Conductive thread is used in e-textiles instead of wires to connect electronic components together. You can hand sew with the thread. It generally cannot be used as a top thread in a sewing machine, but it can be used in the bobbin. When working with conductive threads you will notices that they tend to fray.Resources:
- Conductive Threads Overview by by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
- Conductive Thread Overview by Syuzi Pakhchyan
- LessEMF
- Lame Livesaver
- superiorthreads
If you run into issues with fraying threads, you can sew with high gauge magnet wire. Just sand the enamel coating off at the connections. I use 33 AWG Elektisola P155 RED
Design Process
The Design Process requires- Collaboration
- Research
- Design
- Building
- Testing
- Communication
Basic steps
- Describe the general situation or problem you are trying to solve. Instead of asking "what do you want to design?" ask "why do you want to design that?" and "what problem and or need will your design ultimately be solving?"
- Identify your target population, which group of people will benefit from your project. Is the target population an individual, a group, a specific community, or a larger, identifiable population? Is the target population from a specific location (country, region, town), demographic (age or gender), or other identifying characteristics (health condition or employment)? How is your target population connected?
- Identify requirements and constraints. A requirement is a need or a necessity; it's what a particular product or service should do. A constraint is a restriction on the degree of freedom you have in providing a solution to a need or problem.
- Ask what are the disadvantages of the present solution to the problem?
- Ask what compromises have been made in the present solution?
- Determine if the compromises are necessary?
- Determine if the solution can be improved?
- By taking a new approach
- By making the design more accurate, safer, more convenient, easier to maintain, cheaper, or more attractive
- Determine if you can reduce the costs by eliminating parts, using different materials, changing the way the product is manufactured?
In a nutshell
- Design Step 1: Identify the Need
- Design Step 2: Research the Problem
- Design Step 3: Brainstorm Possible Solutions
- Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis-select the most promising solution
- Design Step 5: Construct a Prototype
- Design Step 6: Evaluate/Manufacture a Final Product-Reiterate
Design Provocations
The following list is attributed to Alex Osborn- Substiture something
- Combine it with something else
- Adapt something to it
- Modify or magnify it
- Put it to some other use
- Eliminate something
- Reverse or rearrange it
iMovie
iMovie is an easy to use video editing program that comes with the Apple operating system.Sensor Intro
| accelerometer | changes in speed |  Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - MMA7260Q Description: This is a breakout board for Freescale's triple-axis MMA7260QT accelerometer. With a low power shut-down mode, high sensitivity output with selectable ranges (±1.5, 2, 4, and 6g), this was one of the very first sensors to market with three accelerometers built onto a single IC! Board comes fully assembled and tested with external filters installed. The MMA7260QT is a 3.3V part and outputs an analog voltage for each of the three outputs. This voltage is in ratio to the measured acceleration and to the supply voltage (ratiometric). You will need some extra hardware to convert this analog signal to a usable digital one. Luckily, many uCs have a built in Analog to Digital converter. |
| capacitance | electrical properties often associated with human touch |  Description: Breakout board for the Analog Devices 7746 capacitance sensor. Configured for two channels of single-ended capacitance input. Comes with an example touch sensor as well as long capacitance creating traces. Useful as a complete I2C interfaced touch sensor, or as a capacitance measuring tool. |
| color | color |  Color Light Sensor Evaluation Board Description: The ADJD-S371 is a great little sensor. This evaluation board provides all the necessary support circuitry to actually play with the sensor! |
| flex | angular position and changes |  Flex Sensor 4.5" Description: A simple flex sensor 4.5" in length. As the sensor is flexed, the resistance across the sensor increases. Patented technology by Spectra Symbol - they claim these sensors were used in the original Nintendo Power Glove. The resistance of the flex sensor changes when the metal pads are on the outside of the bend (text on inside of bend). Connector is 0.1" spaced and bread board friendly. Check datasheet for full specifications. |
| force | physical pressure in an analog scale |  Force Sensitive Resistor - Small Description: This is a small force sensitive resistor. It has a 0.16" (4 mm) diameter active sensing area. This FSR will vary its resistance depending on how much pressure is being applied to the sensing area. The harder the force, the lower the resistance. When no pressure is being applied to the FSR, its resistance will be larger than 1MΩ, with full pressure applied the resistance will be 2.5kΩ. Two pins extend from the bottom of the sensor with 0.1" pitch making it bread board friendly. These sensors are simple to set up and great for sensing pressure, but they aren't incredibly accurate. Use them to sense if it's being squeezed, but you may not want to use it as a scale. |
| gas | alcohol, methane, CO2, CO, propane, etc |  Alcohol Gas Sensor MQ-3 Description: This alcohol sensor is suitable for detecting alcohol concentration on your breath, just like your common breathalyzer. It has a high sensitivity and fast response time. Sensor provides an analog resistive output based on alcohol concentration. The drive circuit is very simple, all it needs is one resistor. A simple interface could be a 0-3.3V ADC. Features:
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| gyroscope | rotation |  Gyro Breakout Board - LPY530AL Dual 300°/s Description: This is a breakout board for the ST's dual-axis LPY530AL gyro (don't mind the photos). The LPY530AL measures angular velocity along the pitch and yaw axes with a full scale of ±300°/s. Two different analog outputs are provided for both the x- and z- axes - one 1x amplified and the other 4x amplified. A regulated voltage between 2.7 and 3.6VDC should be supplied to the power pins. We have the filtering circuits all set up; you'll just need to connect the outputs to an ADC, and you're ready to go. This breakout board includes the gyro and all necessary filtering capacitors as shown. The 1x and 4x amplified outputs of both axes are connected to the 0.1" pitch headers, along with the power-down, self-test, high-pass filter reset, and power pins. |
| Hall effect | magnetic fields |  Description: The US1881 is an integrated Hall effect latched sensor. That's nice but what does it do? Holding a magnet near the sensor will cause the output pin to toggle. This makes for a robust presence sensor. A reed sensor also works nicely, but can be limited by the glass encapsulation and size. A hall effect sensor is much smaller, but can handle less current than a reed switch. The device includes an on-chip Hall voltage generator for magnetic sensing, a comparator that amplifies the Hall voltage, and a Schmitt trigger to provide switching hysteresis for noise rejection, and open-collector output. An internal bandgap regulator is used to provide temperature compensated supply voltage for internal circuits and allows a wide operating supply range. If a magnetic flux density larger than threshold Bop, DO is turned on (low). The output state is held until a magnetic flux density reversal falls below Brp causing DO to be turned off (high). Features:
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| microphone/ acoustic | sound |  Breakout Board for Electret Microphone Description: Ready to add audio to your next project? This small breakout board couples a small electret microphone with a 100x opamp to amplify the sounds of voice, door knocks, etc loud enough to be picked up by a microcontroller's Analog to Digital converter. Unit comes fully assembled as shown. Works from 2.7V up to 5.5V. |
| motion | changes in relative distance |  PIR Motion Sensor Description: This is a simple to use motion sensor. Power it up and wait 1-2 seconds for the sensor to get a snapshot of the still room. If anything moves after that period, the 'alarm' pin will go low. Red wire is power (5 to 12V). Brown wire is GND. Black wire is open collector Alarm. This unit works great from 5 to 12V (datasheet shows 12V). You can also install a jumper wire past the 5V regulator on board to make this unit work at 3.3V. Sensor uses 1.6mA@3.3V. The alarm pin is an open collector meaning you will need a pull up resistor on the alarm pin. The open drain setup allows multiple motion sensors to be connected on a single input pin. If any of the motion sensors go off, the input pin will be pulled low. The connector is slightly odd but has a 0.1" pitch female connector making it compatible with jumper wires and 0.1" male headers. |
| photocell | light |  Mini Photocell Description: This is a very small photocell. A photocell changes (also called a photodetector, CdS or photoconductive cell) resistance depending on the amount of light it is exposed to. These little sensors make great ambient light triggers (when light in the room turns on, do something). Features:
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| pressure | air or fluid pressure |  Barometric Pressure Sensor - BMP085 Breakout Description: This is a simple breakout board for the BMP085 high-precision, low-power barometric pressure sensor. The BMP085 offers a measuring range of 300 to 1100 hPa with an absolute accuracy of down to 0.03 hPa. It's based on piezo-resistive technology for EMC robustness, high accuracy and linearity as well as long term stability. This sensor supports a voltage supply between 1.8 and 3.6VDC. It is designed to be connected directly to a micro-controller via the I²C bus This breadboard-friendly board breaks out all pins of the BMP085 to a 6-pin 0.1" pitch header. The analog and digital supplies (VDDD and VDDA) of the BMP085 are tied together and broken out to a single pin. We've also put two 4.7k pull-up resistors on the I2C lines. Features:
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| potentiometer | rotation or linear position on an analog scale |  Rotary Potentiometer - Linear Description: An adjustable potentiometer can open up many interesting user interfaces. Turn the pot and the resistance changes. Connect VCC to an outer pin, GND to the other, and the center pin will have a voltage that varies from 0 to VCC depending on the rotation of the pot. Hook the center pin to an ADC on a microcontroller and get a variable input from the user! This is a center-tap linear type potentiometer. The outer two pins will always show 10K resistance, the center pin resistance to one of the outer pins will vary from 10K Ohm to about 50 Ohm. The pot is linear meaning the resistance will vary linearly with its position. This is a good choice for general user interfaces. This pot works great in a breadboard but on a few breadboards, you may have to trim off the large metal anchors. |
| pulse | heartbeat rate |  Polar Heart Rate Module - RMCM01 Description: This is a OEM module for the Polar Heart Rate system. This device works with any Polar heart rate strap to pickup the electromagnetic pulse and output a 1ms pulse indicating a heart beat has occurred. Embed a heart rate reading into your next project! The RMCM01 requires no antenna. It does require a 32kHz crystal but that crystal does not need capacitors. Please see the basic schematic below. |
| ranging | distance between objects |  Ultrasonic Range Finder - Maxbotix LV-EZ1 Description: This is the fantastically easy to use sensor from Maxbotix. We are extremely pleased with the size, quality, and ease of use of this little range finder. The serial interface is a bit odd (it's RS232 instead of standard TTL), but the PWM and Analog interfaces will allow any micro to listen easily enough. The sensor provides very accurate readings of 0 to 255 inches (0 to 6.45m) in 1 inch increments with little or no dead zone! Maxbotix is offering the EZ0, EZ1, EZ2, EZ3, and EZ4 with progressively narrower beam angles allowing the sensor to match the application. Please see beam width explanation below. Control up to 10 sensors with only two pins! Checkout the Maxbotix FAQ listed below. Features:
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| rotary encoder | rotation on a digital scale |  Description: This is a 12-step rotary encoder with a nice 'clicking' feel. It's breadboard friendly, and has a pretty handy select switch (by pushing in on the knob). The encoder is different from a potentiometer in that an encoder has full rotation without limits. The unit outputs gray code so that you can tell how much and in which direction the encoder has been turned. |
| stretch | physical deformation or strain |  Description:The Stretch Sensor is a unique component that changes resistance when stretched. When relaxed the sensor material has a nominal resistance of 1000 ohms per linear inch. As the stretch sensor is stretched the resistance gradually increases. When the sensor is stretched 50 % its resistance will approximately double to 2.0 Kohms per inch. |
| smoke | airborne particles |  Optical Dust Sensor - GP2Y1010AU0F Description: Sharp's GP2Y1010AU0F is an optical air quality sensor, designed to sense dust particles. An infrared emitting diode and a phototransistor are diagonally arranged into this device, to allow it to detect the reflected light of dust in air. It is especially effective in detecting very fine particles like cigarette smoke, and is commonly used in air purifier systems. The sensor has a very low current consumption (20mA max, 11mA typical), and can be powered with up to 7VDC. The output of the sensor is an analog voltage proportional to the measured dust density, with a sensitivity of 0.5V/0.1mg/m3. To interface with the sensor you need to connect to its 6-pin, 1.5mm pitch connector; we do have a mating connector for this. |
| switch | physical pressure on a digital scale |  Concave Button - Red Description: This is a 35mm concave momentary push button similar to the ones you find on arcade games. Simple screw in design. Perfect for mashing. This button has a great tactile, 'clicky' feel. Features:
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| thermistor | temperature |  Thermistor 10K Vishay part #: NTCLE100E3103JB0 Description: 10K thermistor with a negative temperature coefficient. Good choice for temp-sensing aplications. |
| tilt | angular attitude |  Description:The "poor man's" accelerometer! Tilt sensors are switches that can detect basic motion/orientation. The metal tube has a little metal ball that rolls around in it, when its tilted upright, the ball rolls onto the contacts sticking out of end and shorts them together. |
Kits
- Many Lab's
- Sparkfun
- Parallax
- SunFounder 37 modules Arduino Sensor Kit
- Adafruit
- Tinkerkit at Mouser
- LittleBits
- Moss
Sources
Books
- Getting Started with Sensors: Measure the World with Electronics... by Kimmo Karvinen
- Make: Sensors: A Hands-On Primer for Monitoring the... by Tero Karvinen
- Beginning Sensor Networks with Arduino and Raspberry... by Charles Bell
Applications, sites and Tools
Flipping The Classroom is the idea that learning can be independent and work can be cooperative.There is no one right way to flip a classroom, and more likely it is establishing some hybrid that would be most effective.
Websites
- Code Academy- Learn to code
- CODE— A collection of online opportunities to learn about computer programming.
- Kahn Academy— a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
- Coursera—an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
- TED
- MIT Open Courseware
- edX—Free courses designed specifically for interactive study via the web, provided by MIT, Harvard and Berkeley
- Harvard Extension School
- TinkerineU
- Knowmia—Lesson Creation application
- Poll Everywhere—students can respond using whatever device they own
- Instructables—Explore, document, and share DIY projects
- YouTube/Vimeo
- Skaffl—Distribute and collect assignments digitally
- TechChange—TechChange provides technology training for social change
- CodeSchool
Applications to create content
- iMovie
- Camtasia® Studio (~$179.00)
- Camtasia Studio®/Snagit® Academic Bundle (~$199)
- Camtasia® for Mac Academic (~$75)
- Snagit® Academic (~$29)
- Prezi
Making Space to Make
-
The Makings of Maker Spaces, Part 1: Space for Creation, Not Just Consumption
- The Makings of Maker Spaces, Part 2: Espress Yourself
- The Makings of Maker Spaces, Part 3: A Fabulous Home for Cocreation
- MakerSpace
- A Librarian's Guide to Makerspaces: 16 Resources
- Institute of Museum and Library Services:Talking Points: Museums, Libraries, and Makerspaces
- 7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ... ™
- Creating Makerspaces in Schools
Quantified Self
The Quantified Self Labs: Self Knowledge Through Numbers is a California-based company founded by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly that serves the Quantified Self user community worldwide by producing international meetings, conferences and expositions, community forums, web content and services, and a guide to self-tracking tools. Their aim is to help people get meaning out of their personal data.- Tracking sleep with your phone
- Fitbit: Fitbit is a small device to track your physical activity or sleep. You can wear the device all day because it easily clips in your pocket, pants, shirt, or to your wrist when you are sleeping. The data collected is automatically synched online when the device is near the base station. After uploading, you can explore visualizations of your physical activity and sleep quality on the web site. You can also view your data using their new mobile web site. You can also track what you eat, other exercises that you do, and your weight.
- Moves: Moves is a passive activity and location tracking tool available for the iPhone and Android.
- Withings Smart Body Analyzer:The Smart Body Analyzer measures weight, body composition, heart rate and air quality.
- MoodPanda: MoodPanda.com is a mood tracking website and iphone app. Tracking is very simple: you rate your happiness on a 0-10 scale, and optionally add a brief twitter-like comment on what's influencing your mood.
- Momento: Momento is an iPhone journal writing app. It allows you to make entries using text or photos and allows you to tag them with people from your address book, and locations from the GPS as well as category tags. In addition to what you capture on the phone itself, the app can automatically include events from web services, including twitter, facebook, flickr, and others. Any web service that provides an RSS or ATOM feed can be included. The app also has export and backup features.
- Daytum: "Helps you collect, categorize and communicate your everyday data". Organized and simple to use, - you can track anything. Also as an iPhone app
- RescueTime: RescueTime is an web-based automated time tracking and management tool. Install the RescueTime software and track your use of time usage (e.g., applications opened, web sites visited, and documents used). You can pause tracking and selectively delete sensitive data. The web site also has reports and analytics of your data. RescueTime can show you a wide variety of reports from its dashboard. You can see the top apps and sites for the week, how your email ebbs and flows throughout the day, and which days are productive.
- 42Goals: 42Goals is a flexible goal tracking web app which allows users to track, chart, annotate and evaluate many different goals in one place. Goals can be tracked by numeric, counter, Boolean, manually entered time or premium stopwatch counters. Users can evaluate goals using different mathematical functions such as summation, average, maximum or minimum values. The tool has a free demo mode and a premium monthly subscription option which opens up upgraded features.
- GoalBuddy: Goal-Buddy is an online goal tracker and task manager. Users have the following tools: Goal Tracker, Habit Builder, Task Manager, and List Organizer. Users will name their goal (or habit or task), categorize and describe it, then outline action steps and dates to achieve to desired goal. They can let others see their goals and schedule email or SMS reminders. Completed goals earn users points that can be redeemed for real-world items like books on tape or CD.
- LockerProject: An open source development effort to help self-trackers. A Locker gives people ownership over their personal data and clear control over how it's protected and shared. Providing flexible APIs for access to that data, Lockers are a powerful way for developers to build applications that leverage rich personal data.
- iDoneThis: iDoneThis is a simple email-based daily productivity tracking web application. Free and easy to use it offers users the ability to reflect on their daily accomplishment by simply replying to an email. Users can also view their daily accomplishments and export their files via the web. Use it to track what you get done and motivate yourself for the future.
- Give Me My Data: Give Me My Data is a Facebook application that helps users export their data out of Facebook for reuse in visualizations, archives, or any possible method of digital storytelling. Data can be exported in common formats like CSV, XML, and JSON as well as customized network graph formats.
- Zeo Personal Sleep Coach: A wireless headband, bedside display, set of online analytical tools, and an email-based personalized sleep coaching program
- RunKeeper: RunKeeper is a mobile application available on iPhone and Android to track your runs: distance, duration, speed, and calories consumed. The mobile application uses GPS to measure your distance. It also has several features to motivate you to run:
- you can preset exercise intervals and distances;
- it allows you to listen to music while running;
- a voice informs you about the progress of your run;
- 4) it stores a history of your runs.
- Digifit: The Digifit ecosystem is a full suite of Apple apps that records heart rate, pace, speed, cadence, and power of your running, cycling and other athletic endeavors. Data can be uploaded to the well established training sites Training Peaks and New Leaf. The ecosystem is is split up into the Digifit™, iCardio™, iRunner™, iBiker™, iSpinner™ and iPower™ apps. To utilize the full functionality of the app you must purchase the Digifit Connect ANT+ dongle and and the purchase of an advanced functionality App.
Other Resources
- BUILD GREAT MODELS . . . THROW THEM AWAY from Data Visualization in History and the Humanities
- Visualizing Algorithms
- How to Map Your Moves Data
- Chart Withings data using IFTTT, Google Spreadsheets and d3.js
- Forbes—Quantified Self: Meet the Quantified Employee
- Gary Wolf:The Quantified Self, TED talk
- Beginner's Guide
- The Data Driven Life, NYT
- Lifehacker's Quantified Self roundup
3D Printing
What can be printed?
Images from Gizmodo
Images from skipprichard
Image from elitedaily
Images from www.3dfuture.com
Images from solidsmack
Why would you want to 3D print
- 3D printing allows for data visualization
- 3D printing provides tactile feedback
- 3D printing is a way to prototype, access the realm of the D.I.Y. ethic
- 3D printing is a way to engage you in STEM based projects
- 3D printing as a means of communication
So what is PLA?
Polylactic acid (PLA), is a thermoplastic made from fermented plant starch (usually corn). It is an alternative to petroleum-based plastics.PLA is technically carbon neutral in that it comes from renewable, carbon-absorbing plants, and does not emit toxic fumes when incinerated.
But PLA biodegrades slowly unless subjected to industrial composting. Analysts estimate that a PLA bottle could take anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill.
What you need to 3D print?
- 3D model
- 3D printer
- Software
.stl or STereoLithography files describe the surface geometry of a 3D object and are used to build physical 3D Cad Models. .stl files are created using a mesh made of triangles that represents the physical part of your object. The .stl file is a complete listing of the xyz coordinates of the vertices and normals,the vectors perpendicular to a surface that determine the orientation for the triangles, that describe the 3D object.
A good .stl file size is between .5MB for a simple file to 10MB for a large complicated one. Generally, if your part is outside of these parameters, you'll need to resize it. A good .stl file must also conform to two rules.
- Adjacent triangles must have two vertices in common
- The orientation of the triangles (what side of the triangle is in and what side is out) as specified by the vertices and normals must agree
A .stl file can be termed bad because of translation issues. In many CAD systems, the number of triangles that represent the model can be defined by the user. If you are using too many triangles, the .stl file size can become unmanageable. If you're using too few triangles to describe your object, your curved areas will not be properly defined and your cylinders might look like hexagons.
Resources
- 3D printing for mathematical visualisation: Henry Segerman
- Mathematica— 3D Printing of Math Models, 2013-14 Mathematica Cheat Sheet
- 3D Printing for Math Professors and Their Students
- 3D printers in education
- Harvard's 3D-Printing Archaeologists Fix Ancient Artifacts
- Bears on Stairs
Vocabulary
- Prototype
- Product Design
- CAD
- RP
- Reverse Engineering
- Brainstorming
- Ideation
- Workflow
Tools
- Digital Calipers
- Needle files
- Sand paper
- Cutting mat
- Steel rule
- Steel square
- Flat and round files
- Ellipse template
Circuit Scribe
Non-toxic, water-based, conductive silver ink in a roller ball pen format.Unlike other conductive pens and paint, the ink in circuit scribe is fast drying. Electroninks, the company behind the fast-drying conductive pen, also produces circuitry components.Reactive silver inks are particle-free silver ink formulations for a number of different printing process. These inks can be patterned via inkjet, flexopress, aerosol jet, and other low viscosity processes. Conductivities can reach up to 90% of bulk silver with annealing temperatures ranging from 80-120°C.
Circuit Stickers
Use circuit scribe with circuit stickers:Chibitronics, the company behind circuit stickers is collaboration between Bunnie Huang and Jie Qi. Circuit stickers are peel-and-stick electronics for crafting circuits.
Visual Thinking
A cognitive Theory of Multimedia LearningDr. Richard Mayer from U.C. Santa Barbara and a proponent of multimedia learning believes it is more effective to explain concepts using multiple methods of sensory inputs— auditory, visual and kinesthetic.
credit: David Burnett /
credit: Eddie Adams
Pictures are processed in several channels, which gives the brain a more deeper and meaningful encoding experience. According to Allan Paivio of the University of Western Ontario, pictures are more richly stamped in our brains and are easier to recall than words.
Exercises
You can use these exercises as part of a daily activity or assign them as homework:- Fill a page
- Sketch different shapes of different sizes
- Sketch different arrows of sizes, styles and intentions
- Sketch alphabets in different sizes and styles
- Sketch different styles of lines
- Playful
- Create imagery for 7 things you see
- Look for objects, sketch them and fill them with related words
- Opena a book to a random page, find a random word and sketch that word
- Create your own weather icons
- Create a street sign with a law you wish existed
Sign by Jay Shells
- Purposeful
- Watch a TED talk of your choice and sketch it out
- Sketch out a chapter of a fiction book
- Sketch out a chapter of a nonfiction book
- Find a topic. write down subtopics on index cards. Organize the cards and sketch out the big picture
- Pick a topic that you are interested in, research it, sketch out a timeline of key events
- Find a problem. Identify the stakeholders, their interests and their motivations. Sketch their relationships and try to come up with a potential solution.
- Personal
- Sketch out your ideal day
- Sketch out an event that changed your thinking
- Sketch out six things that happened yesterday
- Sketch a goal and the barriers that exist that prevent you from reaching it. Also sketch how you will get around these barriers.
- Sketch out a space that you occupy and how you us
- Sketch out a diagram of your interests
- Next time you are about to text someone, sketch it instead and send the image
- Mapping
- Sketch out an image for five different professions
- Storyboard a personal narrative
- Sketch out a story
- Sketch out a movie
- Select a sport or activity and sketch stick figures of all the body positions required for that practice
- Map your path to school: include only the essentials
- Sketch an idiomatic expression using type in an illustrative way
More Software
- Skype—Great for guest speakers
- Publishing
- Blurb
- LuLu
- Magic-Book-Project—an open-source framework that facilitates the design and production of electronic and print books for authors.
Rather than type into a word processor, the Magic Book Project allows an author to write a book once (using ASCIIDOC, a simple text document format) and procedurally generate the layout for a variety of formats using modern code-based design tools, such as CSS, the stylesheet standard. Write your book once, press a magic button, and out come multiple versions: printed hardcopy, digital PDF, HTML, MOBI, and EPUB.
- Processing
- Inkscape— Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software.
QR codes
A QR Code or Quick Response code is barcode for smartphones that was originally created in Japan.
A QR Code can point to a URL, could contain a phone number, an SMS message or just plain alphanumeric text. When you point your smartphone with a QR code scanning application and capture the code your device will respond by opening up the correct application to handle the encoded data. This happens because of the FNC1 Application Identifiers that are embedded in the data.
The technical specifications for a QR Code are in the ISO-18004 standard. The only significant variations from one QR code to another is the number of modules required to store the data. A Version 1 QR Code is a 21x21 array of data elements and holds about 25 characters. The largest standard QR Code is a Version 40 symbol that is a 177x177 array and can hold up 4296 characters of alphanumeric data. When creating a QR Code for smartphones, a Version 4 or lower code works best.
A QR Code contains its own error correction data, internal orientation calibration and self-alignment markers.
createqrcode
goqr
www.qrstuff.com
qrcode.kaywa
Image from www.qrstuff.com
Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, small linux computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It's capable of doing everything you'd expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games.Resources:
Digital Portfolios
What is the purpose of the portfolio?- Portfolio as Storage/Collection
- Portfolio as Workspace/Process
- Portfolio as Showcase/Product
- Portfolio as Assessment tool
A digital portfolio provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate achievement, as well as set sights on the next level.
A digital portfolio can be a vehicle through which students can be the authors of their own learning narratives.
Because they are cloud based, portfolios can be accessed both inside and outside of school. Maintaining a portfolio fosters independence and responsibility.
Resources
- The Challenges of Managing Student Data Posted February 26, 2013 by Jack West
- Portfolios for Assessment and Instruction. ERIC Digest. By Arter, Judith A.; And Others
- ISTE 2010
- Implement Electronic Portfolios with K-12 Students using Mobile Devices Online Course
- ePortfolios with GoogleApps
How to set up a Google Site
Information that should be collected about each project
- Project Title
- Project Description/Rationale: Information about your project, the what and why.
- Project Procedure: The how. What parts and tasks are involved and how you will go about accomplishing the tasks and putting the project together.
- Project Process: What steps you are taking. This is a section for documenting your sketches, experiments and results—what went wrong, how you did or will fix it, what is working, and what you could do different the next time. Include images, video as appropriate.
- Final Project: This is the final product of your efforts. Include working project, code, schematics, bill of materials (BOM), images, videos
- Project Implications: How might lessons learned from this project be applied elsewhere.
- Project Resources: Include links and resources you consulted while completing your projects.
Collecting and Mapping Data
Gapminder is a non-profit venture—a modern "museum" on the Internet—promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.The initial activity was to pursue the development of the Trendalyzer software. Trendalyzer sought to unveil the beauty of statistical time series by converting boring numbers into enjoyable, animated and interactive graphics. The current version of Trendalyzer is available since March 2006 as Gapminder World, a web-service displaying time series of development statistics for all countries.
Books
- How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier
- How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
- Head First Data Analysis: A learner's guide to big numbers, statistics, and good decisions by Michael Milton
Design Strategies
Design strategies, like Visual Thinking, Mind Mapping and Sketchnoting can help students transform ideas into visual communication. Students who engage in any these activities listen and process information, structure their thoughts, cluster information, synthesize what is important and establish a hierarchy to concepts, facts and ideas.Students can participate in these activities on and off of a computer or tablet. If working offline, they should find a notebook that feels big enough to draw in, but small enough to bring everywhere. They should avoid using pencils. Being able to erase allows students to waste time by correcting mistakes. Students should use ink pens that are fast drying. If a mistake is made, cross it out and move on.
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Concept Mapping
Often represented in circles or boxes, concepts are linked by words and phrases that explain the connection between the ideas. This structure helps students organize and structure their thoughts in order to understand information and discover new relationships. Most concept maps represent a hierarchical structure, with the overall, broad concept first with connected sub-topics, more specific concepts, following.
Concept maps:- Help students brainstorm and generate new ideas.
- Encourage students to discover new concepts and the propositions that connect them.
- Help students integrate new concepts with older concepts.
- Enable students to gain enhanced knowledge of any topic and evaluate the information.
Instagrok
Visual Notetaking
Visual Notetaking or Visual Recording is the process of creating personal visual memory aids that keep students engaged and involved in a lecture. It is not the only or even the best way to take notes, but it can be very helpful to certain students. The idea is to capture the key points and what is relevant to the student from a lecture, presentation or lesson. It forces them to listen carefully, process the information and translate the important points into a structured hierarchy. The notes are personal, expresive and creative, which helps student retain more from the lesson. By practicing this form of note taking, students develop their listening,organizing and synthesizing skills.
Notes become expressive, creative and personal to each student. Listening and synthesizing involves active decision-making when it comes to filtering the important meassages, laying out the information and finding ways to translate the written words into pictures.
Visual Notetaking forces a student to actively listen, synthesize the information, help identfy trends and patterns. Improves understanding, provides triggers. The Head First series uses surprising and humorous imagery to help you remember the different ideas. Visual Notetaking works the same way.
Before you begin drawing have a sense about where a talk or lecture is going. If it is an hour talk divide your drawing space into accordingly.
The goal of Visual Notetaking and sketchnotes is to listen, synthesize and visualize.
Avoid making lists or outlines and use the spatial properties of the page to your advantage by "chunking" information. Some ways to force yourself to work spatially might be starting in the middle and working outwards or working in columns for a panel discussion.
There are 6 Fundamental components to making Visual Notetaking:- Letters and Typography
- Bullets
- Frames—some of the more common containers include (but are not limited to): quote bubbles, boxes, circles and thought clouds.
- Connectors—connect ideas and pieces of stories with arrows and lines.
- Shadows
- People and a few basic icons (internal library of imagery
What tools you choose, paper, tablet, pens, a stylus, etc, should be determined by what one is comfortable using. If the tool is too confusing, the process won't work. It takes all of your attention to listen and synthesize and you want to have a language that already exists and is easy to implement. I personally prefer pen and paper, but I need to use technology in order to share my sketches.
Resources for Visual Notetaking
- Drawing in class: Rachel Smith at TEDxUFM
- Giulia Forsythe at Faculty Academy 2012
- What Does Doodling do? by JACKIE ANDRADE, School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, UK, 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- TOOLS (iPad / iPod Touch / iPhone apps)
Sketchnotes
Sketchnotes are a form of visual notetaking. They are simple and clear visual maps that take advantage of visual libraries, typography, shapes, arrows, and boxes. Visual metaphors can help you illustrate or remember a more abstract concept. Draw someone losing track of time. Sketchnoting takes advantage of metaphors and images. If a lecturer or lesson refers to a book you can write the title or passage on the image of a book. To emphasize that something is a quotation, place the text in a speech bubble.
You can create your sketchnotes any way that suits you, but if you need some help you can take advantage of the following frameworks or patterns: Linear: left to right
Radial
Vertical: top to bottom
Path (journey)
Modular/Grids
Panels
Popcorn
http://sketchnotearmy.com
An Educator's Guide to Sketchnoting
Mindmapping
Mindmappping is a thinking tool that helps students use images, colors and text to link and cluster ideas. To create a mindmap, start with a central concept, topic, idea, word, question, or problem and connect key ideas to the central idea through branches and subbranches.- Ws: who/ what, how much, where, when, how, and why.
- Classification: Arrangements or relationships.
- Definitions: Meanings of things.
- Divisions: Chapters or lessons or themes.
- Evaluation: Benefits.
- Function: What things do.
- History: Chronological sequence of events.
- Process: How things work.
- Properties: Characteristics.
- Roles: Roles or relationships of characters.
- floating concept.
- Ws: Who/ what, how much, where, when, how, why, what if, and what else?
- Purpose: Why are you reading this? Why does it matter? What is your desired outcome? What do you want to be able to do with this?
- Clarity: Do you understand the concepts? Could you express the concept in another way? Could you give an example? How should you interpret it?
- Accuracy: Is the information true? How do you know that it's true? Are you being a healthy skeptic? Have you captured it accurately? Do you need to refine any of your previous information based on these new facts?
- Precision: What are the details? Do you need additional specifics? Could you be more exact? Are you getting stuck in the details?
- Relevance: How is this connected to other information? What does this mean? Why is this important? Are you being diverted away from the main point? Are you letting your personal biases lead you astray? How can you apply it to other information?
- Depth: What's the big picture and what else is missing? What are the different layers of complexity? Are you addressing all the complexities? Are you dealing systematically with parts of the whole?
- Breadth: Do you need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this? Are you being open minded? Are you considering the whole?
- Logic: Does this make sense? Does it follow from what you already know or what you read? What are the assumptions? Does the evidence enable you to draw conclusions?
- Significance: Which of the concepts are most important? Are you focusing on key concepts?
- Fairness: Is the information biased? Are you looking from various viewpoints?
- Patterns: Are there any patterns (similarities, differences, dependence, independence, etc.)?
- Orderliness: Is there a better arrangement of details that could result in better understanding?
Resources for Mindmapping
Mindmapping Applications
Books for Mindmapping
- Buzan, Tony, and Susanna Abbott. The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps: Unlock Your Creativity, Boost Your Memory, Change Your Life. London: HarperCollins, 2005. Print.
- Taylor, Michael. Mind Maps: Quicker Notes, Better Memory, and Improved Learning. 3.0rd ed. Lexington, KY, 2014. Print.
- Krasnic, Toni (2012-03-11). How to Study with Mind Maps: The Concise Learning Method for Students and Lifelong Learners (Expanded Edition) . Concise Books Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Starter Activity
To help students develop their skills in a low pressure environment, have them practice note taking by watching a TED talk.
To share student notes consider using:- Google Drive or school server
- Prezi
- Web page
Visual Thinking Resources
- Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchart, Mark Church, Karin Morrison
- Strategies To Improve Memory and Retention: GULP
Whiteboarding Apps
Feedback Loops
"The formulation of the problem is often more essential than the solution."— Albert EinsteinFeedback loops are essential to engaging students in the learning process. Always provide timely feedback and make sure that feedback encourages next steps.
We want students to love learning and to be actively engaged. More important than just knowing facts, we want them to be able to do something with their knowledge, to be creative and innovative, and we want our students to ask the right questions, to be able to :
- Weigh the evidence
– Is something true or false? What is the evidence, and is that evidence credible? - Be aware of diverging viewpoints
– What is being heard? Who is the author, and what are his or her intentions/motivations? How might it look to someone with a different perspective? - To See Connections/Cause & Effect
– Are there patterns or connections? - To Speculate on Possibilities
–To ask the what if questions. To get students to imagine alternatives. - To Assess Value
– To ask what difference it makes? Who are the stakeholders? And what are the implecations?
See also Reframing a question can lead to innovation
How to Engage Students
Influence and Incentivize (Using Game Dynamics)- Appointment Dynamic— doing something at a particular place and time
- Influence and Status—Leveling Up (quizes and extra projects to replace or enhance work)
- Progression dynamics—challenges, earn points and move from point a to point b
- Communal discovery—working together to solve problems—Find the best stories
The following list was collected from: Harris, Bryan (2013-10-02). Battling Boredom: 99 Strategies to Spark Student Engagement (Kindle Locations 401-403). Taylor and Francis.)
- Download an audio clip of waves crashing on the beach as an introduction to a creative project.
Ask students to consider the sounds they hear, the images that come to mind, and the words they could use to describe the experience.
- Using Fantastic Facts to begin a lesson is an effective way to gain attention, motivate students to learn more, and to engage them in the content that will be addressed in the lesson.
- Most students do better when they have a clear goal and understanding of the expectations and learning outcomes. The creation of personal goals helps to focus students on learning priorities and can cause them to listen differently during the lesson. When learning tasks are connected to personal goals, the learning becomes more relevant.
- help establish the norms and rules in the classroom. Distribute cards such as kindness, helpfulness, fairness, sharing, homework, motivation, preparedness, etc. and ask students to consider what they believe about those ideas.
- An expert not only knows how to define or explain an idea but they can also share examples, give characteristics, and answer questions about the concept.
- Sometimes an odd association can be created between an object and the content being studied. For example, when studying whole to part fraction concepts, bring in an orange to display how one whole object can be divided into parts.
Critical Thinking Connection—Consider asking students to think of items that could have gone into the bag that relate to the objective. Ask students to provide a justification for an item and explain how it relates to the lesson being learned. Sometimes students will think of excellent examples that can be used in later lessons. - Instruct students to find or create pictures that relate to the concepts, key ideas, or vocabulary terms that have been learned.
Collages do not need to be complex in order to be effective. The power of Concept Collages lie in the fact that they are personalized and that students are asked to elaborate and explain their thoughts. - map out connections between topics and ideas. Encourage the use of colors, symbols, lines, arrows, icons, and diagrams in addition to text.
Gamification
Designing games builds:- Systems Thinking
- Creative Problem Solving
- Writing and Storytelling
Types of games
- Icebreakers
- Name Game (Bang)
- Zip Zap Zop
- Pass the energy
- Electric Butts
- Wah
- Ninja
- Games for Assessment
- 2 truths and a lie
- Jeopardy
- Role play (improv games)
- Games for teaching
- Great Crash 1929 Stock Market Game
How to play - Simulations (Pandemic, Civilization, Historia)
- Utopia, Kerbal Space Program
- Comparing News Articles
- Archeology (piecing the society together from the sandbox)
- Great Crash 1929 Stock Market Game
Game Applications
- Scratch—Scratch allows students to program their own interactive stories, games, and animations and helps them think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. ScratchEd Online community for educators.
- Blockly
- MIT App Inventor 2—App Inventor is a cloud-based tool that allows you to build your own mobile apps.
- learn.code.org— learn about programming by dragging and dropping blocks in a game environment
- MakeGamesWithUs—Learn iPhone Programming
- AgentCubes—
AgentSheets, Inc mission is to foster K-12 student participation in STEM fields through motivational applications based on AgentSheets technology.
- Lightbot — A tablet programming puzzle game.
- TaleBlazer—TaleBlazer is an augmented reality (AR) software platform developed by the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) lab. TaleBlazer allows users to play and make their own location-based mobile games. By situating games in the real world, AR games seek to engage people in experiences that combine real landscapes and other aspects of the physical environment with additional digital information supplied to them by smartphones.
The editor is browser-based, with no local installation required. It uses a visual blocks-based scripting language – which makes it easy to create rich interactivity, while helping users avoid syntax errors. Users create accounts allowing them to save game files to the cloud, which can then be download directly to a player's smartphone. TaleBlazer game designers have instant access to TaleBlazer games from any computer attached to the Internet. - Gamestar Mechanic—Gamestar Mechanic uses fun, game-based quests and courses to help you learn game design and make your own video games. You can play and learn, take courses, or make your own games. There are resources available for students, teachers and parents.
- ZebraZapps cloud-based authoring system that gives anyone the ability to create rich interactive media applications, quickly and easily.
- YoYo Games caters to entry-level novices and seasoned game development professionals equally, allowing them to create cross-platform games in record time and at a fraction of the cost.
- GameSalad is a game design engine where you can learn to make and publish games for free on iPhone, iPad, Android & HTML5. No coding required.
- Articulate StorylineBuild interactive online and mobile courses.
- Adobe Captivate Rapidly author a wide range of interactive and responsive HTML5-based eLearning content without programming. Easily create application simulations, product demos, drag-and-drop modules, and soft skills and compliance training materials.
- Lectora create, deliver, track, and manage online training.
- Thinking Worlds unique 3D sims & games creation environment, where novice and advanced developers can create and publish immersive sims and games.
- Torque 3D MIT open source software
- Unity3D
Game Templates
- ActiveDen
- c3 softworks Customizable Games and quizzes for blended Learning
- eLearning Brothers provider of eLearning templates, custom eLearning design, and training for eLearning professionals
- Jeopardy Labs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template with a simple online editor. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world.
- Raptivity create eLearning interactions quickly and easily, without any programming.
- What2Learn
Badging
- classbadges: The free and easy way to award badges to students for all learning experiences
- Mozilla Open Badges
Other Resources
- Joseph's Rules of Play
- John Hunter on World Peace Game: TED talk
- Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
- The game layer on top of the world
SXSW 2011: SCVNGR's Seth Priebatsch on how gaming will change the world - Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal
- The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Practice b Karl M. Kapp
- Gaming in Education, Academic Commons
- Playing to learn: Panelists at Stanford discussion say using games as an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning
- The Awesome Power of Gaming in Higher Education
- Digital Badges Finding Use in Education and Across Industries
- Bring Digital Badges To Your School or Classroom
