the future is now

teachers often think about technology as a mystical force. older teachers tend to view it as something that they ought to resist. newer teachers view it as something that they want but don't really know how to get or effectively use. all in all, we talk about "the future" as something that is still a ways away. we still view our students as more or less more modernized versions of ourselves and our generation. but the future is much closer than it seems.

my students once accused me of listening to NPR while i drive. it is true... i listen to NPR all the time. recently, i was listening to a program about a new study done by the macarther foundation. the research finds that what parents and teachers have been resisting for years and years may actually be something that's good for the students. they say that this is a generation with a whole new sense of global awareness and connected-ness.

it has become now more than just a place for mindless time-wasting. this is a whole new culture of interconnectedness. the future and technology is no longer something we can idly stand aside and speculate upon. our system is becoming irrelevant at an alarming rate. we must think of newer and better ways of doing things.

the next item on the table is how we can use social networking to our advantage in the classroom.

New Mobility

have you ever been lecturing and suddenly realized that you had a mistake on your slides? or you were moving around the room and wished you could magically make things appear on the board without you having to walk all the way there to write it down?


now there is a legit way to use your iphone or ipod touch as a mobile touchpad / keyboard / and presentation remote. all of this can be done for the cost of $4. it is called, touchpad elite and can be purchased through the apple app store.

here we have the mobile keyboard. taking advantage of one of the best aspects of the iphone / itouch, the program will allow different orientations and your display will always be pointed up. want a wider keyboard? just tilt sideways.

this is the presentation remote. now all i need to do is rig a laserpointer onto my iphone and it'll be a fully fledged presentation remote.

the default black surface makes the entire device a giant mobile touchpad.

one of the main drawbacks to this setup is it's connectivity. both your computer and the iphone/itouch must be on the same wifi network. if your school doesn't happen to offer wifi (like my school) then you're in trouble.

here is a simple solution. get an old wireless router if you have one. otherwise, you can probably get a cheaper older model for not too much. the wireless router doesn't need to be connected to the actual internet for it to function as a wireless connector for two computers. in this case, i picked up my old 11mb/sec wireless router that is quickly going on 6 years old. i plug it in and join its network with both my devices. BAM. success.

now all i need to do is convince my superintendent to make itouches standard issue for new teachers.

Galileo

two weeks ago, a package arrived in the mail.


and northville was changed forever.


after it was acquainted with its predecessor, it was given a name. because after all, every passionate mac user names his or her machine. [be warned... the amount of nerdiness is about to reach astronomical proportions] every computer i have owned has had a name of some significance. my g4 1.33GHz powerbook was named isis after the egyptian mother of the gods because the g4 was the first mac i have ever owned and thus the progenator machine. the macbook my masters program issued me was named prometheus after the greek demigod who stole fire from zeus and gave it to mankind and from that fire, civilization was born. that white macbook's purpose was to for teaching and bringing knowledge and civilization to the world. and now, the new metalic macbook has been named galileo after the man who challenge the accepted norm and changed the way an entire world thought.


so far in the project, we have been able to refit a standard overhead projector cart to house all of our various pieces of equipment. the smartboard has now become stand issue in my classroom. but only recently have i devised a means to overcome the pesky problem of where to place the wiimote sensors. too close doesn't produce a cone of reception large enough to cover the entire display surface. too far and the spatial resolution deteriorates and the tracking speed diminishes. sensors placed too close make the display more succeptible to dead zones produces by the IR shadow the teacher's body casts by simply being in the way of the light. here is at least the first step to a viable solution for a nomadic teacher.



The wiimote can now pivot on a verticle axis, which drastically increases its versitility. the rubber feet of the tripod make it useful on various surfaces, even ones on an incline.

project galileo will be a multi-step project to build a classroom of the future. or at least... a classroom of the present.

wii smartboard

It seems that the greatest flaw and the great strength of youth are the same things. We are terribly impatient. Instead of waiting for my IR pens to arrive in the mail, I drove out to visit the good folks at Radio Shack. For $1.99, I bought an IR LED bulb and bought a spool of wire for $5.

The pen itself is a simple device. I just pulled out the insides of a standard ballpoint pen and carved a notch hole on the side of the casing. Two long wires were attached to the two leads of the bulb and they were threaded into the hallow shaft and out of the hole I cut in the side. Then I just attached a regular AA battery to the side with electrical tape and rigged it so I could just press the exposed wire against the exposed end of the battery to complete the circuit. At Radio Shack, I was eyeing the switches and buttons, and I should have just bought them. Curses for not listening to that little voice!


I first started with one wii remote, but I eventually moved on to 2 since it provides much more sensitivity smother movements. The wiimote is special because it contains all of the basic components that make a smartboard so darn smart: an IR sensor and a bluetooth connectivity system. Yep, those suckers at Nintendo didn't know they were actually helping teachers everywhere get around a very expensive roadblock. The actual mechanics of it are complicated, but the gist is simple. The wiimotes act as infrared cameras that are able to detect an infrared signal. With the wiimotes synced to your computer through bluetooth, they can then relay the signal about where the IR signal is coming from.


With 2 wiimotes, I'm better able to detect an IR signal in 3D space since the the two wiimotes have overlapping fields of vision.


I downloaded a program called wiimotewhiteboard, which does the rest for you.

Currently, I've tested it on my laptop's LCD screen, and I've tested on a data projector. For now, I'm just messing around with the arrangements of the wiimotes and figuring out what positions get the best image tracking.

This makes powerpoints way cooler 'cause now I can draw straight on the slides while I present. I can underline things or circle them. I can draw diagrams in the rooms where I don't have chalkboard space. This pretty much makes those silly things useless because I can draw my diagrams, save them, delete them, or do whatever with them.

Horray for technology! Leave comments if you have questions.

the up and down sides of technology

since the beginning of the year, i've been painstakingly working towards a modern classroom that takes full advantage of the fact that it exists in the 21st century. but alas, there are obstacles. my students don't believe me, but all of the materials i make for class and the digital aspects of my lessons are all driven by my old powerbook g4. it runs exactly like the day i opened the box, but that was also almost six years ago. it's to the point where sometimes i'll type out a whole sentence and then have to wait a few seconds for my computer's processor to keep up with the speed of my typing. it's kind of depressing to think that the rate-limiting factor to my productivity is not my own abilities, but in how quickly my computer can interpret my typing.

so this leads us to the first downside. it's EXPENSIVE. i've recently made up my mind to invest in a new computer. MAC spoiled me with the macbook, so it put off my computer buying for a year. fortunately, mr. steve jobs has just put out a new line of fancy shiney new macbooks.

the second downside to technology is that when 100% of your materials are online, including tests and lecture slides, it really sucks when comcast fails you and you don't have internet for a weekend. since i had forgotten to take attendance at school, i wasn't even able to fill it in once i got home. while i lay on the floor in my study, i couldn't help but feel powerless and liberated all at the same time. it was a strange sensation full of conflicting feelings.

and now, the upside. i've had a most exciting time with introducing new technology into a community that thinks laptop carts are glimpses of the future. i was talking to my principle, trying to convince him that laptop carts just made more sense and that they're really some kind of new-fangled innovation. they're just smaller computers put into a portable cart. i've recently finished a grant from northville's mother's club for the purchasing of a class set of student response clickers. for the first two weeks, i occupied my free time with think of ways to involve all of my students, have a way to gauge the whole class's understanding, and have a way to track individual student progress without having to put aside an extra fund for future mental therapy bills. the answer was in these individualized clickers where students can respond anonymously and a computer does most of my tedious work for me.

additionally, i've been working on a far fetched idea that i would have never dreamed of coming true. last year in methods, i was making fun of sherley for how willow run middle school is like the el derado of technology: laptop carts in every class, smartboards, surround sound, and windows. (i had taught in a room without any windows all year so nature looked unfamiliar to me) during our talk about expensive things, talk about wii tennis came up, and someone commented that they hard heard someone had built a smart board out of a wii. well, it's not just a rumor anymore. in the second week of november, northville high school will see its first make-shift smart board made from materials that cost a combined total of $38 (not including tax). the device itself fits in the palm of my hand and works with any digital projector + computer setup and works on any surface.

perhaps the greatest lesson i have learned so far this year regarding technology is this. despite being expensive, it is still available. all you need to do is know who to beg for money and how to make due with innovations when money doesn't quite cut it. creativity always seems to win out in the end. i will be posting pictures of my smartboard in a week or so.