I Think It's Funny: Famous Quotes

I'm a secret lover of quotations. OK, not so secret now but anyway I found this page of bad predictions. Here are a few of my favorite technology predictions.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899.

"Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds."
TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.

"I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped."
Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901.

"The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle."
Literary Digest, 1899.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

"But what... is it good for?"
IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 microprocessor, the heart of today's computers.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

Frugal Lighting for Video

Lighting a video shoot is not one of my strengths. I blame my color blindness but, it's more likely that I just don't work with it enough. One reason I've not had much experience with formal lighting is the expense of professional kits. For the price of a few lights I could get lots of other equipment that I felt I needed more for my labs.

Last year I shared space with the photography teacher and began to see that I may have been mistaken. Her students were did some amazing things with lights. I've been intrigued by articles I've read over the past year about using cheap lighting for photography purchased from Home Depot or your local hardware store. If you are just starting out or trying to set up an inexpensive light kit for a school, this might be a way to go.

Here is a short post on the Strobist that walks you through the fluorescent light aisle of Home Depot with the frugal photographer in mind. The entire blog is about lighting. There is also a ton of pictures done by the author and his readers. I cruised through the site and saw a few pictures that were slightly risque. There wasn't anything you wouldn't see in a woman's fashion magazine but I still don't think I would chance sending kids to this site to explore. (Why I am reading women's fashion magazines is a whole other story!)

[Image: © Dawid Kasprzak - Fotolia.com]

David Warlick's Social Networking Wiki

David Warlick put out a request to his readers yesterday to participate on building a wiki about Social Networking. He is doing a presentation and wanted to create an example to show his audience. The following questions were posted on wikispaces and almost immediately the document started growing and changing.

1. What is Social Networking?
2. What are some of the differences between how our students use social networking and how professional educators use it?
3. What are your favorite social networking applications?
4. What’s the latest thing you learned from a social network?

Over 100 folks accessed the page and I had a blast going back at various times during the day to look at the changes. It was my first time participating in a collaborative wiki and I gained some useful insight from participating.

[Image: Screenshot from web page: Social Networking for Teachers, http://socialnetworking4teachers.wikispaces.com/ Nov 14, 2007]

Switching from the Lego RCX to the Lego NXT

After finding the Constructopedia last week and writing about it, I got to wondering about the differences between the old Mindstorms with the yellow RCX brick and the new ones with the fancy NXT brick. I did a some research and came up with the following article, Switching from the RCX to the NXT: A Report from One Classroom by Barbara Bratzel. She discusses the switch from using the old to the new in her classroom.

"There are a host of small improvements—the ease of downloading programs, the adjustable volume on the NXT, the more sensitive light sensor, the ability to synchronize the motors. Inevitably, there are also some losses. I miss the simplicity of the RCX motors and the ability to switch their polarity by reversing a lead. I miss the ease with which one could build a sturdy two-motor car."

She gives examples of how she changed her lessons to adapt to the new kits and ends with a list of 5 tips for you switchers out there. It's a good read if you are thinking about upgrading.

[Bratzel, Barbara . "Switching from the RCX to the NXT: A Report from One Classroom." Lego Engineering. 2006. Center for Engineering Educational Outreach, Tufts University . 22 Oct 2007 .]
[Image is a screenshot from Amazon.com]

The Business of Death

The video, The Business of Death, was put together by GoodMagazine. I thought it might be a little too macabre to post until I remembered a great discussion I witnessed in a sixth grade technology class about coffins and graveyards. I don't recall how it came up but the kids had some thoughtful things to say about land use, death and the environment. Someone had seen the biodegradable coffins being used in Europe and from there the topics roamed from cremation to embalming to shooting the remains into space. In hindsight, that would have been the perfect moment to throw out a design challenge to my kids.

Design an economical funeral process that is respectful and doesn't pollute or waste resources.

Alas, I had some other goal in mind at the time and let that killer project slip away. This film could stimulate discussion in any class. One caution. It is about death and what we do with our dead. Tread carefully. Think about the maturity of your kids. Your own comfort level. Your community.

If nothing else, it will get you thinking. I have already looked up a few of the statistics shown in the film. Wouldn't it be fun to compare the resources used in a mainstream industry like housing and compare it to the funeral industry. Learning doesn't have to be deadly dull.






[Image:Cohen, Kathleen. "Columbia Cemetary. Tombstones of Henry and Mary Munroe.." WorldsImage. 1904. 2 Nov 2007 .

Photographs of the Photographers

A few years back I was at Rocky Mountain National Park watching some elk. A man with a huge backpack of equipment came up and started to set up to photograph the scene. I ended up watching him. He had a lens that was as big as my leg. His tripod was a mechanical contraption out of a science fiction movie. He was wearing a vest with a million bulging pockets. It was fascinating.

When you first start sending students out to take pictures they want to stand far away from the action. They tell me it's embarrassing to get so close. They end up with those all too common "vacation shots" of little tiny people who are barely recognizable.

"Yup! That's Aunt Ruthie there by the rim of the Grand Canyon. At least I think that's Ruthie. She has a hat like that one there. Nope. Nope. That's some stranger. But, ain't the canyon beautiful?"

It is hard to get young photographers down into the action. Possibly this series of pictures will inspire them as they show photographers in action. Unfortunately, the photos are not cited. I love this content and will look for similar sites, but please leave a comment if you know of a good location that cites it's sources.

I might mention that I have mixed feelings about the photographer getting down into the action. Sometimes the photographer becomes a part of what she is trying to film. Ever been to a wedding where the photographer is more visible than the bride? The couple end up with great wedding photos but the guests remember the big guy with the humongous camera taking pictures. I have no answers here, just a vague unformed thought about how can we really be observing something if we are part of it?

Update: (11/13/07)I just checked on this site and it isn't working due to the owner running out of memory in their account. (I think?) Hopefully, the pictures will be available again sometime soon.

[Image:"Photopgraphers and their hard work." \STATiC. 27 Oct 2007 .]

I Think It's Funny

I grew up watching Mr. Wizard. That may be why I find this Ernie Kovacs clip so funny. You youngsters out there may find it only amusing or just quaint or painfully lame. Doesn't matter. It made me laugh.

Video Introduction to Type

The ability to change font in modern word processors has been both a boon and a headache. I think students sometimes get overwhelmed by all the font choices and often go for the flashy or garish regardless of the audience they are targeting. Most of us teaching word processing or page layout have had to spend at least a little time discussing typography.

This television interview is a quick overview of the subject. There isn't enough here for kids to grasp the entire subject but it could be used to introduce the topic in class.



[The television interview done by CBS Sunday Morning about typeface design, with Steven Heller, Jonathan Hoefler, & Tobias Frere-Jones in 2006]
[Image: Screenshot of Microsoft Word font menu]

Lego Constructopedia

This Constructopedia would be a valuable resource for that Lego Mindstorms NXT kit in your classroom. A Constructopedia is an encyclopedia of various structures that can be used in different Lego models. At the Mindstorms station in my Tech Lab, the students had to take detailed photographs of different structures they built. These were printed out and placed in the back of the manual for that station. It served the same purpose as a Constructopedia in that it was a quick reference. If you were having a problem figuring out how to securely hook a motor to your vehicle, look and see what someone else had done. You were free to use their idea or improve it.

This downloadable PDF, put together by Tufts University, is specific to the newest Mindstorms NXT kits. A printed copy kept near the Lego station might come in handy for all those budding young engineers. One caution though, it might be confusing to students using the earlier kits with the yellow RCX. I understand the newer kit is more peg based while the older is more brick based. (Any of you with experience here might leave a comment.)

I've not had a chance to mess around with the new kit yet. Maybe Santa will fill my stocking with something other than coal this year. If he does, I promise to write about the new kit in my blog. Heart crossed and hope to die!

[Image: (17 Aug 2007). Constructopedia; NXT Kit 9797; Beta Version 2.0 . Retrieved October 22, 2007, from Lego Engineering - Resources Web site: http://www.legoengineering.com/content/view/30/60/]

HowTo: Define a Word

My sister, who was a teacher, used to have the most infuriating habit of answering my question about an unfamiliar word with, "Look it up in the dictionary!"

She was an evil, evil woman.

Of course, now as an adult, I automatically go to the dictionary to look up a word that I don't recognize or can't figure out from contextual clues. I also have spell check and the internet available much of the time and can quickly check out a new word. My problem is that in spite of my sister's guidance , I am a poor speller. Google comes in handy when even my spell checker can't figure out what I am trying to spell.

In Google's search bar I type in: define: partesan

Google politely asks me: "Did you mean: define: partisan"

Why yes, that was the word I was trying to spell. Just in case, I click on the word and a page full of definitions and links come up. Yup, I was trying to write about "a fervent and even militant proponent of something."

On those occasions where Google doesn't recognize my butchery of the language, I can try different spellings until finally I hit on the right combination or something close enough that Google can give me the right spelling.

3D Printer

Several years ago I was touring our local vocational school with a group of technology teachers. The one thing that jumped out and had me talking and dreaming for days was the 3D Printer. The thing was expensive. They had written a grant and I think the assistant principal had to sell his liver in order to raise the money. But it definitely was cool.

If you don't know, a 3D printer is a machine that creates a 3D object. It's print head is able to move in 3 directions, side to side plus up and down. Any object can be thought of as being made up of many, many thin layers. A 3D printer prints each of those layers one at a time from the bottom of the object to the top. Of course, it isn't using ink but rather some material that can be extruded in a liquid form that quickly hardens. The one I saw used a type of plastic.

Think of a brick house. You lay the first row of bricks around the foundation. Then you add row after row of bricks until you finally have a house. If your bricklayer were a 3D printer, then each layer of bricks would be one pass of the printer head. Still not clear? Don't worry, lots of folks have a hard time getting their head around this one. I think the big problem is calling them 3D printers. They should have borrowed the name from Star Trek and called them replicators! Watch the movie and hopefully it will make more sense.

Hod Lipson and Evan Malone at Cornell University have developed a 3D printer that you can build, if you are handy, for around $2400. It's open source and the plans are free. Their hope is to get a lot of people working on this project and get the price down and the quality up. Imagine if you will, anything you can design in a CAD program could be reproduced as a 3D object.



NewScientistTech Article: "Desktop fabricator may kick-start home revolution"

Popular Mechanics Article: "Fab at Home, Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make Anything". There is better video at this site.

[Image: (Hod Lipson / Evan Malone) from"Desktop fabricator may kick-start home revolution." NewScientistTech. 09 Jan 2007. NewScientistTech. 26 Oct 2007 .]

I Think It's Funny

If I controlled the Internet (a poem) by Rives.

World Images

WorldImages is a collection of over 60,000 pictures that are free to use for educational purposes. There are lots of photos of famous paintings, cities, monuments, wildlife and lots more. I spent a pleasant hour cruising through all the categories.

Worthwhile if you want to spice up those PowerPoints or give your students a nice site to find images for their own projects. There is a fair amount of classical art represented so check here if you need a jpeg of a famous painting for that lecture on Art History.


[Rubens, Peter. "Daniel in the Lions Den." World Images. California State University. 9 Oct 2007 .]

Fangs for a Happy Halloween

When I was twelve years old I wanted to grow up to be a make-up artist for monster movies. I experimented with fake wounds using Jell-o as a base. I tricked the two six year old girls down the block into believing that I had been disfigured by a terrible kitchen accident. In reality, I probably just looked like an odd boy with tasty gelatin on his face. That in its self could be scary to a young child.

I scoured our little neighborhood library for clues on how the experts made fake wounds and Frankenstein masks. I bought a special issue of Monster Magazine that recommended liquid latex and other exotic items. I even sent away for a catalogue of theatrical supplies to see if I could buy any of the needed ingredients. Our hardware store didn't carry any latex, facial modeling wax or movie blood. I found out liquid latex was going to cost me $40 a gallon and fake blood $10 a jar. A weekly allowance of $2 was a great week back then for me. My dreams of being the Colorado master of horror faded.

This Halloween, I want to remember that young boy who loved those B-movie monsters. He would have given a summers worth of allowance to be able to create a pair of fangs like the ones demonstrated here by Bre Pettis and Eric Skiff of Make magazine.

Bre and Eric, fangs for the memories!



[Image: "DIY Vampire Fangs." Make Blog. 19 Oct 2007. Make Magazine. 21 Oct 2007 .]

Zombies in Plain English

It's a Commmon Craft video.

It's about zombies.

It's Halloween.

How could I not link to this video?





[Image: Screenshot of the movie, Zombies in Plain English, with a little color in the bacground.]

Video Scrapbook

I have a friend who every year made a scrapbook of the previous years events and presented it to her sweetheart for Christmas. She had a great time picking out the photos and graphics, making up clever titles and putting it all together. Over time the two of them had a series of scrapbooks that they both treasured.

An article in VideoMaker, The Craft of Family History Videos: Making Classics Out of Clutter, got me to thinking about my friends scrapbooks and how this kind of project doesn't have to be made out of only photos. It could be a video compilation, as described in the article. It could be a web page that had bits and pieces of different media.

This could be modified into a super lesson plan for a video class.

Last year, I had a young lady create a web site about a trip she had taken to Japan. Her family made the journey in the middle of the semester and when she came to talk to me about how she could make up the work for the web class, we came up with this idea . She took photos and kept a journal during her trip that became the core her site. It was one of my favorite projects from that semester.

[Image: Rawlings, Jeanne. "The Craft of Family History Videos: Making Classics Out of Clutter." VideoMaker. VideoMaker. 19 Oct 2007 .]

Backyard Periscope

I built a cardboard periscope when I was in grade school. I then shimmied on my belly into the front room to look at my sister from behind the couch as she watched TV. I felt so sneaky and sly. She said she knew I was there all the time.

In junior high I saw a pair of special glasses with mirrors glued near the arms that would let you look behind you. I loved this idea and ruined several mirrors trying to make one small enough that could be glued onto my frames. My mother put an end to the whole project once she realized I was going to glue broken pieces of glass on my new spectacles.

"Those frames cost too much. You'll ruin them....and you'll cut your eye out!"

Mothers are always so concerned that we will poke, cut, punch or shoot our eyes out. My mother was responsible for squelching a promising career in optics.

So the child in me was excited to see this periscope that David Bynoe built in his backyard. It is twenty feet tall and allows him to look over his fence. Cool. Kind of creepy from a neighbor's standpoint. But still, cool.

I had two students try to build something similar that would allow us look out of my classroom and down to the main hall where we could watch the Principal's office. It never quite worked because I wouldn't let them attach the mirrors with glue or screws to the school's walls and ceilings. They couldn't get them to be steady enough with just tape and blamed me for the failure. I accepted the blame but kept the friendship of our building custodian. I suppose, much as my mother accepted the blame for my failed attempts at optics but relished her continued good standing with the family opthamologist.

I'm pretty sure David Bynoe had a more supportive mother and a nicer tech teacher.



[Image: Bynoe, David. "Blockwatch - periscope surveillance system." David Bynoe...Works in Progress. 02 Oct 2007. 14 Oct 2007 .]

I Think It's Funny

Funny Times

Werewolf Learning: Part 4

I’ve posted several videos of a werewolf costume created by a grad student at Western Washington University. I wrote her with some questions about her project. She was more than generous with her answers and I wanted to share some of her responses over the next couple of days.

The comments at the end are mine and reflect my own bias. If you want to read her complete, un-edited comments, they are posted here.


Did you do all the work yourself or was this a group project? If so, how many were involved?

"For the werewolf costume that is on the YouTube website I worked with my partner in crime, Ben. Ben is a mathematician who's hobby is audio engineering. We worked together on the stilts and the body of the werewolf. However, other people helped out. At the hardware store the staff there cut the wood we used for us, folks who saw our videos sent us ideas or comments that used to improve the design as we finished them up. Any big project will involve more people than those who work on it directly."

Collaboration and over the web no less. It excites me to see things we've been talking about for years actually being done. Getting feedback from someone (a stranger) online. How can we help our students with this new way of working together? Or maybe, how do we get out of their way and let them work this way?

I want to thank the two inventors/builders for sharing their process on YouTube and then kindly answering an old technology teacher’s questions. You rock!*

[*I learned that particular saying from students and young teachers who say it all the time. I was going to say, “You guys are groovy!” but several of my proofreaders groaned and demanded I change it.]

[Image: Modified photo by © Chris Harvey - Fotolia.com]

Animatronic Hand

In the middle school technology lab I facilitated, we used to have a station with a FischerTec building set. For those of you who have never seen these kits, it is kind of like Lego on steroids. I am told that it is often used by engineers to prototype mechanical designs.

Anyway, I would often get someone who wasn't excited about any of the projects they were asked to build with the fancy FischerTec blocks. They would whine and complain:

Whiny Student: "Mr. G, all this stuff is too easy. I've been building things since I was two."

Wise Old Tech Teacher: "OK. Build a working hand."

Whiny Student: "No problem! I'll have it done by the end of the hour."

I'd come back the next day and usually they were stuck and would say, "This is harder than it sounds." They would have a jointed hand but couldn't make it grip. We'd talk about how a human hand works and maybe look at a few pictures.

Wise Old Tech Teacher: "Try again. Only this time, just make a working finger."

I had kids come after school to spend extra time on that assignment. A few came close. A couple of young men got a finger they could control with a motor but weren't able to get a whole hand built.

I saw this video the other day and thought if this had been available for my kids, they would have solved "the finger challenge" in no time. The walls of my classroom would have disappeared and my students could have built off what others had already done.



Written instructions and diagrams can be found here.

[Image:"Simple Animatronics (robotic hand)." Instructables. 01 Jun 2007. Instructables. 11 Oct 2007 .]

Werewolf Learning: Part 3

I’ve posted several videos of a werewolf costume created by a grad student at Western Washington University. I wrote her with some questions about her project. She was more than generous with her answers and I wanted to share some of her responses over the next couple of days.

The comments at the end are mine and reflect my own bias. If you want to read her complete, un-edited comments, they are posted here.


How did you come up with the stilt idea?

"We wanted our werewolf costume to look like it had wolf legs, and we wanted to build those legs out of inexpensive materials without creating a lot of waste. Many movies and television shows use effects to achieve this look, sometimes they use padding and create the illusion of a very long foot walking on short toes, or they will create extensions of the leg (stilts.) We spent about forty minutes researching what had already been done. However, the stilts we found video and photographs of are not easy to remake, nor can you stand still while using them. They also required using materials, chemicals or molding techniques not available to most people."

We went to the hardware store with a rough sketch of what needed to be a part of the stilt, and chose our materials based on what was available. The staff at the store cut the wood for us, but we didn't buy everything we knew we needed. We went to a used hardware store afterward and bought old furniture foam, drawer slides, and door hinges. That way a portion of our stilts would be made of reused material. Learning to re-use material can help stretch a budget and prevent waste of materials."

I want to hand this response to my kids who are working on special projects. The research, the planning, the winging it at the hardware store and the re-use of materials. It makes my old teacher heart throb with pride and they aren’t even my students.

[Image: Modified photo by © Chris Harvey - Fotolia.com]

Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive has got to be useful to someone in your school. You can listen to audio files of a native speaker of a language read a passage in English. There are linguistic notes for some of the speakers describing what's happening. The site suggests the following folks might find this useful:

• ESL teachers who instruct non-native speakers of English
• Actors who need to learn an accent
• Engineers who train speech recognition machines
• Linguists who do research on foreign accent
• Phoneticians who teach phonetic transcription
• Speech pathologists
• Anyone who finds foreign accent to be interesting

I am using it to improve my Scottish accent for when I don my kilt and walk around the house telling stories of the founder of clan Gunn, Olaf the Black.

[Image: The Speech Accent Archive. George Mason University. 9 Oct 2007 .]

Werewolf Learning: Part 2

I’ve posted several videos of a werewolf costume created by a grad student at Western Washington University. I wrote her with some questions about her project. She was more than generous with her answers and I wanted to share some of her responses over the next couple of days.

The comments at the end are mine and reflect my own bias. If you want to read her complete, un-edited comments, they are posted here.

What advice would you have for middle schoolers/high school students?

"Look to a variety of resources: Books, magazines, websites, TV specials, and anyone locally who already does what you want to do. But, look critically at your resources. A website may have a perfect how-to guide with excellent results but be selling the products they use in the demonstration videos. Will the authors of that website show you better alternatives to their products? Probably not, they want you to buy their products. A TV show won't be very technical, so you will have to fill in the blanks and try to figure out what steps are not being shown to make the process appear “pretty” on TV. Older books may focus on traditional materials without ever mentioning the new tools available. For example, there was a special wax used for mask making in the 1960's called Negacol, that no longer exists. Books from that time would make you think you needed to use wax when the product used today is actually made from seaweed and is very different! You may want to avoid the how-to videos produced for professionals since they will use special materials and complicated techniques that can overwhelm and empty the pockets of the beginner. Once you have a grasp on what you're doing, the professional videos can be pretty cool, though. Also, just because someone's expert at a skill doesn't mean they're not a little crazy. So if you meet someone at a comic book convention or on the internet who is willing to help you out with a project, keep your parents around when you talk to them face to face and don't hand out your address, mom's credit card number, wads of money, a copy of your birth certificate, cherished family heirlooms, etc."

Look critically at your resources. Isn’t that turning out to be one of our major tasks as educators as turn out this next generation into the world? Access is getting easier and easier. When the affordable laptops hit the market next year via the One laptop per child project, access will be even broader. The important skill is determining if a web site is reliable and pertinent. The important skill is helping our kids to look at resources critically. The important skill is teaching our kids to use the internet as a tool.

[Image: Modified photo by © Chris Harvey - Fotolia.com]

Build Your Wild Self

My good friend Chuck has come out of retirement to run the computer classes at an elementary school part-time. Most of his experience has been with secondary students and he has been thinking a lot about what he is going to teach. Especially, adapting lessons for those younger kids. His first day at the new job a tiny little person came up to him and said shyly in her tiny, little person voice,

"I've never had a boy teacher before."

He was elated to be referred to as a boy. I told him that the kids may be referring to him as a boy, but all those young teachers are already referring to him as "gramps." Some days he hates me.

I said I'd keep my eye out for age appropriate web sites and I almost immediately stumbled on this site, Build Your Wild Self, put up by the The New York Zoos and Aquarium. It's based on Maurice Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are. First you create a picture of yourself. Gray hair was not an option here so I had to settle for a nice golden brown. Then you add various animal parts until you get the right amount of "wild" in your picture.

It was easy to use. The interface was clearly laid out and it was fun to play with the various options. The origin of each animal part is also described. The tongue in my picture is an "Anaconda snake tongue." I could envision using this activity as a jumping off point to talk about the animals used in constructing a wild thing.

My only problem was getting the finished picture off the web site. I was able to send an email to myself (and Chuck). I could create a desktop for my computer. I couldn't simply save a copy of the picture. This may be an issue with Firefox as I didn't try it in a different browser. I was able to do a screen capture but that might be a little advanced for younger kids. It's a minor complaint and wouldn't stop me from recommending it.

Good Luck Chuck. Those kids are lucky to have a great "boy" teacher like you!

Completed Werewolf Costume

Here is the final video of the werewolf costume design/creation I've been following on YouTube. I have been so enamored of this project that I put together some questions and sent them off to the designer. Turns out she is a grad student at Western Washington University studying Environmental Education and was more than generous in responding to my inquiry. Her letter has been a source of discussion amongst my circle of colleagues and students and I wanted to share it with everybody.

Because of length, I've broken her email up into shorter posts that I can spread out through the week. If you want to read her entire response here is a link. A link to all the videos of the werewolf project can be found on YouTube. But first the video of the final finished costume.



I love how he looks in the parking lot. I can only imagine the neighbors taking little Fifi out to do her doggy business in the front yard and in the dim light seeing a werewolf lumbering through the parking lot. I wonder if they remembered to bring Fifi in before locking the door? I wonder if there were any strange 911 calls that night?

[Image: Created from a screenshot from the video. Moon was photoshopped in and image was run through several filters.]

Werewolf Learning: Part 1

I’ve posted several videos of a werewolf costume created by a grad student at Western Washington University. I wrote her with some questions about her project. She was more than generous with her answers and I wanted to share some of her responses over the next couple of days.

The comments at the end are mine and reflect my own bias. If you want to read her complete, un-edited comments, they are posted here.

How did you learn to do this? Self taught or did someone show you the basics?

"I learned to sew in Home Economics class in middle school, and when I went to college I took a college course in costume construction and made costume parts for plays and for fun. However, I paid attention and stayed after class to read through the books and magazines that were in the classroom. I also took up the teacher's offer when she suggested extra projects to do in our spare time. By becoming very knowledgeable in the single skill of sewing I found I could apply sewing techniques to many, many, other things. For example, to make a clothing item called a corset one has to cut and grind metal strips then use acrylic (a plastic) to cover up the sharp metal edges. Sewing introduced me to metal work and making objects using plastics. Sewing is also a great introduction to some of the fundamental concepts in higher math, such as topology, multivariable calculus, analytical geometry. It's very easy for a student to think of curves and folds in order to answer a test question when they've been curving and folding fabric."

I love how her answer started in a Home Economics class and ended up discussing higher mathematics. Sometimes it's hard to predict where an initial lesson will lead. But, isn’t that also what is great about learning? Isn’t that what excites us as learners? (And teachers!)

[Image: Modified photo by © Chris Harvey - Fotolia.com]

I Think It's Funny

xkcd: A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math and Language

Articulated Werewolf Mask

I had a post on Monday about werewolf stilts. The same person is still at it and has created a head to go along with the stilts. She gives a step-by-step description of how she created a mask that moves with the wearers jaws.

I was discussing this with another tech teacher over coffee. In our lab we used to challenge kids to create an articulated head that was run with pneumatics. They were doing this pretty much from scratch or building off of what other students had figured out. If the kids had been able to access videos like this one, the quality of their work would have increased immensely.

I wonder how many of us are taking advantage of what the web has to offer? How many of us are still running our classrooms like the web doesn't exist? These kids are going out into a world where the web is going to be a part of their professions.

Anyway, take a look at this mask and the plans are at this site.



[Image: "Make an articulated Werewolf Mask." gryphern home page (on YouTube). YouTube. 15 Oct 2007 .]

How To: Limit a Google Search to EDU sites

I was reminded of this trick while browsing Lifehacker. You can limit your search results in Google to show only educational (.edu) sites.

To do this, type the following into Google:

site:.edu "search topic"

Lets say I wanted some photos that were royalty free or free for educational use. It might be helpful to limit my search to edu sites so I type in:

site:.edu photo

I did this and discovered this cool gallery of crocodile photos sponsored by the University of Florida that are free for educational or non-profit use.

That's where this neat picture was hiding.

[Image: King, F. Wayne. "American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus.." Crocodilian Photo Gallery. 1996?. Florida Museum of Natural History. 9 Oct 2007 .}

It may come back to haunt you!

How many movies have you seen where the monster/robot/alien is blown to pieces and the hero walks through the rubble to look at the head still pulsing. That little light fades to dark and the hero says,

"Finally you are dead. You dastardly piece of what is evil in the world. Good riddance!"

He walks away while all of us, who always know more than the hero, are squirming in our popcorn clutter screaming,

"Shoot the head. You dufus! Shoot the head!"

He doesn't listen to us, he never listens to us. Before he is even out of the building the little bits and pieces of dead creature pull themselves together and reform into the same monster. Now a little angry at having been blown to bits. He hunts the hero down and they begin their dance of over acted pain and cinematic explosion until the end of the movie where someone finally shoots the head!

Walking out of the movie we are thankful we don't have to deal with creatures that can pull themselves back together again. A world where the broken stay broken! Not so any more! Watch the following movie and tonight you will add locks to your bedroom door and lament the loss of the comfortable world in which you grew up!



Raffaello D'Andrea, is one of the creators of this chair of doom. He doesn't seem like an evil genius and I enjoyed reading about his other projects. He is an associate professor at that empire building, bent on controlling the world organization, Cornell University.

BotJunkie has become my daily dose of cool robotic stuff. Thanks for making me aware of my impending doom and other neat stuff.

[image: "Tom Swift and his giant robot." Chaos Kids. Aug 1997. from collection of Phillip Rubin. 1 Oct 2007 .]

Werewolf Stilts

I always had this idea in the back of my mind of running a class or after school club designed around creating a monster movie. It's one way of getting students to bring together a wide variety of technology skills: animation, video, sound, engineering , design, modeling, and mechanics. As a bonus we could also work on some of those other school subjects like writing, editing and reading.

Much of the time kids don't see the value of something until they actually use it. A big movie project would have them begging me to learn and experiment with knowledge. I love it when students pester me for information. It makes me feel like a teacher.

"We need a monster with 6 foot arms. Who's going to build this ugly thing?"

"We need a space ship that flies into an asteroid and explodes. Who's wants to animate that?"

"I want a realistic dinosaur roar. Who's going to come in during lunch to work on that?"

"We need a model of scary house that we can blow up later. Who wants to create this?"

I know I'd have 2-3 kids who would volunteer for each of those projects. So many possibilities. So much learning. The following video got me to thinking about my "monster movie" idea again.




Here is a link to the plans.



["Werewolf stilts." Make Magazine. 1 Oct 2007. Make Magazine. 1 Oct 2007 .]
[image: "Wolfman Posters." All Posters. All Posters. 1 Oct 2007 .]

I Think It's Funny

I love this blender. It is at the top of my Christmas wish list! Second on my list is a new iPod...preferably not this one.



More blending here!

Cool Visualizations

Fell into this site while searching for something else. I love that about the web! Here are the winners of the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

The picture shown here is a photograph of Irish moss taken by Andrea Ottesen. I selected this image because it was taken with a 7-megapixel point and shoot camera. Felice Frankel, one of the judges, is quoted in the article saying, "We shouldn't forget that we don't need [complex equipment and techniques] to create beautiful representations."

[Just before I was about to post this I found a link and description of the challenge by David Warlick on his blog 2¢ Worth. Another cool picture. More links.]

[Image: Ottesen, Andrea. "2007 visualization Challenge Winners." Science. 28 Sept 2007. Science Magazine. 2 Oct 2007 .]

Looking inside a cell

During a dinner conversation recently, the inner workings of the cell came up and I raved for a brief minute or two about this great video I had seen on TED. A graphic illustrator had created a video of all the little nano-machines that are bustling around inside every cell. I wished this guy had illustrated my high school biology textbook. Promising I would look up the link for my dinner guest and send her the link, I thought why not throw it on my blog too.

The illustrator's name is David Bolinsky and his talk at TED is "Fantastic voyage inside a cell". Here is the Harvard site he references in his talk which gives a bit more information about the project. If you want to watch any of the clips here, you will need to launch their video player from the front page. To see some of the other illustrations he has been involved with you might also take a look at Bolinsky's company site, XVIVO.



If you haven't wandered around the TED site yet, what are you waiting for?

[Image/Screenshot: Bolinsky, David (2007 July). David Bolinsky: Fantastic voyage inside a cell. Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/147]

My Walk Score...Stinks!

My friends and I have been playing around with this neat little web site that determines a "walk score" for your home. Enter in your address and it will create a map centered around your house. All the amenities you can walk to are shown as little icons, such as restaurants, schools, coffee shops and parks.

It is an interesting filter to use in studying where you live. I already knew my score was going to be low as I've been complaining about the walk-ability of my neighborhood since I moved here. Now I have a little map and a score of 29 (out of a 100) to show that it's just not my imagination. If I wanted easy access to schools, I would be living in the right place. If I wanted music and entertainment. Not so much.



This could be a jumping off point for a geography class in talking about place. A science class talking about environmental neighborhood design. A husband talking about moving someplace where I, ...er he, can walk to get a cup of coffee!

[Images: "Walk Score." Walk Score. Front Seat Management. 3 Oct 2007 .]

K12Online07: Getting Started

I visited the K12Online07 conference site this morning with the plan to watch the keynote. Looking at the time though, I remembered an appointment in 20 minutes. I will postpone watching until I get back.


Isn't technology wonderful.

I did have time to wander around the page set up for first timers and saw that they had an Attender map for all the participants. I signed up and my little dot is now floating there in the middle of Colorado.

I've scoped out where the bathrooms and snack bar are all located and I am ready to go. Everything is so convenient.

[Image: "K12online07." attendr. attendr. 8 Oct 2007 .]

Video Bag of Tricks

My students, and their older, slightly befuddled teacher, always used to forget something when venturing out into the world, or the hallways, to shoot video. Through trial and error we created a "kit bag" that had useful items that made life easier in the field. It saved us lots of trips back to the classroom.

Videomaker has an online article, "Alakazam! The Magic Gear Bag of Tricks" that addresses this same issue. They are much wiser than I and have included several items that never occurred to me. Although, as a teacher, I don't know that I would ever send any of my students out of my sight with a butane soldering iron. I'm not even sure what I would do with a butane soldering iron?

If you've never seen Videomaker magazine take a peek. On the front page of their website they have an offer for a free issue. My middle school kids found the articles a little beyond them. My high school kids were more interested and would read the issues I left laying around. I eventually asked our library to subscribe.

[Image: Reff, Michael. "eNews exlusive: Alakazam! The Magic Gear Bag of Tricks." Videomaker. Oct 2007. Videomaker. 27 Sep 2007 .]

K12 Online Conference 2007

A reminder that the K12 Online Conference 2007 starts tomorrow. (Today if you are reading this on Monday morning, the 8th.)

It's free.

It's open to everyone.

To quote from the site:

"The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries”. The 2007 conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced."

Did I mention that it was free?

Give Blogging a Try

Several years ago I did a presentation for the technology support group in my school district on how to create a personal blog using Google's Blogger. Many of us were excited on how this tool could be used in education and wanted to get it into teacher's hands. On that same day, the district coordinators passed out a book, The World is Flat, to use as a discussion starter at our monthly meetings for the rest of the year. Since we were learning about Blogs, I volunteered to create one where we could share our thoughts on the book in between our meetings. It was a success in that everyone had a chance to post and comment on a working blog. It was a worthwhile experience and I learned a lot as the moderator.

Blogging never seemed to catch on in our district after that initial push. I have been told by teachers that they thought it was a "good idea, but":

"Its too hard."

"I don't know how to do it"

"Seems like it will take too much time."

I think it is a valuable tool and want to offer a few resources today that may encourage you to explore it's use in your classroom.

First, there are many possibilities available to you in creating a blog. I like and use Blogger because it is easy to setup and maintain. There are other options though and here is a partial listing of some of the blogging programs available. My district started using Gaggle this year for student email and if you have access to that program, it has a new blogging feature.

Second, I wanted to gather some sites together with suggestions on what to do with your blog once you have it up and running.

• Edublog has an article on "10 Ways to Use Your Edublog"
• Distributed Teaching and Learning. Nice explanation of the idea of "scribe posts". Daily class notes that are posted each day by the students.
  
• “Let’s see if I can start a log…” Long post by Will Richardson who writes about his experience setting up classroom blogs since 2001.
• Blogging 101: Web Logs go to school: Article on CNET about blogging in education.
• Anne Davis, from Georgia Stage University, writes about Rationale for Educational Blogging. She is one of this year's presenters at K12 Online Conference and will be giving a related presentation: Learn to Blog: Blog to Learn.
  

Third, here is a sampling of classroom blogs I found online.

• Room 9's Writing Spot: (Primary)
  
• Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog: (Primary)
  
• Critical Issues in Literature Block 3: (High school)
• Web Pages and Portfolios: (High school)
  

I'm not the first to promote blogging to teachers and there is a plethora of information on the internet. I gathered and reviewed all this information in an evenings time. Every time I go back to the web to check something out for this post, I find another item I want to include. For example, I found this site that lists resources and examples for potential bloggers.

Pick a program. Start small. Give it a try.

[image:© Radu Razvan - Fotolia.com]

Why not just One BIG Picture?

I had a student ask me once,

"Why don't we just design web pages in Photoshop and then load the picture as the whole page. It would look so much better!"

I stammered on about file size but I don't think I was very convincing as the student countered with,

"What about slicing the image up Mr. G? Huh! What about that? The files would be smaller!"

I answered with that sly teacher ploy,

"Wasn't that the bell?"

Wish I had this article, PSD to Web Page which is much more articulate than I in explaining why it is better to use good html/css design. In a nutshell, the reasons one big image is less desirable are:

1. Requires tables to hold sliced images.
2. Hard to manage and update.
3. And a biggie....not search engine friendly.

I am so much smarter if I get one or two months to think about my answers. I wonder why my students never understood how clever I am?

Mischook, Stefan. "PSD to Web Page." Killersites.com Blog. 20 Sep 2007. Killersites.com. 22 Sep 2007 .
[Image: Ruminer, David . "Scary Monster Man." Private Collection. 2005.]

Another video from Common Craft

Common Craft has done it again. They created a video about why fluorescent bulbs are better. A better value. A better choice for the environment.

These folks are so clever. One example of their skill is how they show the volume of coal being burnt. It's implied through the size of the paper flame. The bigger the flame, the more coal being consumed.

If I did this, I might have made the pile of coal bigger. I may have made a chart depicting use over time. I may not have even done anything to graphically show what was happening and droned on in my monotone teacher voice while the kids looked at a lump of coal.

"Yes children, the more electricity used, the more coal we have to burn. Any questions? Any questions?"

This is why I am sitting home alone writing poetry about garden snails and the folks at Common Craft will soon own the world. Good content. Clear delivery. Fun to watch. Where were they when I was learning Economics?



[Image: "Video: New Light Bulbs in Plain English." Common Craft. 26 sept 2007. Common Craft. 27 Sep 2007 .]