BY BILL FERRIS
Google, apparently fed-up with the stereotype of programmers being a bunch of pasty white dudes, is trying to open up the computer science field to women, minorities, and special-needs students with a series of scholarships. These $10,000 scholarships will go to qualifying students who intend to pursue computer science in college.
Computer science and programming language can both be pretty intimidating. In fact, they can be a little forbidding if you try to jump in feet first. The thing about computers, though, is that they aren’t going anywhere, and they’re just going to keep talking their crazy language. That’s why it’s great to have a little help to chip away at that mystique.
Google Code University is a great resource that computer science students and educators can use to stay current with tools and computing technology. Everything is Creative Commons, too, so it should be easy to work it into your classroom.
BY BILL FERRIS
Google is renowned as one of the most remarkable companies in the world. Their search engine, maps, docs, the Android phone platform, are revolutionizing the way information is found, communicated and used. As such, when Google wants to bring in a speaker to rally the troops, they can get top-notch presenters like Steve Wozniak, Tom Brokaw, Neil Gaiman, David Allen, John Battelle, Merlin Mann, and Ken Jennings. Seeing as how they’ve bought up the whole internet including YouTube, they’ve archived videos of these presentations and made them available to the public at Videos from the Googleplex.
BY BILL FERRIS
For many teachers, summer vacation is the Super Bowl of job perks. You’ve worked hard at a demanding job, and now get some well-earned time to relax.
This year, though, the economy has become the fingernail in teachers’ bowls of soup. A lot of educators have lost their jobs, and many worry that more cuts are on the way. While you can’t control who gets laid off, you can use your summer months to make yourself as valuable an employee as possible.
10 Foods to Sneak into the Library to Improve Your Productivity
Now, I’m not advocating your students violate your school’s rules about food and drink inside your school. However, a student who isn’t distracted by hunger will likely be more focused during class. But that doesn’t mean they should raid the vending machine — it’s a fine line between getting enough to eat and inducing a carb coma. Studenthacks.org has a list of nutrient-laden snacks you can slip your students on the sly to raise their energy and attention in class.
10 Most Surprising College Majors in Presidential History
Fact: not all American presidents have law degrees from Harvard and Yale. Learn-gasm reports that some of our commanders-in-chief earned degrees in history (Woodrow Wilson) economics and sociology (Reagan), geology (Herbert Hoover) and yes, education (LBJ). Also fact: more than one president never earned a college degree — Harry S Truman studied law but never got a diploma, and William Henry Harrison was a medical school dropout. Perhaps it’s no coincidence he died of a cold after serving 32 days in office.
10 Books that will Substitute A Computer Science Degree
I learned most of my computer skills by playing around with applications until they made sense. If you or your students share this learn-it-yourself mindset, check out Techoozie’s list of 10 tomes to help learn the science of computer…well, science.
Three Good Resources for ESL/ ELL Teachers
Give your English language learners a little online help with these three sites, courtesy of the Free Technology for Teachers blog. These sites address the needs of students from pre-Kindergarten on up. -BILL FERRIS
Photo credit: *Grant* on Flickr.
Get your kids involved in learning about science and experimentation via robotics, project-based learning, and of course, Web 2.0. On Thursday, October 23, USDLC hosts Hands-On, Minds-On Learning and Teaching: Project-Based Learning Meets Digital Tools.
Middle school science teacher Joselyn Todd will make a presentation in Second Life at the Bookhenge on Star Island. If you’re not a Second Life user and don’t know what that last sentence means, don’t fret. You can interact in an online chatroom, or listen to the full presentation through an internet radio stream (beware, though — if you click on the stream before the seminar is in session, you may be subjected to new age music).
This presentation is a great chance to learn about getting kids engaged by digital using tools available to most teachers. Don’t miss out! -BILL FERRIS
Hands-On, Minds-On Learning and Teaching: Project-Based Learning Meets Digital Tools
Find cool tools for teachers: interactive professional development in Second Life
Ugh, MATH! Can anything make it more fun? Yes, as a matter of fact, MathBits.com can. This resource for high schoolers presents algebra in a fun and engaging format, complete with games and activities in Algebra, Geometry, and everyone’s favorite — Trigonometry. With the slogan “live long and love math,” MathBits enables students to bolster their mathematical expertise in the guise of activities and “caching” exercises.
For example, try the “Basic Caching” game, which presents three not-too-difficult equations to solve. Once you have the answers written down, you insert your answer into a unique url which leads you to the next step. It makes things slightly difficult, but forces users to search for hidden internet boxes to complete the game. There’s no cheating here, so you actually have to solve the problems to move on. The whole thing is reminiscent of web-based Alternate Reality Games such as those formulated for such programs as LOST or the recent “search for the clues” exploration surrounding another J.J. Abrams project, Cloverfield. Sure, it isn’t full of mystery or monsters like those examples, but the idea of having to complete one step on the Internet to get to the next is almost as fun. You might even forget it is math.
The site offers paid-for subscriptions for more activities and updates, which isn’t something we necessarily promote at Instructify, but there is enough free math-based fun to keep your algebra class distracted from looking at a textbook full of numbers. Other activities include instructions for learning your way around a graphing calculator, and for your more advanced students, and intro to Java scripting as well as C++. The cartoon animals adorning the page are certainly more entertaining than pictures of Pythagoras, to boot. Check out this resource if your math lessons need a kick in the rear towards making it fun again. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
Convert metric units easily with this Conversion Calculator
Free scientific calculator: Calculator Tab
Make Math Easier with the Math and Algebra Expression Simplifier
Teachers and students from across North Carolina learned the Alice programming language this summer during a workshop and camp at Duke University with support from the National Science Foundation and IBM. Alice uses simple commands to animate student-created movies and video games. According to the workshop organizer, Dr. Susan Rodger from Duke University, “Middle school students don’t really know what computer science is about. Alice is changing that by attracting both boys and girls with its virtual worlds storytelling and interactive capabilities. Our workshop showed that Alice can be used for problem solving and presentations in different disciplines such as math, science, English, art, business, and history.”
Students and teachers alike were drawn to the visual format. Tom Robertson, a middle school mathematics and technology teacher from Asheville, said, “This summer I had the opportunity to observe middle school students using Alice to build creative 3-dimensional interactive worlds. They were completely engrossed in the task at hand: computer programming. Clearly, Alice was providing a technology experience that went beyond the typical PowerPoint presentation.” Janie Torain, a business teacher from Person High School in Person County, agreed. She noted that students in her class will use Alice Programming software to explore multimedia production while creating presentations in a ”FUN-damentally’ different and more enjoyable way than ever before.”
Teachers from many disciplines beyond technology and career education connected with Alice. Math teacher Bridgette Scott created a world for teaching the coordinate plane. Math teacher Cheri Grantlin from Durham plans to integrate Alice into creating engaging class starters. Nashville science teacher Alisa White noted Alice’s assessment possibilities. She said, “Worlds created by middle school students effectively promote interdisciplinary understanding, problem solving and learning fundamental concepts in life, earth, and physical science within a short period of time. It is a great assessment tool.”
Humanities teachers recognized Alice as a way to encourage student creativity and engage students with literature. According to Person County teacher Andrea Payne, “Alice slows the thinking down and helps a child think about ‘thinking about.’ Storyboarding takes thoughts from abstract to concrete. This is how screenwriters do it: they storyboard.”
For students, the most important aspect of Alice was the opportunity for self-expression. Jesse, a middle school student at the camp, said, “It’s interactive; that’s cool. It’s open - you know - there’s a lot you can do with it.” Brittany, another middle schooler, was looking forward to using Alice for projects. She said, “I like that you can actually create your own ideas and express yourself and have fun with it.”
Teachers who are interested in Alice can download free middle school lesson plans and materials from the Duke workshop. -DR. SUSAN RODGER
Note: This article was put together by Dr. Susan Rodger and several teachers attending the Adventures in Alice Programming Workshop held at Duke University in June and July 2008.
Alice (free download)
Free Alice lesson plans for middle school
Got an Itch for Creative Learning Tools? Scratch It!
Get Pro Developer and Design Tools for Free with Microsoft DreamSpark
Johnny Lee, a YouTube personality and “human-computer interaction researcher” is changing the way we use existing technology through simple modifications, and he’s sharing it with everyone. This amazing demo proves that using something as inexpensive and highly obtainable as the Wii Remote, he can create an interactive whiteboard. Lee explains that while the whiteboard isn’t exactly the quality of it’s $3000 likeness, you’ll still get “80% there for about 1% of the cost.” He notes that teachers are able to access this technology for use in their classrooms, and many already are.
Lee makes no qualms about making this sort of technology available for anyone who wants it. He’s put the software on his website, and at the time of this demo, it had been downloaded half a million times. View the demo for the full extent of what other uses Lee is finding for the technology, and visit his website if you want to learn more. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
I’m about to make a bold prediction: computers will play a big role in society in the future. Remember, you heard that here first.
And since learning computers is so important, give your students a chance to acquire advanced technology skills like programming and Web design and development. If you have any aspiring programmers or Web designers in your midst, they’ll definitely want to know about Microsoft DreamSpark. College students can download professional-quality development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio, and XNA Game Studio 2.0, which students can use to build games for Windows and their Xbox 360.
You have to be a college student to get these for free. While that excludes a lot of your students, this offer is perfect for your graduating seniors, as well as any grads from last year who you still keep in touch with. Hey, if you’re completing your student teaching, or you’re getting your masters, this stuff might be for you, too.
I know this probably sounds like crazy talk, but trust me. Computers are gonna be huge. Huge, I tell you. And now that you’re wise to this new trend, you may as well clue your students in about it, too. -BILL FERRIS
Imagine a world where school children could develop their own code to produce original content for the web. Now look around you because you are living in that world. Scratch is an application developed by MIT to allow children (of all ages) to create their own interactive games, stories, and other media with the ease of putting blocks together.
Children are exposed to media that was previously inaccessible to those of us who grew up before the internet, so it’s about time that someone put the right tools in their hands to create and not just watch. Not only that, but Scratch is an amazing learning tool. A free download gets you the software to begin creating right away. The web site offers tutorials to get you started, because if you are not used to this sort of interface (I wasn’t) you might need a push.
The program implements “sprites,” which contain far less sugar than the bottled version, and building blocks to allow users to create stories, games, and learning tools. The cartoon “sprites” are merely templates, though, as Scratch is highly customizable, therefore something that will adapt to your learning level.
Scratch offers the perfect way for students and teachers to interact with a medium that might be unfamiliar to either, and therefore learn together. You can also share your content with others, creating a specialized network for kids, teachers, and parents alike. If this technology continues, your 10 year old might be asking for more RAM for his birthday instead of some ridiculous toy robot. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN
moxie design studios
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