Hacking the LEGO NXT If you are a millionaire and able to buy a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, you may find kind of difficult to hack it or create homemade sensors. I believe you already noticed the particular jack that comes with the NXT. It looks like a telephone jack, but the latch is located in one side, making difficult to connect any other cable. Holding the connector as the picture shows. White wire - Used with the black wire, this pin provides power to the motor. Bunch O Balloons: 100 Water Balloons in Less Than 1 Minute by Tinnus Enterprises It is time to bring your water balloon fights to the next level with Bunch O Balloons - the hose attachment with 37 pre-connected balloons that automatically fill and tie themselves! This system makes it easy for kids of all ages to prepare 100 water balloons in just ONE minute, giving you enough water balloon ammo for any battle. Forget the trials of filling and tying countless individual balloons, Bunch O Balloons takes all the hassle of preparing for a water fight and lets you just enjoy the fun! Bunch O Balloons is the simplest, easiest and best solution for kids, families and organizations of all types to have legendary water balloon fights! Families - Bunch O Balloons is a must-have for all families. Parties & Events - From BBQs to pool parties to family reunions, Bunch O Balloons is a must-have for summertime fun! With our timeline, early bird backers will get their reward before summer is over. April 2015: Automated Line with capacity of 20,000 packs (2 million balloons) per day
Resources and Tools for PBL Start to Finish Tips for downloading: PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Click here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader. Documents to Help You Get Started The Hunger Games Project Documents Below are sample project-based learning documents from teachers Mary Mobley (English) and Michael Chambers (world history) of Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas. Back to Top Culture at Manor New Tech High School Manor Visitors Summary Sheet An overview of Manor New Tech for visitors, including mission statement, learning outcomes, and the school's commitments to their students Learning Outcomes Manor New Tech's learning outcomes for all classes Manor Bell Schedule Daily bell schedule for Manor New Tech Additional Resources on the Web Suggested Reading
Interactive Arduino Programming with Calico | Institute for Personal Robots in Education Blog In the Fall 2012 semester I'll be teaching a quarter course (1/2 semester) on Physical Computing at Bryn Mawr College. As an experiment, I thought I'd explore programming an Arduino, but I'd like to start out programming interactively rather than jumping straight into embedded systems using C. Processing is the basis for the standard method of the Arduino programming environment, and also Processing can be used to talk to an Arduino board directly. Calico (formerly called Pyjama) is a multi-language, multi-library framework and IDE. It turns out that there is a library built for communicating with the Arduino from .NET/Mono. Here are the steps to interact with an Arduino from Calico: Download CalicoOn Windows you'll need to install the Arduino Drivers (Control Panel, Devices, Install driver for your Arduino device) Download RhyduinoPlace the Rhyduino .DLLs in the Calico/modules folder Interact with the Arduino! A little experiment to turn an LED on/off Rhyduino.Arduino("/dev/ttyACM0")
NXT Tutorial This tutorial for LEGO Mindstorms NXT is divided in two sections. The “Essentials” are things every NXT programmer should know. Some of these movies have exercises directly under them. It’s important to do these exercises, not just assume you “get it.” The “Advanced” section is for reference purposes. These lessons assume you have a basic robot with two drive motors, a touch sensor and a light sensor. If you need to run this tutorial at a location with poor internet service, you can download a special copy here. This tutorial was designed, and maintained by Dale Yocum, Engineering Program Director at Catlin Gabel School. LEGO®, the LEGO logo, Mindstorms and the Mindstorms logo are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which did not create and does not sponsor or endorse this tutorial.
Pdf Downloads / Publications / Technology in the NZC / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online PDF Downloads These are the latest versions of these documents: last updated October 2010. Complete Download – pdf file, 810kb, Oct 2010 (Includes all* following pdfs) Indicators of Progression (A4, by strand) (PDF, 3 MB) Indicators of Progression (A3, by strand) – pdf file, 340kb, October 2010 Indicators of Progression (A3, by level) – pdf file, 319kb, October 2010 Ministry of Education Overview document – pdf file, 169kb, October 2010 Ministry of Education Guidance document – pdf file, 222kb, October 2010 Explanation of terms – pdf file, 192kb, October 2010 Explanatory Papers Technological Practice Brief Development – pdf file, 195kb, October 2010 Planning for Practice – pdf file, 192kb, October 2010 Outcome Development and Evaluation – pdf file, 221kb, October 2010 Nature of Technology Characteristics of Technological Outcomes – pdf file, 207kb, October 2010 Characteristics of Technology – pdf file, 211kb, October 2010 Technological Knowledge Technological Modelling – pdf file, 233kb, October 2010
Project Based Learning I’ve been teaching using a project-based learning pedagogy since mid-2010 when I was introduced to PBL by my friend, Dean Groom. Since then I have had some wonderful learning experiences with PBL and I enjoy sharing both my successes and failures and experiments in learning on my blog. I thought it’d be helpful for other people if I put all of my PBL-related posts on one page, just in case you’re starting out and you want to see how another teacher is doing it too. If you have any questions, just post a comment below or send me a tweet on twitter My VERY first experience with PBL – and it was hard work and had serious issues! This is a reflection on my very first PBL experience with Year 10 – it looks at why it may not have been 100% successful. A brief post outlining a mini-project I ran with my Year 11 English class.
What does learning in technology look like? / Technology in the NZC / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online Accessibility links Te Kete Ipurangi Navigation: Te Kete Ipurangi Communities Schools Te Kete Ipurangi user options: Close Register TKI uses the New Zealand Education Sector Logon system for user accounts. If you already have an Education Sector user ID and password, you are ready to log in. Search community Searching ...... Technology Online navigation Technology in the NZC What does learning in technology look like? Indicators of Progression The Indicators of Progression (Indicators) describe what students know and can do for: The Indicators of Progression also provide guidance for teachers on what they can do to support student learning. Indicators for the Achievement Objectives The Indicators for the Achievement Objectives are presented in matrices. Indicators for the Learning Objectives The Indicators of Progression for the Learning Objectives provide support for teachers to interpret the LOs for each specialist knowledge and skills component: The Learning Progression Diagrams Return to top ^ Footer:
Is Google Making Us Stupid? Illustration by Guy Billout "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings.
Low-tech devices stump iKids - Life & Style Technology is changing so fast nowadays it’s hard to keep up. We put a group of youngsters to the test with gear that was cutting edge when we were their age Do you still have an old ghetto blaster? How about a typewriter? It's not long since they were common in every household but they have been overtaken by the onward march of technology. Video As school holidays wrap up, the Herald on Sunday took a group of youngsters who can happily download apps to see what they made of "olden days" gear. The 6- to 11-year-olds were given: • a "ghetto blaster"-style cassette deck • vinyl records • a rotary telephone • a retro hairdryer • a typewriter The kids recognised most items but were far from certain of their purpose or how they operated. Freddie Marx, 6, was evidently influenced by DJs of the day as he scratched vinyl records with his fingernails, and 10-year-olds Rachel Huang and Brooke Te Wake tried to insert cassette tapes into the tape deck while still in their cases. Brooke Te Wake, 10
The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based Learning Inquiry Learning Teaching Strategies Getty By Thom Markham Teachers in a rural southeast Michigan high school were recently discussing the odd behavior of the senior class. The teachers’ explanation: Project-based learning. Here’s the back story. Stories like this are about to become more important to educators. This is a steep challenge because it forces education to cross a philosophic divide. Standardizing Valuable Skills To put a new system in place, a first key step is to disseminate and train every teacher on a clear set of performance standards to assess skills required for effective inquiry, such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The challenge: Right now, a standards-based environment forces teachers to straddle the inquiry process. Assessing Collaborative Learning The iconic model of the individual scholar has been replaced by team-based inquiry. Making Depth of Thinking Evident The challenge: In inquiry, process is as critical as the product.
Gatepost brainwave takes judges' fancy Schoolboy impresses inventions panel with helpful farming tool He's only 12, but Patrick Roskam has invented a helpful farming tool which has been given the tick of approval by a panel of business moguls and his idol, entrepreneur Sir William Gallagher. At the Innovation Den at Fieldays, Patrick and 11 other hopefuls pitched their agricultural inventions to a panel of judges led by Soda chief executive Cheryl Reynolds. The Matamata Intermediate schoolboy caught the attention of the judges, and Vodafone head of rural marketing Darren Hopper has invited him and his parents to a meeting with the marketing team. His tool, the Gudgeon Pro 4 in 1, is designed to help farmers and fencing contractors hang gates correctly. "Before I go on, do you all know what a gudgeon is?" The metal device is installed into a post that the gate hangs from, enabling it to open and shut. The Gudgeon Pro 4 in 1's main purpose is as a drill guide. It is 1.14m high, the height of a fencing batten. Innovation Den winners