Makerbot Lecture 3D Printing with David Wells

One of the nice things about all this crazy travel this summer is I have gotten to do and see some things that are just not available in Richmond, VA. Last night I got to go to the Makerbot store in NYC to hear a talk about 3-D Printing and Maker spaces.

3-D Printing Filament

The speaker was David Wells from the New York Hall of Science. He is the Manager of Creative Making & Learning - I know, best job title ever.

Last year my computer clubs project was 3-D printing. They fund-raised and bought a PrintrBot tight at the end of the year. I am so excited to see where this takes us next year.

The presentation was a great overview of 3-D printing, some of the recent changes and how to incorporate it into maker spaces. One of the general themes was that engagement with museums tapers off as kids hit their teen years, and these maker spaces are a great way to bring them back in.

Several of the folks working at the Makerspace for the summer were there to show off what they were working on. They are part of Maker Corps Education program. They are officially called explainers, which I might borrow for when we do recruitment in the lab.

Oh, and if you are in the neighborhood NYSCI is the host of the Maker Faire NY this fall on Sept 21 - 22. If you havent been to one you must go. Really - its your homework. Find a Maker Faire near you and get to it. I got to do the one at the Henry Ford Museum last summer in Detroit and it was amazing.

Resources:

• Interview with David Wells - best summary of the Maker movement Ive seen
• New York Hall of Science
• MakerSpace @ NYSCI
• Maker Corps 
• TinkerCad - Mind to Design in Minutes - This site lets you create the files that the 3-D printer uses
• Explainer TV from NYSCI - has some fun DIY projects and science explinations
• 
  

And if you need a story to help inspire you to the power of 3-D printing: 3-D Printer Brings Dexterity To Children With No Fingers.

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Right shift key and W

Today we will add the Right shift key and the W to what we have already learned on the keyboard.

After learning these new keys we will go to a website and do a little practice from there.

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Are American High Schools working in the Internet Age

(continuation of  Redefining Teachers in the Internet Age)

Before we can redefine teaching we must examine schools themselves.

One of the core issues the Internet in education raises: does this always mean we need to visit a teacher in person? Traditionally the most efficient way for an expert to share knowledge was to collect a large number of people in a room at the same time and talk. Now, the Internet has the potential of bringing this conversation to a much larger group that do not necessarily need to be housed in the same place at the same time.

For the traditional American high school this raises some large questions. A lot of modern educational theory centers around manipulating large numbers of mostly unwilling participants into absorbing information and skills that they do not inherently care about. We train teachers in both delivery and assessment, and spend an inordinate amount of time on behavior management. (* In case youd like to see an example: http://teachlikeachampion.com/the-classroom/ . *)

So what if we took this off the table? Lets say we now face the same questions education faced at the beginning of the last century when moves towards compulsory education first began. At that point there were not large buildings meant to house 2000 or more teenagers in order to teach them. At the time it was a new model centered around the need to be physically present with a teacher.

So, does this model still work? There is a lot of discussion currently around what is wrong and why in education. Perhaps part of it is the buildings themselves. Our underlying assumption that we have to put thousands of 16 year-olds in a building in order to effectively educate them might not be true anymore.

If we were, right now, building a compulsory education system from scratch would that the solution look like? Think about it for a minute. If you had to build an educational system from scratch, right now, with no infrastructure, school districts, buildings...what would you design? Would every student have access to high quality classes? How?

There are advantages to both in person and online teaching. Neither alone holds the solution to the myriad issues of quality and access that plague our educational system.

But it is time to start investigating - Are we doing it this way because it works or because of the infrastructure we already have in place?

And ultimately, what is the best way to introduce our children to collected human knowledge?

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Fifth Grade Project Grand Canyon

By: Giovanni

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Learn the 5 7

Today we will learn the 5 and the 7 in class.

Just as a reminder...the Crossword Puzzle is due this Friday.  You can turn this in today if you have it completed or tomorrow.  If you do not get this turned in by tomorrow it will not get graded as it is the end of the 3rd Quarter.

Also, next week is a vocab week, so if you are responsible for definitions for week 6 please get those definitions posted to the Wikispaces page as soon as possible.

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Lyndon B Johnson Lesson

How did Lyndon B. Johnson expand the rights and freedoms of people of our county?
How did Lyndon B. Johnson show positive character traits?

Click on the link above to explore the Lyndon B. Johnson glog.

Record important words that relate to the life of Lyndon B. Johnson to use in your word cloud. Choose words that will help you describe him and his efforts to expand our rights through the Great Society and expanding voting rights.

Go to http://www.wordle.net/ and click on the word "create." Type your words into the first box and click "GO." When you see your word cloud click "Print."

Practice reading through your word cloud, so youll be ready to share it with the class. Youll need to explain how each word relates to the life of Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Vocabulary introduction beginning week 2

This week:

Vocabulary
Create Wikispace accounts
Create a Classmarker account
Review of all keys learned
Learn N, G, Left Shift key, period (.)
Technique grade 

TODAY:
We are going to begin by talking about the vocab words and vocab lists for the class.  If you go to the vocabulary page on the blog youll see a variety of information - well be covering this today.  Additionally, youll need to have access to the wikispaces page so that you can submit vocabulary definitions (thats already been done by me - you will need to verify by checking your gmail, and well do that in a little bit).

The vocabulary for this class is really split into 2 parts - on one hand you will be responsible for knowing all of the vocabulary words for any given week, and you will demonstrate your knowledge by completing a vocab quiz.  On the other hand you will be required to find definitions for the vocab words and post them to the wiki for everyone to study off of.  This "research process" will be graded, just as the vocab quizzes will be graded (our first vocabulary quiz will be this Friday, and it will be taken online on a website called Classmarker).

When you post a definition to the Wiki, your definition should be easy to understand.  Sometimes, after finding a definition, you will see that the definition that you have found doesnt help you to understand what that vocab word means (or is).  Therefore, find definitions that are easy to understand, and if you cant find one that makes sense please see me so I can help you write an easy-to-understand definition.

Additionally, if you have a vocab word that is an acronym (GPS, WWW, or FAQ) then please include what the letters stand for (for example, WWW stands for World Wide Web, and when you enter your vocab definition on the wiki make sure to include that).
This will seem a little foreign to begin with, but we will be talking about this every day between now and the end of next week, which is when your first quiz will be.
You could set up a calendar reminder in Google so that you receive an email - this way you will be reminded several days in advance of when you need to have a definition posted on the wiki.  And, since you already know the words that you will be asked to define, you could find a definition for each of your words and save those definitions in a Google Doc - then when it is your week all you have to do is copy from your Google Doc to the Wiki.

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