LEGO Robotics Workshop at Hudson Library

In this 2-hour workshop, kids built robotic inchworms using LEGO materials to learn principles of mechanical construction. Great job everyone!

Newton Student Architecture Project

A recent architecture student decided to create an auto shop for his final project. He put a lot of thought into the design and made a cool commercial for the photo slide show presentation.

Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings- an icamp student project

As a big fan of both series, Violet wanted her icamp project to combine Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. She made this creative stop motion animation mash up- enjoy!

What Does it Mean to Watch TV?

I have not watched traditional television in at least 4 years. I have a TV set, but we use it for DVDs and video games. I also watch shows that are aired on television stations, but I watch them online via sites like Hulu and Comedy Central. And now with more and more people “watching TV” on their iphones and ipods, I wonder what it means to watch TV.

Does it mean the device on which we watch the program, or the medium for which the program was created? What about DVDs of shows that were made for television and can be watched on our television sets, but that aren’t watched at the time the program was aired? What if I download The Daily Show from itunes and watch it on my laptop on my train ride back from work? Does that count as watching TV?

I find these questions particularly interesting now that Comcast has struck a deal to buy a majority share in NBC. Although Comcast does boast status as the biggest cable provider in the U.S, which makes its essential purchase of a long-standing broadcast station that more threatening to broadcast TV as we know it, my real interest in this is that Comcast is also one of the largest broadband internet service providers in the county. Part of Comcast’s motive in this deal is their “TV everywhere” idea that will increase online access to television content.

As a consumer of internet TV, I currently enjoy my favorite programs with limited commercial interruption and free of charge. But with Comcast soon to have a stake in Hulu (which is partly owned by NBC ), I may need to pay for a subscription to watch 30 Rock online. Will I have to pay more if I don’t have Comcast as my internet provider? Will I still be able to watch programs from other networks, or will content be exclusive to the lineup of NBC and the other stations it owns?

Although the deal raises some concerning questions, it seems inevitable that as more and more viewers watch their favorite shows on the bus instead of in the living room, providers have to adapt content to new mediums. As someone who hasn’t used traditional TV in so long anyway, I’m looking forward to the new models that will be emerging. And I guess since I’ve gone so long without paying for a cable TV package, I really can’t complain too much if I have to pay to take my “TV” everywhere.

Wiring Your Brain

A few blog posts back, we talked about "the Force" games where players move balls by concentrating to make their brain waves active, thereby spinning a fan that gets the ball floating.

But be prepared to hear a lot more about brain-computer interface (BCI).

Open-source software is opening the floodgates on a rage of applications that can improve life for people with disabilities and that may eventually find their way into our everyday lives. From Twittering with the brain by looking at the letters you want to type, to artificial retinas that use cameras that send signals to the brain, BCI are bringing science fiction to reality.

It a little (or a lot) scary to think about implanting chips into your head and your brain being hooked up and read by computers. But it’s also incredible to think about the ingenuity that is creating this technology and the possible ways it could improve lives. Humans are such clever animals. M

y grandparents grew up without highways or calculators, and look at how much has changed within their lifetimes! I am fascinated to see what will change within mine.

For a more detailed explanation of how BCI works, check out this article on HowStuffWorks.

Putting Your Energy to Work for Your ipod

Soon you’ll have another reason to envy all the energy young children have. New consumer devices that convert human kinetic energy into power for cell phones and mp3 players will be on store shelves just in time for the holidays.

One such contraption is the nPower™ PEG (Personal Energy Generator). As you walk, ride your bike, or even kayak, magnets inside the PEG bounce back and forth off springs to amplify movement and generate electricity. According to the website, this device will charge your BlackBerry at the same rate as a regular wall charger; a half hour of walking will get you an 80% charge.

Since the nPower™ PEG Is excepted to cost around $150, I probably won't be getting one anytime soon. But I am very excited about the possibility of recharging my ipod while walking the dog.

Gamemaker Student Projects

Gamemaker Whizards program their own games by working at their own pace to learn the art and logic of gamemaking. Using CTWorkshop tutorials and the help of knowledgeable instructors, they learn a range of concepts and techniques that they can use outside of class to create new games at home. Returning Gamemaker Whizards are challenged with more complex gamemaking techniques that keep them learning.

Norfolk Animation Club Projects

In our Animation Whizards Club, students learn the art of stop-motion animation, story-telling, and digital movie-making. It takes creativity and patience to invent an original story, create all the props and characters, capture footage with webcams, and put it all together with sound effects and titles. But it’s well worth the effort- just check out these projects.

Needham Summer Club Architecture Projects

In Amazing Architects, kids unleash their creativity as they craft a unique office building, space station, dream house, or whatever their imaginations invent. They decide the function and locality of the building, design the layout, and use a highly customizable computer program to tailor the structure to their creative concept. But it doesn’t stop there; after completing their building, students make a photo slide show of their masterpiece to take home and share.

These 8 projects were created by participants in our Summer Club program in Needham in the Summer 2009. The detail in these designs will blow you away.

Storybird: Collaborative Storytelling

We’ve all heard a lot about Twitter, but there’s another website with a bird related name that you might not have heard so much about. It’s called Storybird, and it’s site where kids, families, and friends can create their own online stories or read stories that other people have created, complete with colorful illustrations. You can work on your own, or invite a partner to collaborate and take turns making pages. You can share your work with others in the Songbird community or keep them private. Or you can be like me and just read all the cool stories other people have put together and shared.

One of the best parts about Storybird is the artwork. You can browse through illustrations by a number of artists and choose which ones you want to include in your story- and the choices are incredible! It’s also really cool to see different people use the same pictures in completely different stories and see how the context affects the meaning of the image.

For now, Storybird is free, but as it grows the company does plan to add premium features (like printing) that you have to pay for. But it’s definitely worth checking out the free options- and if you make a Storybird, be sure to share it with me!

Illustration: by Aaron Blecha

Totlol: Kid-Friendly Web Video

If you have kids and computer, then it’s a fair bet that your kids will be using that computer to watch videos online. And while there are plenty of kid-friendly videos on YouTube, there are also plenty of, shall we say, more “adult” videos that you probably would rather your child doesn’t watch.

Totlol is a great solution to that dilemma. A video website powered by YouTube, Totlol posts only those YouTube videos voted to be good for kids and ranks them by age appropriateness. And it’s all done by parents. Parents find kid-friendly videos on YouTube, submit them, and other parents in the Totlo community watch and vote on whether those videos should be posted on Totlol and if so for what age groups.

The only catch is that you to have to be a member to use Totlo, and membership isn’t free. But at $3 a month , $18 a year, or $54 for unlimited use until your child is all grown up and taking control of their own web viewing, it’s also not going to break the bank.

Plugins for the brain

Technology is moving at a break-neck pace. Just a two months ago, after a futile attempt to organize my massive (by old time standards, at least) collection of digital family photos, I quit and vowed that I would never spend a minute doing so again. My declared reason - some day, software will come along that will recognize every face in my photos and will organize it for me. If I do it now, it will just be a waste of time.

And just last week - voilà! Picasa, Google's free image management software, comes out with exactly that feature. Of course I had to try it. The results were remarkably accurate: Picasa recognized my 6-year old daughter's infant pictures! Would you recognize these two pictures as the same kid? I probably wouldn't.

Maybe I am overstating it, but this seems like an absolutely incredible leap in technology that might be called a game-changer. Putting aside blood-curdling big-brother thoughts for the moment - well, no, I can't put those thoughts aside. Somewhere out there, on someone's facebook page is the most embarrassing picture of my life from first year of college. There is a reason I never showed it to anyone, and now, there is a clear possibility that my name will be linked to it. Not good. Obviously, it could get much worse. But, for the moment at least, I don't have to worry about organizing my pictures, and that's a big plus for me.

Eureka! Eureka! I found it! I found it!

You probably remember School House Rocks, the series of animated shorts started in the ‘70’s with catchy songs that helped you remember how the legislative process works and how to use conjunctions. But do you remember Eureka!, the series of animated shorts started in the ‘80’s that helped you understand the concept of inertia and learn the difference between heat and temperature? (Not to be confused with Eureka the new sci-fi TV series.)

I didn’t remember it either, but in the age of the Internet, it was easy to rediscover these short cartoons on video sites like Totlol- an online video site specifically for kids and parents- and YouTube.

Similar to School House Rocks, Eureka! uses humor and quirky animation to convey complicated concepts. But while School House Rocks topics ranged from principles of democracy to multiplication tables, Eureka! narrowed its focus to concentrate on principles of physics and mechanical engineering. Each episode starts with a quick review and background so that each cartoon builds on previous concepts. And while there aren’t any catchy songs to sing-a-long with, it’s still a light and fun way for children and adults to make sense of some heavy ideas.

Camper Fashion Design Project

Jacob came to his first week of icamp at the end of summer with school right around the corner, and back-to-school shopping was fresh in his mind. He conceived his own line of custom clothes and did an awesome Fashion Designer project of his designs.

Floating on the Digital Cloud

Do you use Google Docs? Store photos on Flicker? Backup computer files on a remote server? Then you're plugged into the "digital cloud"- a private or public network of services or applications that can store information that would otherwise be kept on your computer. A recent episode of "On Point" explored the pros and potential cons of the digital cloud in a thought provoking discussion that included the personal, legal, and business aspects of our increasing use of "cloud computing".

On the plus side, since information stored in the cloud does not "live" on your computer, you can access that information anywhere that you can get a web signal- whether at home, at work, or Starbucks. You can also share that information with others so that multiple people can collaborate on projects and share family photos without having to email huge attachments and keep track of updated documents on each individual computer.

But on the potential con side, when your files are stored by another party, how do you keep control over your information (you've probably heard about the 1984 Kindle debacle where Amazon deleted copies of the book from customers' digital devices because of copyright issues)? What privacy protection rights need to be considered as we put more information away from our hard drives and off into cyberspace?

As "On Point" panelist concede, cloud computing isn't about to go away anytime soon. It will be interesting to see how we adapt the technology and how we adapt to it.

Camper Group Movie- Are YOU Smarter than an icamper?

At icamp, kids spend most of the week working on their own individual projects so they can really explore their own creative interests. By Friday everyone has their own project completed, and our last day of camp is spent working together on a group project that everyone helps with. Here's a group project from this summer- an icamp version of the game show "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Campers rewrote the theme song, made a game show poster, and quizzed their instructor on her icamp knowledge. Here's the theme song- sing along!

Camper Music Project and Video

Part of the icamp experience for both instructors and campers is choosing an icamp name. It's like your superhero name for the week. This summer, camp counselor Ellen joined the icamp staff team and picked Ellen in a Melon for her icamp name. All summer we talked about making the Ellen in a Melon song, and returning camper Christian took on the challenge. He made this awesome song and the music video to match- you'll be humming it all week!

Camper Team F1 LEGO Race Car

Before race cars can handle a turn at 120 mph, they are carefully designed to handle the speed and conditions of the track. Elliot used stop-motion animation to show the intricacies of constructing LEGO cars before filming his vehicles in the race.

Camper Project Rescue Robotics

Noel started a basic rover at icamp, but it soon took on a life of it's own as he expanded the design to create and build this awesome rescue vehicle.

Camper Mission to Mars Movie

This Mission to Mars stop-motion animation by returning icamper Zoe features some super special effects including green screens and a cryogenically frozen astronaut. Check out the creative way Zoe defrosts her hero!

Camper Architecture Project

If designing buildings and customizing interiors doesn't strike you as a fun and awesome way to spend a week at icamp, than you haven't seen the architecture projects our icamp whizards have created. Zohar designed this state-of-the-art office building skyscraper and customized his features of his interior. The boss never leaves the office!

Camper LEGO Security Robot

Another awesome icamp project. Sean built this robot with light sensors and a throwing arm, and he came up with a clever commercial for his security bot.

Camper Robot Video Game

We're showing off some of the awesome projects kids have made at icamp!

Katrina had so much fun in her first week at icamp that she came back for a second. Having already made a robot, this week she made a video game about building a robot and made her own character sprites for her game- including some icamp instructors!

Think you know icamp?

Think you know icamp? Think again! This summer we're busting out a whole bunch of brand new software and resources to give kids even more creative options for their awesome technology projects.

We've upgraded our Gamemaker software and developed all brand-new tutorials, including some that teach gamemaking challenges like character invincibility and boss levels. And while we've got new sprites for campers to put in their games, we also have a new computer program for kids to create and customize their very own animated characters.

We've got the latest in LEGO robotics with MINDSTORMS NXT and sweet new robots to build. And in addition to touch and light sensors, this summer we also have sound sensors and the NTX ultrasonic sensor.

Then there's the new Adventure Planet Protector and new tutorials for Fashion Designer, new music, a whole stock of new pictures and backgrounds that campers can use in the projects, new props for movies and so much more. We can't wait to see the creative ways icampers will use all this cool new stuff this summer!

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Camper Mars Video Game and LEGO Rover

School’s almost out and Summer 2009 icamp just around the corner, and as we at Children’s Technology Workshop gear up for summer we’ve been watching projects from past icamps. We have 11 different adventure themes for campers, and in the coming weeks I'll be showing projects from all of them.

For his Mission to Mars adventure, icamper Andrew took on 2 different programming challenges. First he made a Mars themed video game, then he built and programmed a LEGO Mars rover designed with bumpers and sensors to explore the surface of the red planet.

Camper Digital Music and Animation Movie

School’s almost out and Summer 2009 icamp just around the corner, and as we at Children’s Technology Workshop gear up for summer we’ve been watching projects from past icamps. We have 11 different adventure themes for campers, and in the coming weeks I'll be showing projects from all of them.

For her Music Mogul project, Annalisa played and recorded Bach’s Minuet in G on the keyboard and then mixed the track using Mixcraft. Then she used ToonBoom, Express, and Paint to make a digital animation for her song. Check out her creation:

FIRST Founder- and Then Some

Maybe you know him as the inventor of Segway, the 2 wheeled "human transporter" with gyroscopes and tilt sensors that moves when you simply lean forward. Or maybe you know him as founder of FIRST Robotics Competition (FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), the robotics challenge and competition program designed to “inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology”.

But did you know that in addition to inventing a new transportation system and making a remarkably successful program that gets kids excited about science, Dean Kamen has also developed a whole range of devices to advance medical technology? He invented the first portable infusion pump, a wheelchair capable of going up stairs and over street curbs, a home dialysis machine, and is currently working on an water-purification/generator system that can be used by people in poor or remote countries that don' have access to electricity, as well as a fully functional prosthetic arm (named the "Luke Arm" after Luke Skywalker in Star Wars).

Kamen will be a keynote speaker at the Creative Problem Solving Institute Conference happening in Boston next week (June 21st-24th) . For more information on the conference, visit www.cpsiconference.com.

Math Doesn't Suck

I’ll admit it: I do not like math. Maybe I was scarred and discouraged in grade school from trying to memorize seemingly endless formulas and rules, but for whatever reason I am very intimidated by math, and I always think of myself as a “letters” person, not a “numbers” person.

Math lover Danica McKellar wants to change attitudes about math- specifically middle school girls’ attitudes about math. Best known for her role as Winnie Cooper on the TV show The Wonder Years, McKellar has written two books for middle school students, Math Doesn’t Suck and Kiss My Math, and is working on a third book to show girls that math can be trendy and natural, and they don’t need to be intimated by numbers.

In a recent interview on NPR's Science Friday, McKellar explains that making math fun and engaging is key to getting kids interested (and a caller to the show brought up FIRST LEGO Leagues as another way that math and science is made exciting!). I haven’t read McKellar’s books, but I am inspired by her mission.

I would love to hear some of your experiences with math. Have you or your child found useful math resources that help make homework manageable or that make math more fun? Are you a teacher with a great class activity that gets kids excited about fractions and figures? How do you remember experiencing math back in your grade-school days? How do you feel about it now? Share your stories!

SixthSense at Your Finger Tips

Get ready to say good-by to touch-screens, computer mice and keyboards. Developers at MIT made a prototype of a new “touch-screen” system that can make literally any surface- even your hand- a visual and interactive screen that you manipulate by just moving your fingers. It’s a portable system that uses what is now some pretty standard technology to do some pretty remarkable things. All it took was a laptop, a small projector, a webcam, a mirror, and some colored tape on your fingers. The prototype cost only $350 to put together and won this year’s Popular Science invention Award.

The webcam and protector are wired to the laptop in your backpack. As the camera captures footage, the computer software filters out any background and focuses only on the areas it detects the colored tape on your fingers. The projector projects a “screen” onto a surface- your hand, a book, a wall- letting you get and use information instantly when and where ever you want. So if you’re in a bookstore and want to read a review before buying, the camera will register the book title, the computer will get the information, and the projector will display a review all with just the wave of you fingers. You can even take a picture just by framing your hands!

To really appreciate this device, you have to watch it in action- check out the video below. For more information visit the SixthSense website or read this article from Popular Science.

The Yuckiest Site on the Internet

This site is not for those with weak stomachs or that get grossed-out easily. I found this site while eating breakfast and lost my appetite pretty quick! This is The Yuckiest Site on the Internet, and kids will love it.

It’s all about the science of everything gross. There’s a section about earthworms (did you know they’ve been around for 120 million years?) and another on roaches (they can live for a week without a head! They eventually die of starvation.). But the most interesting, and by far the grossest, section is about Your Gross and Cool Body. Complete with animated cartoon demonstrations and funny if disgusting sound effects, you’ll learn what that crusty goop that’s on your eyes when you wake up really is, how spit effect your sense of taste, and the real reason you get bad breath (are you sure you want to know?).

Part of Discovery Kids, The Grossest Site on the Internet is designed to be kid-friendly and fun as well as disgustingly informative. If your child is a kid that cracks up at fart jokes and thinks burps are hysterical (or if you still laugh at big noxious belches), they’ll totally appreciate this site. Just be prepared that they’re going to tell you about all the grossly fascinating things they learned!

LEGO Robotics and Movie Making

We’ve showed off the work of some of our icamp Gamermaker Gurus who took on ambitious and creative challenges in video game making. But what about the other technologies kids use to make cool projects and a sweet camp experience?

Rachel started her week at icamp focused on LEGO robotics and working to design and program a Mars rover equipped to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy. As she built her rover and talked about her concept with other campers, she came up with a hysterical story about her robot’s search for the key to the universe and filmed a stop-motion animation movie to tell her tale. In addition to learning about robotics and programming at icamp, Rachel also got to explore the art of movie making and filming, an experience she describes in the interview below.

Children's Technology Workshop Staff Bios

Here are the superheroes who make the magic happen at the Children's Technology Workshop classes, parties, and, of course, icamp.

Name: Allyson "Up Up Ali"
Bio: Allyson has been guiding icamp adventures, teaching classes, and coordinating programs with CTWorkshop since March 2007. In this work she has directly helped hundreds of kids channel their creativity into successful projects, and indirectly contributed to all of our sucessful programs by making sure everything runs smoothly. Her training is in multimedia design, but she has also coached gymnastics for over a decade. Allyson has two very lucky children who are now expert at ALL icamp adventures.
Favorite icamp adventure: "Hands down Architecture. Architect Castles, Tree Houses, Space Stations, Underwater houses!I love this adventure because it allows for endless creative possibilities. Drafting a design is as simple as moving a few shapes then you are transported to a 3D world where creativity is unleashed."

Name: "TNT Tara"
Bio: Tara has been with CTWorkshop since May 2008. She is passionate about education and learning, and in fact made her work at CTWorkshop the subject of her dissertation as she was pursuing a graduate degree in Critical and Creative Thnking. She has guided many campers toward successful projects in a variety of adventures, has taught after-school classes and has led unforgettable birthday parties! Tara is trained in CPR and First Aid.
Favorite icamp adventure: "While all the icamp adventures are pretty cool, my favorite is Animation Alive because you can let you imagination go in any direction. If you've had a story idea or character bouncing around in your brain, here's you chance to let it loose!. I also love the creativity campers can explore through this adventure: story-telling, character development, background and prop design, camera angles, filming techniques and editing- it's an art!"

Name: "Eddy Spaghetti"
Bio: Ed has been teaching with CTWorkshop since October 2008. He is an electrical engineer with training in music technology and media production. Eddy is excellent at making the complicated sound simple, which comes in especially handy in explaining music theory and programming.
Favorite icamp adventure: "Gamemaker because i love having the opportunity to see the different kinds of code the kids develop for their games or their excitement when they figure out something new. i also appreciate how well the kids in this adventure work together testing out other games and helping each other with programming. However, I also love Music Mogul because i am a die hard musician and i love seeing kids express themselves through music. it's especially wonderful to see kids who have never formally studied music sit down with the mixing software and realize that they can create their own compositions with relative ease. some of the stuff they come up with is truly amazing."

Name: "Electric Eric"
Bio: Eric is an accomplished artist and musician with a panoply of credentials in both areas, and a strong desire to share his skills and creativity with children and tweens. He is also a black belt in martial arts, a LARPer, and a mentor to many tweens. When not directing camp, he can be found working with middle schoolers at the Arlington Enrichment Collaborative after-school program. He has masterfully directed icamp since 2007, nurturing campers' individuality, creativity and sense of accomplishment, while at the same time keeping a balance in structure, safety, responsibility, and collaboration among the campers, Counselors in Training, and staff.
Favorite icamp adventure: Fashion Design. The reinvention of oneself is the threshold to our own creative genius, cosmetology or cosmetics for the egyptians was the art of aligning one self with the heavens. To decorate the self in order to become our greatest potential.

Name: "Boisterous Bonnie"

Bio: Bonnie has been boisterously teaching academic and after-school classes, and occasionally helping out in icamp since October 2006. Prior to discovering CTWorkshop, she was teaching elementary grades and coaching figure skating. Her classes at CTWorkshop always earn top ratings, and she is loved by children, parents, and colleagues alike.

Favorite icamp adventure: Still thinking...

Name: "Cryogenic Chris"
Bio: Chris has been coming to work in icamp since 2008. He is a musician, studying music education. He has written, directed, and acted in several movies created with friends at his high school, and is a huge advocate for creativity and improvisation in music education for children. He has tutored music to children and adults.

Favorite icamp adventure: Mission to Mars because the creative possibilities are endless. The kids can use any of the available technologies, and also combine them, for their film. It's amazing to watch a kid write a script, draw an animation, film Lego characters with backgrounds, add voice-overs, and put it all together!

Icamp Video Productions by Newton Campers

Today I’m highlighting the work of two more icamp whizards- Adam and Cole.

For those unfamiliar with the icamp program, kids spend the week developing and working on their own individual technology projects. They pick a theme- like Mission to Mars, Architecture, Gamemaking, or Animation among others- come up with a story about that theme, then use a whole range of technology tools or combination of tools- like LEGO robotics, digital art or music programs, and video game programming software, among others- to bring their story to life. While we encourage campers to share ideas, help each other, and even do group projects at the end of the week, we really want each child to make at least one project on their own so they can really develop their own working understanding of how to use the technology.

Adam and Cole came to icamp as an inseparable duo desperately wanting to make a video game together. Please, please let us work on our game together, they politely pleaded! But after some brainstorming with icamp instructors and talking about video game story ideas, they came up with a creative way to make and program their own individual video games while also working collaboratively on a joint effort. As we know, all great video games are so cool to play and have such interesting stories and characters that they practically demand a sequel. So the pair worked together to come up with a great story and cohesive theme for their games, then worked on separate games to make part one and part two. The results were two awesome video games and two very happy campers- check out the commercials they made below!

Spring Break at icamp

Some kids spend their Spring Break sleeping in, watching cartoons, and eating sugary cereal (at least, that’s how I spent mine when I was a kid). But last week kids at icamp spent their April vacation programming their own video games, building robots with LEGO Mindstorms, filming stop-motion animation movies with webcams, working with green screens, making digital music, designing digital art, and learning to use a whole bunch of cool new technology tools to make creative projects.

Icamp is not a typical computer camp. But don’t just take my word for it; hear it from the campers themselves. This week our featured camper is Aaron, who came to icamp with some programming experience and wanted to push his game-making skills to the next level. Icamp counselors were there to help him learn new code and work through new challenges- and even learned a few new game-making tricks themselves!

And now, for something completely different...

These kid jokes are courtesy of the Tool Shed, at www.used-tools.com.

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria.

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?'
GLENN: 'K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L'
TEACHER: No, that's wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it's H to O.

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with 'I.'
MILLIE: I is..
TEACHER: No, Millie..... Always say, 'I am.'
MILLIE: All right... 'I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.'

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on 'My Dog' is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It's the same dog.

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher

The New 3D

Unless you’ve been living in a box the last few months, you’ve probably noticed the plethora of 3D movies hitting theaters. Coraline, Monsters vs Aliens, even the Jonas Brothers came out with a 3D flick. And while I’ve seen a lot of reports lately on how 3D movies mean big dollars for movies studios and theaters, I haven’t seen much about these 3D movies actual work. So I investigated.

Back in the old days of 3D, movies were filmed with two separate cameras and used color filters to highlight images for your left and right eye- images for one eye filmed with one camera would be in red, images for your other eye and filmed with another camera would be in green or blue. Old 3D glasses had one red lens and one blue or green lens, and when you put them on, the colored lens made one eye see red parts of the image and your other eye see blue or green parts. Then your brain would combine both images into one, making the picture look 3D.

Today’s 3D movies don’t use color filters to create separate images for your eyes (which is why you don’t have to wear those cheesy cardboard glasses anymore); instead, they use polarization filters. Light is a wave and can move in different directions, so digital 3D uses this fact to create two different images for your eyes, one with light waves moving in one direction for images for one eye, and another with light waves moving a different direction for images for your other eye. The movies still need to be filmed on two separate cameras, but theaters use one projector to play the movies. This projector has a filter that alternates between the two separate movie files so fast that your brain doesn’t even notice. Your new 3D glasses are polarized to filter the polarized projection so that each eye sees a separate image that is combined in your brain to look like seemly movement with a 3D effect. So think about that while you're eating your popcorn!

For more on how digital 3D works, check out these links:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/digital-3d.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7976385.stm

Eye-Correction with Video Games?

First they said that text messaging might be improving our literacy, now researchers are shattering another common conception about the effects of new technology with a new study that indicates that playing certain types of video games can actually improve your eyesight!

For the study, published in Natural Neuroscience, one group of players played first-person action games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament while a second group played The Sims 2. Both groups played a total of 50 hours over 9 weeks, and at the end action game players averaged a 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray, while the Sims players showed no improvement.

Improving your ability to see shades of gray might not sound too exciting, but the results show that you can teach the visual cortex new tricks, contrary to previous assumptions. Lead researcher Daphne Bavelier reported on the findings in articles with Reuters and Scientific American. “These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it," she said. “Action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."

Bavelier believes the findings will lead to the development of eye-correction procedures that involve video games, particularly for treating “lazy eyes”. But the study is careful to stress that such treatments would use gaming as a compliment to enhance other treatments, not an exclusive fix. And while certain video games can help people distinguish shapes and characters, that’s not an excuse to play endless hours of Call of Duty!

Mind Games

Fulfilling the dreams of Star Wars fans everywhere, two new games are coming out in fall 2009 that harnesses the power of your brain to move objects: “Mind Flex” by Mattel and Uncle Milton's "The Force Trainer”.

Both games use technology developed by NuroSky, a company that specializes in developing “Brain-Computer Interface technologies”. Players wear a headset with sensors that measure the activity of your brain’s theta-waves. These waves are the electrical activity that neurons fire when you’re focusing your concentration. Sensors in the headset register the theta-wave activity, translate that activity into a signal, and transmit that signal as a radio frequency to the game unit. The more theta-wave activity there is, the faster the little fan in the unit will spin and the higher you can make the ball rise. That’s right- you make the ball move by concentrating on it. Harness the power of the force!

The Force Trainer makes the most of the obvious Star Wars tie-in with sound effects from Yoda coaching you to concentrate harder and move to the next level. But despite the cool sound effects, the toy itself doesn’t look too exciting with just a headset and a ball in a clear cylinder. Mind Flex seems a little more interesting to play because once you raise the ball by concentrating, you then have to turn the board with your hand to move the ball through an obstacle course. Considering the toys will sell for $80-$100, I’d like to be able to do more than move a ball up a tube- even if I am doing it with my brain waves!

Check out the Mind Flex in action on You Tube and watch a video of The Force Trainer on NPR. This gives whole new meaning to exercising your brain!

Academic Earth

Several weeks ago, I told you about the Futures Channel, a cool science website with mini-documentaries about technology, space, animals, weather, and other neat stuff. While the site is great for kids and satisfying your own quick internet video fix, those looking for something with more length and depth might want to check out Academic Earth.

Instead of mini-documentaries, Academic Earth features over fifteen hundred videos from professors of prominent universities MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale on a range of subjects such as computer programming, neurology, religion, and history to name a few. While lecture videos can be viewed individually, many are also grouped to form a course on the given topic, and some include additional resources like supplemental readings and assignments. If you sign up to make a free profile, you can create your own playlists and favorites, like you can on You Tube, and can also grade each lecture. Average user grades determine the grade given to each lecture, and while there are many in the A+ to B range, there are also quite a few with Ds and Fs.

Academic Earth is still in its beta stages and does have a few kinks to work out, but it’s a great free resource that aims to create an “educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars.”

Those who would like to partner with Academic Earth to share their own teaching lectures can send emails of interest to partners@academicearth.org.

Get off the Couch and Exergame!

I’ve written several posts about how video games are a great learning tool because players become so absorbed in the game play that the learning doesn’t feel like work. But that idea also applies to that tedious and dreadful chore we call working out. Sure, some people enjoy sports and physical extrusion, but for the rest of us (myself included) working out is just that: WORK, and we do our time on the treadmill counting-down the minutes ‘till it’s over.

But popular video games like Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Wii Fit are quickly proving that exercise doesn’t have to be boring, and schools, fitness centers, and community organizations across the country are utilizing a whole range of electronic exercise games- also called exergames- to get their patrons excited about exercise. As with games that teach educational content, the effectiveness of exergaming comes from the fact that players are too focused on the game play to think much about the fact that they’re exercising and building up a sweat. As Marian Shaw, vice president for game exergame Makoto said in an article about exergaming; “You have to entice individuals who get bored working out or going to a club into an activity because it is fun, and fitness should be the by-product of that activity,” she said. “Only by making fitness an afterthought will those folks engage in it.”

Aside from living room classics like DDR and Wii Fit, other exergames include 3kick, a set of 3 electronic punching-bags with touch-sensitive light targets that you kick, Exterbike, an exercise bike that lets you steer and control speed in racing games, and EyeToy, a motion-sensitive camera for Playstation that puts you on the screen and reads your body movements to control the game.

As an early FYI, the 2009 Games for Health Conference will be happening this June right here in Boston! Don’t worry- you can be sure I’ll remind you about it as we get closer to the date.

If I had a trillion dollars...

...I'd need a computer model to visualize it. Like this one. This is one of the more clever uses of Google Sketchup, Google's 3D rendering software.

SSIA

You may have heard of a new study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology indicating that text-messaging, contrary to the fears of English teachers everywhere, could actually have a positive effect on students’ reading abilities. According to articles on BBC and the New Scientist (because I’m not paying $25 to read the study itself), Dr Beverley Plester suspects that since texting is phonics based and phonics are often associated with good reading skills, texting actually increases students’ exposure and knowledge of language, and does it in a way that doesn’t feel like learning; "These kids are engaging with more written language and they're doing it for fun."

Since I’m cheap and haven’t read the actual study, I can’t comment on how it was conducted, the results, or its implications. But as someone very interested in how writing is used to develop one’s thinking and communicate with others, I do find the topic quite intriguing. I’ve gone to school with many stressed and panicked middle/high school teachers, frantic about student essays that include textism like “b4” and “iow."

I have very mixed feelings about how the use of language is changing with new technologies. On one hand, language is not static; it evolves and changes as human needs and culture change. We have to expect that how and what we communicate will change as our means of communication change- texting is our modern equivalent of the printing press. On the other hand, writing isn’t just a means of communication; it’s also a process of thinking that makes us articulate and organize our thoughts. I can’t help but worry that consistent use of abbreviated written language will result in abbreviated thinking habits.

So I’m conflicted. WDYT? Have you noticed texting and instant messaging changing the way your child or students communicate? Are these changes just our culture's temporary adjustments to new technology, or do you see a time where text-talk will be the standard?

If you're wondering what the text abbreviations in this blog mean, check out Net Lingo's dictionary list of text acronyms and shorthand at http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php (contains content inappropriate for children!!).