Fwd: Kinect and Scratch

We've been playing with a Kinect hooked up to a laptop for our highschool robotics team.  This year's FIRST Robotics Competition Kit of Parts will include a kinect for teams to use.  Won't know how it's to be used until January 7:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111007005793/en/%C2%AE-Adds-Kinect-Xbox-360-Technology-High-School

It's been interesting to watch but one of the most fun things I found was that it can be interfaced with Scratch (MIT:  http://scratch.mit.edu/ ) -- cool early programming tool.  I think my 6 yo will soon be able to be introduced to Scratch.  And it's a great learning tool throughout K-12 -- including being an easy interface for programming and demonstrating understanding of AP physics, etc...

Anyway, someone has written the interface (there's probably a much more appropriate computer-ese word) between the Kinect and Scratch so the kids can actually program with kinect input. (http://stephen-howell.tumblr.com/post/2652736960/scratch-and-kinect-find-instructions-on-doing)

Think we'll keep the kinect I bought -- and not buy an xbox to go with it -- lots of cool apps to download.  Looks like it will work with Scratch, Greenfoot (similar learning tool for Java -- haven't used it yet).  Nothing that I can find to interface with Alice.  However, what a great tool for adding to kids' learning of programming -- beats the TRS-80 and Basic from when I was in high school.

Educational Apps for the iPhone and iPad

High School
Trying to decide whether or not it would be worth having an iPad for my 15 yo for school.  Did a search for high school apps and here is a great list -- sounds like it could be a great addition IF it didn't turn into a time waster:
http://palmbeachschooltalk.com/groups/ipadpilot/wiki/70925/High_School_iPad_Apps.html

Most of the Khan Academy videos are available for the iPhone/iPad:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/khan-academy-a-classroom-in/id361975619?mt=8

Quizlet -- he uses this for going through Spanish vocabulary on his desktop but we just found he could access all that through his iPhone (also for Android):
http://quizlet.com/mobile/

Early Elementary
One thing we did was take an old iPod touch and put all of the music, games and a few favorite TV shows (cyberchase, Star Wars Clone Wars) that were appropriate for my 5 yo on it. I keep it in my purse and when the car rides get long or we have to wait long times at places for his older brother, I can pull it out -- and I know he won't be online or messing up my phone! Worked great on our trip across the continent last week.

Here's a great source of iPhone/iPad apps for kids...
http://www.iphone4kids.net/

My favorites for my 5 yo (he prefers AirPenguin and Pikachu Jump but he doesn't mind these!:
Handwriting: iWriteWords:
http://gdiplus.ptgdi.com/iWriteWords.htm

Sequencing -- alphabet, skip counting (5's, 10's, etc): Dot to Dot numbers
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dottodot-numbers-letters/id333188500?mt=8
(they also do PocketPhonics -- haven't tried it yet)

Stop Motion for 5 and 6 yo's

My 5 1/2 yo decided that he really needed to do LEGO stop motion videos like his 16 yo friend Clark does.  Unfortunately, he doesn't read yet and he has big plans in his head about how it will work.

You can check out some of my son's stop motion videos on the youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/lwhipker?feature=mhee)

However, this video one is a better one to show "how to do stop motion with a 5 or 6 yo" -- it's a Dad video taping his 6 yo talking about how she does stop motion and you can see the one she did which was with paper drawings -- I've strongly suggested to my son that he do 2-D stop motion and he's pretty firmly refusing!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hi4AYxzCc

Here's what we've learned on this process.

Option 1:  Windows Movie Maker

• Camera -- make sure it's mounted, take 50+ photo's of individual shots
• Download onto the computer
• Pull all photo's into Windows Movie Maker 
• Add sound via Audacity
• Add titles

PRO:  inexpensive
CON: quite parent-intensive.

The challenge with the age of our kids is that it's not very easy to see it -- my son likes to take 5 pictures, run it to see how it looks, see which frames his hands are in and delete those, etc.  Plus, he doesn't read.  And he and I both like having him be independent so he doesn't drive me crazy.  So it needs to be simple.  I tried out several other demo's to see what worked well.

I have a webcam attached to my computer and can take photos with it directly from the keyboard.

Option 2:  iKitMovie
Our first attempt (free demo for as long as we could): 

• iKitMovie (http://www.ikitmovie.com/) -- it has almost no reading, lots of sound clips, logs of drag and drop, easy to delete, easy to play
  
• really suited for a 5 to 6 yo EXCEPT it does not have enough control if the animator wants to do anything more complex so we outgrew this fairly rapidly because my son's trying to do stop motion "like Clark" -- who turned 16 today... (but has some great stop motion movies -- his youtube channel is 103clark -- worth watching some!)

Option 3: Dragon Stop Motion
We used a month long demo for Dragon StopMotion -- which is more complex and much more expensive but does more of what he wants to do (sound's a challenge -- we're using the free audacity program, and today we're probably going to try pulling it into Windows Movie Maker to combine the sound and titles).  The demo allows 50 frames per scene -- hence, all of the 7 second videos on youtube!

Option 4:  ZU3D
This is the one we finally ended up with.  Again, a long demo to try it out. But, it's great for kids to use and has many, many features (except for Star Wars light saber sounds which I've had to search out and manipulate through audacity to use).

Pros:  Easy for kids to use, very intuitive, not too expensive (relatively), allows  titles and credits to be made right in the program (very important, apparently!)
Cons:  Some sound still has to go through audacity

BTW:  For lighting, I know of some GREAT LED lightbulbs that work well for kids doing stop motion close to lamps!   My older son's FIRST Robotics Team is selling some nearly unbreakable LED lightbulbs online  ($5 shipping, regardless of how many you purchase):  http://www.teampyrotech.org/  My son puts them in some inexpensive gooseneck lamps from Target. 

 

Computer Science at the Highschool Level

From the collegeboard, there is a Pre-AP Teacher's corner that has quite a bit of info and resources.  This is the one for preAP computer science. 
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/courses/teachers_corner/22778.html

I really like the book she describes:  an online book on "How to Design Programs" (http://www.htdp.org/2003-09-26/ ) with the following table of contents (below).  It talks through a logical, step by step approach to learning how to approach a problem for programming and the text looks like it is written to the student instead of to the teacher.  It prepares the student for more in-depth java or any other language:

Processing Simple Forms of Data

1 Students, Teachers, and Computers

2 Numbers, Expressions, Simple Programs
2.1 Numbers and Arithmetic
2.2 Variables and Programs
2.3 Word Problems
2.4 Errors
2.5 Designing Programs

3 Programs are Function Plus Variable Definitions
3.1 Composing Functions
3.2 Variable Definitions
3.3 Finger Exercises on Composing Functions

4 Conditional Expressions and Functions
4.1 Booleans and Relations
4.2 Functions that Test Conditions
4.3 Conditionals and Conditional Functions
4.4 Designing Conditional Functions

5 Symbolic Information
5.1 Finger Exercises with Symbols

6 Compound Data, Part 1: Structures
6.1 Structures
6.2 Extended Exercise: Drawing Simple Pictures
6.3 Structure Definitions
6.4 Data Definitions
6.5 Designing Functions for Compound Data
6.6 Extended Exercise: Moving Circles and Rectangles
6.7 Extended Exercise: Hangman

7 The Varieties of Data
7.1 Mixing and Distinguishing Data
7.2 Designing Functions for Mixed Data
7.3 Composing Functions, Revisited
7.4 Extended Exercise: Moving Shapes
7.5 Input Errors

8 Intermezzo 1: Syntax and Semantics
8.1 The Scheme Vocabulary
8.2 The Scheme Grammar
8.3 The Meaning of Scheme
8.4 Errors
8.5 Boolean Expressions
8.6 Variable Definitions
8.7 Structure Definitions

II Processing Arbitrarily Large Data

9 Compound Data, Part 2: Lists
9.1 Lists
9.2 Data Definitions for Lists of Arbitrary Length
9.3 Processing Lists of Arbitrary Length
9.4 Designing Functions for Self-Referential Data Definitions
9.5 More on Processing Simple Lists

10 More on Processing Lists
10.1 Functions that Produce Lists
10.2 Lists that Contain Structures
10.3 Extended Exercise: Moving Pictures

11 Natural Numbers
11.1 Defining Natural Numbers
11.2 Processing Natural Numbers of Arbitrary Size
11.3 Extended Exercise: Creating Lists, Testing Functions
11.4 Alternative Data Definitions for Natural Numbers
11.5 More on the Nature of Natural Numbers

12 Composing Functions, Revisited Again
12.1 Designing Complex Programs
12.2 Recursive Auxiliary Functions
12.3 Generalizing Problems, Generalizing Functions
12.4 Extended Exercise: Rearranging Words

13 Intermezzo 2: List Abbreviations

III More on Processing Arbitrarily Large Data

14 More Self-referential Data Definitions
14.1 Structures in Structures
14.2 Extended Exercise: Binary Search Trees
14.3 Lists in Lists
14.4 Extended Exercise: Evaluating Scheme

15 Mutually Referential Data Definitions
15.1 Lists of Structures, Lists in Structures
15.2 Designing Functions for Mutually Referential Definitions
15.3 Extended Exercise: More on Web Pages

16 Development through Iterative Refinement
16.1 Data Analysis
16.2 Defining Data Classes and Refining Them
16.3 Refining Functions and Programs

17 Processing Two Complex Pieces of Data
17.1 Processing Two Lists Simultaneously: Case 1
17.2 Processing Two Lists Simultaneously: Case 2
17.3 Processing Two Lists Simultaneously: Case 3
17.4 Function Simplification
17.5 Designing Functions that Consume Two Complex Inputs
17.6 Exercises on Processing Two Complex Inputs
17.7 Extended Exercise: Evaluating Scheme, Part 2
17.8 Equality and Testing

18 Intermezzo 3: Local Definitions and Lexical Scope
18.1 Organizing Programs with local
18.2 Lexical Scope and Block Structure

IV Abstracting Designs

19 Similarities in Definitions
19.1 Similarities in Functions
19.2 Similarities in Data Definitions

20 Functions are Values
20.1 Syntax and Semantics
20.2 Contracts for Abstract and Polymorphic Functions

21 Designing Abstractions from Examples
21.1 Abstracting from Examples
21.2 Finger Exercises with Abstract List Functions
21.3 Abstraction and a Single Point of Control
21.4 Extended Exercise: Moving Pictures, Again
21.5 Note: Designing Abstractions from Templates

22 Designing Abstractions with First-Class Functions
22.1 Functions that Produce Functions
22.2 Designing Abstractions with Functions-as-Values
22.3 A First Look at Graphical User Interfaces

23 Mathematical Examples
23.1 Sequences and Series
23.2 Arithmetic Sequences and Series
23.3 Geometric Sequences and Series
23.4 The Area Under a Function
23.5 The Slope of a Function

24 Intermezzo 4: Defining Functions on the Fly

V Generative Recursion

25 A New Form of Recursion
25.1 Modeling a Ball on a Table
25.2 Sorting Quickly

26 Designing Algorithms
26.1 Termination
26.2 Structural versus Generative Recursion
26.3 Making Choices

27 Variations on a Theme
27.1 Fractals
27.2 From Files to Lines, from Lists to Lists of Lists
27.3 Binary Search
27.4 Newton's Method
27.5 Extended Exercise: Gaussian Elimination

28 Algorithms that Backtrack
28.1 Traversing Graphs
28.2 Extended Exercise: Checking (on) Queens

29 Intermezzo 5: The Cost of Computing and Vectors
29.1 Concrete Time, Abstract Time
29.2 The Definition of ``on the Order of''
29.3 A First Look at Vectors

VI Accumulating Knowledge

30 The Loss of Knowledge
30.1 A Problem with Structural Processing
30.2 A Problem with Generative Recursion

31 Designing Accumulator-Style Functions
31.1 Recognizing the Need for an Accumulator
31.2 Accumulator-Style Functions
31.3 Transforming Functions into Accumulator-Style

32 More Uses of Accumulation
32.1 Extended Exercise: Accumulators on Trees
32.2 Extended Exercise: Missionaries and Cannibals
32.3 Extended Exercise: Board Solitaire

33 Intermezzo 6: The Nature of Inexact Numbers
33.1 Fixed-size Number Arithmetic
33.2 Overflow
33.3 Underflow
33.4 DrScheme's Numbers

VII Changing the State of Variables

34 Memory for Functions

35 Assignment to Variables
35.1 Simple Assignments at Work
35.2 Sequencing Expression Evaluations
35.3 Assignments and Functions
35.4 A First Useful Example

36 Designing Functions with Memory
36.1 The Need for Memory
36.2 Memory and State Variables
36.3 Functions that Initialize Memory
36.4 Functions that Change Memory

37 Examples of Memory Usage
37.1 Initializing State
37.2 State Changes from User Interactions
37.3 State Changes from Recursion
37.4 Finger Exercises on State Changes
37.5 Extended Exercise: Exploring Places

38 Intermezzo 7: The Final Syntax and Semantics
38.1 The Vocabulary of Advanced Scheme
38.2 The Grammar of Advanced Scheme
38.3 The Meaning of Advanced Scheme
38.4 Errors in Advanced Scheme

VIII Changing Compound Values

39 Encapsulation
39.1 Abstracting with State Variables
39.2 Practice with Encapsulation

40 Mutable Structures
40.1 Structures from Functions
40.2 Mutable Functional Structures
40.3 Mutable Structures
40.4 Mutable Vectors
40.5 Changing Variables, Changing Structures

41 Designing Functions that Change Structures
41.1 Why Mutate Structures
41.2 Structural Design Recipes and Mutation, Part 1
41.3 Structural Design Recipes and Mutation, Part 2
41.4 Extended Exercise: Moving Pictures, a Last Time

42 Equality
42.1 Extensional Equality
42.2 Intensional Equality

43 Changing Structures, Vectors, and Objects
43.1 More Practice with Vectors
43.2 Collections of Structures with Cycles
43.3 Backtracking with State

Technology 2.0 and up sites

Rethinking Education Technology -- book about using the new technologies in education
http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Education-Technology-Education-Connections-Education-Cnnections/dp/0807750034/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264994196&sr=8-1

EduCon 2.2
An online (and in person) conference about using Education and Web 2.2 technology.  Worth exploring some of the different people who attended.
http://www.educon22.org/conversations/The_Decoupling_of_Education_and_School_Where_do_We_Begin

The wiki for the conference above:
http://i3educon.wikispaces.com/


One of the speakers at the EduCon conference -- haven't explored it much yet.
http://sites.google.com/site/sunilityching/


ScienceOnline 2010 Website
Some interesting local people and websites to look at (see the attendees list):
http://www.scienceonline2010.com/index.php/wiki/

Math future wiki -- for the scienceonline website
http://www.scienceonline2010.com/index.php/wiki/

Visual Technology Tools

Mind mapping:
http://mind42.com/

Poster creation for whatever topic is being used -- a very cool idea, however if you go to the website and browse it, it is full of female teen angst and stories.  Not necessarily a place for younger kids!
http://www.glogster.com/
Here's one with Harriet Tubman that is very cool:
http://mariaha.glogster.com/harriet-tubman/

A periodic table of visualization methods -- so many types of visualization methods but inspiring to look at:
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

Learning Math with Python

The Python Rag -- a newsletter for beginning python users.
http://www.pythonrag.org/

Pythonic Math -- how to teach math using Python (a bit "up there" but interesting...)
http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/pymath.html

A forum/discussion about using python to teach math:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2009-April/009281.html

There's also a Python Users Meetup group in Raleigh that would be interesting to attend -- or to find out if they would do a career field trip.
http://www.meetup.com/trizpug/

Yenka Physics

Very cool physics gadgets -- free to download for home use:
http://www.yenka.com/

Digital Literacy and Education

Co-Learners wiki: Things I've learned by David Warlick
David Warlick has written 3 books about digital literacy and education. Interestingly, he lives in Raleigh -- wonder if he'd be willing to speak to a group of homeschoolers about literacy and learning in the homeschool arena?
http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?page_id=14

David Warlick's blog: 2 cents
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

>We do not like to describe blogging by comparing it to a diary. But it would not be inaccurate to call this blog just that. It is a diary of my greater mind, my experiences, observations, and reflections, mixed in with the responses of an eclectic community of readers — who are often the smarter part of me.It is a conversation.I blog to learn.

I do not promise answers here. I will ask far more questions.

Many of the barriers that prevent us from modernizing our education systems come from the baggage of outdated notions about teaching, learning, curriculum, our children, and their future. Asking questions seems to be one way of probing and provoking new perceptions about what we do, why we do it, and how we might adapt within an almost constantly changing environment.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading this blog. It is not always serious and it is not always about education. It comes from a non-traditional educator who is grappling with an intensely exciting world he had no reason to expect.

Definite Summer Camp in 2010?

Chemistry and Engineering of Polymers and Fibers: A Workshop for High School Students
August
http://www.tx.ncsu.edu/departments/tecs/pcc/polymercamp/

Applications being in May!

Also, Engineering Summer Programs at NCSU for highschoolers:
http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/summerprograms
And a list of the workshops:
http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/summerprograms/workshops.html

Virtual Homeschool group

http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/

Not sure what this is but I think it's worth checking to see how they've used the technology (including moodle).

Engineering for High School Students

Here is a great resource for engineering topics for different grades -- and some great ideas for middle/highschool. It would be very cool to do a coop of kids to explore these topics.

http://www.engineeringk12.org

Of course, lots of their resources are expensive and only work in a public school but the idea would be great -- explore different aspects of engineering over an 8 month period.

Separation of blogs

OK -- time to split out all the technical stuff I've been running across for me. This will remain odds and ends, a lot of homeschooling resources, organizational stuff, and just interesting things. My new blog will have all the technical links I come across as I continue to immerse myself in web/graphic design things...

The new site is:
http://webdesignbylw.blogspot.com/

Basic Shop Skills

One thing that's very difficult for suburban homeschooled students is to get basic shop skills. I wonder how one would go about finding a resource?

Here are a few links but it's definitely only the tip...
Qualification card for basic shop skills (great overview of what could be required):
http://www.eng.mu.edu/~dlc/Qualification%20Card%20for%20Basic%20Shop.pdf

This website has quite a bit of info (of course, nothing hands on!):
http://www.practicalstudent.com/index.html

And here's a review of a woodworking book:
http://eclectichomeschool.org/reviews/reviewsub.asp?subcatid=197

Here’s a wood working book with plans to follow through:
Boy Joiner and Model Maker, The
Publisher: Hope Chest Legacy
Author: E.A. Davidson
List Price: $18.00
Ages: 15-18 Years
Reviewed By: Deborah Deggs Cariker

Originally published in 1874, E.A. Davidson's "how-to" book for boys The Boy Joiner and Model Maker is an excellent choice for the boys in your life, the ones who are always putting things together (or taking them apart), and the ones who are drawing out creations to build from their imaginations. Hope Chest Legacy reprinted the treasure as a 246-page hardcover book with nearly 200 illustrations, directing your son to work with his hands, as instructed in I Thessalonians 4:11-12: "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing."

Davidson begins the 32 chapters with one on tools and how to use them. He follows with instructions on how to make several, increasingly harder, projects including bookshelves, box, dog kennel, tool chest, and writing desk. His chapter on model making is followed by directions on making intricate creations like a model railway and even a working model mill. Used as a school text for woodshop or as a guide for extra-curricular activities, this will be an exciting and challenging book for junior high and high school boys.

Tools for Offering Online Classes

Something to look at for offering online classes -- especially at the homeschool level.

Started with ed2go, the company offering the Alice and XHTML courses.
Then...
Blackboard is what the schools use (but $9500 price tag and you do the work)

Then...
Drupal is, I think, the open source platform for online class options: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal

Moodle is a free open source program for offering online classes -- might be an interesting way to explore http://moodle.org/

MoodleRooms takes that one step further and for a monthly/class fee, they will handle the student sign up, etc. part of the class (plus moodle tutorials): http://community.moodlerooms.com/

Sloodle takes Moodle to the 3-D level -- hmmmm.... not for me!
http://www.sloodle.org/moodle/

A more expensive version than MoodleRooms but that is infinitely more accessible than Blackbord and less expensive than ed2go is DigitalChalk: http://digitalchalk.com/

All of which includes cloud computing (which I don't really get except the cloud is a metaphor for the Internet!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

More Web Design stuff

A very cool list of web design trends for 2009 -- worth looking at and getting some good ideas!
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/21/current-web-design-trends-for-2009/

For some reason I had this webdesigner marked -- but it may only be obtained through hosting sites -- not sure:
http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

A site with a lot of good HTML tutorials -- also includes JAVAscript and how to include it in your menus, etc. -- definitely something to look at!!!!
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/lessons.html

TeachScheme -- for teaching java without the problems of syntax errors -- overall, the understanding of how programming works seems to be better than if C++, for example, is focused on and the students get mired in syntax errors.
http://www.teach-scheme.org/Overview/
http://plt-scheme.org/

Alice: Intro to Java

At Christmas, Bj told me he really wanted to learn Java -- with the only programming experience being NXT-G for LEGO's Mindstorm robot kit. I searched around and found an "Intro to Alice" class at Wake Tech's Online classes. It's put out by Carnegie Melon as a way to encourage more kids to take Computer Science -- geared toward highschool and college students as an intro to Java and programming. They have a PowerPoint presentation about it that gives some of the justification -- and explains some of the differences between Alice and Storytelling Alice.

We've just finished the first of 6 weeks of the class but Bj loves it! It gives the structure of programming but with 3-D animation at the same time so there's immediate feedback. My next task will be to figure out how to download his videos so they can be shared with friends on youtube!

New Directions on the Website Front

I'm enjoying my own new learning directions the past few months as well... I've learned a ton about programming by creating several websites.

My parents' ranch for sale in British Columbia, Canada (website to be updated to a "new and improved" version by January 10, 2009). Though I started out with the site-designer that was available through the web host, the new and improved version is being by me on Dreamweaver:
http://nechakobendranch.ca

My first project created on Dreamweaver for someone else (non-family) -- a friend whose homeschool testing business in Wake County, NC offers a great support for local homeschoolers:
http://dallenassociates.com

My biggest and most intense learning project was to figure out how all this worked so I could teach a group of middleschoolers how to create their own website for FIRST LEGO League. Nothing like teaching to make one learn things under great time pressure!
http://water4tomorrow.org

And, the very quick website I put together for the local homeschool Science Fair... It definitely showed me how much I've learned since August!!! Took very little time once I found a template.
http://caryareasciencefair.org

I'm quite amazed by the amount I've learned -- though it only takes a few things falling apart for me to realize that I'm in an overconfident bubble right now and it doesn't take much to send me back to help menu's and google searches!!!

Hoping to take a couple online Web Design classes through Wake Tech this spring to fill in a few holes.

Summer camp options to start thinking about:

Summer camp options to start thinking about:

NCSU has a middleschool engineering camp:
http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/k12outreach/RaleighCampus.html

Camp Details:

* Application Period: February 1st - March 31st

* Lunch will be provided each day;

* Camp hours are approximately 9 am to 3 pm, Monday through Friday;

* Camp fee: $250 (a limited number of need-based scholarships are available).

Java -- teaching/learning options

Benjamin really wants to learn Java. Now I need to find some alternatives:

Sun Microsystems talks about learning/teaching Java:
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/comm_invest/jgp/bhs.html

BlueJ was designed to teach Java:
http://java.sun.com/features/2002/07/bluej.html

Wake Tech has some 6 week online courses, including a great sounding one for Intro to Java:
http://www.ed2go.com/cgi-bin/oic3/newcrsdes.cgi?name=waketech&course=jab&title=Introduction%20to%20Java%20Programming&departmentnum=WP&path=1