Back-to-School Reads For Innovative Teaching and Learning

It is that time of year.  

Teachers, students, and parents know that in a few days or weeks, school will begin for the 2015-16 academic year... 

The good news?  

Some teachers have been busy sharing their ideas, strategies, and resources as they plan ahead.  Here are a just a few good links to get started:

8 things every teacher can do to create an innovative classroom
Trevor Shaw, eSchool News, 8/3/15

Elementary Classroom Hacks:  Big Ideas at Little Cost
Samantha McBurney, Edutopia, 8/3/15

The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning
Ki Sung, Mind/Shift, 11/18/14


Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
University of Houston, 2015

15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century Teacher
Tsisana Palmer, Edutopia, 6/20/15

Engage NY (Common Core Lessons)
New York State Education Department Website

Fractions are hard
David Wee, The Reflective Educator

Seeing Struggling Math Learners as 'Sense Makers', Not 'Mistake Makers'
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 8/4/15

Mistake Makers or Sense Makers, David Wees

More to come!

RENCI Update: Combining Gaming and Visualization Technologies to Support Efficient and Effective Decision-Making

        RENCI stands for the Renaissance Computing Institute.  It is a multidisciplinary collaboration between UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, and North Carolina State University, with Engagement Sites at UNC Asheville, Duke University, Eastern Carolina University, North Carolina University, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, and the UNC Costal Studies Institute.  
        According to the mission statement, "RENCI develops and deploys advanced technologies to enable research discoveries and practical innovations."  Much of the work of RENCI focuses on large-scale information and data visualization.
        Why is this important?  It provides an effective visual-cognitive means of understanding complex data from a variety of disciplines, and also supports the collaboration of researchers across a variety of disciplines.   It has the potential to support larger-scale decision-making and problem-solving in our technology-dependent, interconnected world.  

Take a few minutes and explore what I've posted below:
       
Press release from RENCI about the interactive dome, pictured below (photo credit: RENCI-UNC Asheville):  "To understand human-induced global changes, there's no place like dome" Nancy Foltz, 10/12/11

RENCI: Gaming the Future
        The video below provides an overview of how innovative interactive visualization tools support decision-making across many disciplines.

RENCI: Unity 3D game engine to support immersive information visualization applications:

RENCI Situation Room Multi-touch Table, UNC-Charlotte:





RELATED

RENCI pioneering the visualization industry with innovative interfaces
Tracy Boyer Clark, Innovative Interactivity (II), 2/8/10
RENCI Visualization Center Update
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology, 2/9/10
RENCI Tutorial: "Beautiful Code, Compelling Evidence: Functional Programming for Information Visualization and Visual Analytics" (pdf)  J.R. Heard
RENCI: Data to Decisions
Recent Publications from RENCI:

Y. Xin, I. Baldine, A. Mandal, C. Heermann, J. Chase, and A. Yumerefendi. “Embedding Virtual Topologies in Networked Clouds.”The 6th International Conference on Future Internet Technologies (CFI). Seoul, Korean, June 2011 
Y. Xin, I. Baldine, J. Chase, T. Beyene, B. Parkhurst, and A. Chakrabortty. “Virtual Smart Grid Architecture and Control Framework.” 2nd IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (IEEE SmartGridComm), Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 2011 
X. Ju, H. Zhang, W. Zeng,M. Sridharan, J. Li, A. Arora, R. Ramnath, Y. Xin. “LENS: Resource Specification for Wireless Sensor Network Experimentation Infrastructures. ” The 6th International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental Evaluation and Characterization (WinTECH), Las Vegas, Nevada, Sep. 2011
RENCI's Facebook Page
Twitter: @RENCI

Interesting animation made with Google Docs presentation app. (Google Demo Slam), via Flowing Data

The video below was an entry in the Google Demo Slam,  an effort started by Google to share the word with the world about their innovative technologies.  By the time I learned of Epic Docs Animation, the video had over 800,000 views.  I plan to view a few more Google Demo Slam videos over the holiday break!


-Tu+, Namroc, and Metcalf 

For more information and Demo Slam videos, visit Google's Demo Slam website: "Welcome to Demo Slam, Where Amazing Tech Demos Battle for Your Enjoyment"

RELATED
Epic animation in Google Docs
Nathan Yau, Flowing Data, 12/22/10
Google's rationale for creating Demo Slam:
"We spend our time making a whole bunch of technologies that are free for the world, but a lot of people dont even know about them. And that kind of sucks. So, we thought organizing the world's most creative tech demo battle would be a great way to help spread the word and teach people about tech. Not to mention, it is a lot of fun."
About Demo Slam
Hall of Demo Champs

20 Educational (and free!) Multimedia Resources - via Innovative Interactivity Guest Blogger, Tim McLaughlin

Here is the link to the Innovative Interactivity blog post:

20 Educational (and free!) Multimedia Resources

The WSN-Bar: Ambient Intelligence + Wireless Sensor Network + Interactive Touch Technology + Art

AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE + WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK + INTERACTIVE TOUCH TECHNOLOGY + ART


Graduate students at the Center for Art and Technology -Taipei National University of the Arts,created a interactive touch creation, called the WSN-BAR, based on the concept of ambient intelligence, utilizing a wireless sensor network and vision-based tracking technologies. The video below demonstrates two modules, the Garden of Light, and Vivacious Bushes.

According to information from the WSN-Bar website, the installation detects the changes in the brightness of the environment, temperature, the C02 density of the outdoor air, and the movement of people within a building. This technology works in harmony to support the artistic focus of the WSN-BAR. It provides a means of looking at environmental factors and the relationships between humans and nature, in an innovative way. 

WSB-Bar


The WSN-Bar was created by Jiun-Shian Lin, SuChuHsu, and Ying-Chung Chen. The artwork was by Chiung-Fang Tsao, Chia-Wen Chen, Yu-Hsiung Huang and Yi-Wei Chia.  I'm not sure who created the relaxing ambient background music in the video.


 
 -Interactive WSN-Bar


Wireless Sensor Networks:  a building block for Mass Creativy and Learning (pdf)
(To appear in the Proceedings of ACM Creativity & Cognition 2009 - Understanding the Creative Conversation)

Thanks to Kevin O'Mahony for the link!

RELATED
ACM Creativity & Cognition 2009
Everyday Creativy: Shared Languages & Collective Action
Octobmer 27-30 2009
Berkeley Art Museum & UC Berkeley

 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi Professor of Psychology & Management
Claremont Graduate University [California, USA]

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin Director, Allosphere Research Laboratory
Nanosystems Institute [California, USA]

Jane Prophet Professor of Interdisciplinary Computing
Goldsmiths University of London [London, UK]

Jumpintotomorrow website/blog

Someone sent me an email about the jumpintotomorrow blog and I thought I'd share the link here.

I haven't had much time to really explore the site, but it looks like it has quite a bit of information about new and interesting technologies.

"jumpintotomorrow is a site that lists, features and promotes technology from all the corners of the world, provided by the product creators themselves – and it’s updated every single day...We’re technology aficionados, technology professionals, enthusiasts, academics and people who believe in and recognize the power of truly innovative ideas. The kinds of ideas that make us stop and say “you gotta see this.” Those are the ideas that have a way of reaching out and inspiring other breakthrough thinking. By listing, collecting and celebrating this kind of work, we hope it will reach out to others the way it reached out to us."

Touch Screens and Interactive Displays Biz News, Part III: Transforming the Kiosk Concept

Kiosks have been around for a while, but with the increase interest in anything "touch", it looks like business is going well. As you can see from the pictures below, there has been a push to innovate the design and function of the utilitarian kiosks we've come to love (or hate) over the years:




As you can see, kiosks are multiplying and finding homes in all sorts of places. One example is TouchMate's SchoolDefender kiosk, designed for K-12 settings:



"TouchMate’s SchoolDefender is an interactive touch-screen kiosk system designed for use by K-12 schools to implement Visitor Management policies. After the visitor registers, the kiosk provides a stick-on badge that shows his name and picture, what areas of the school he may visit and when the badge expires."

You can even read the news on a touch-screen kiosk. Forget about newspapers or your Kindle!



And here is a pest management kiosk:



Here are some kiosks featured at IBM e-business centers, created by Imaginary Forces in collaboration with Design Office:







Note: Design Office is now known as Jason King Associates, as George Yu, Jason King's partner, passed away, sadly, at a young age. George Yu was highly regarded as a pioneer in the field of digital architecture.

"On his own, and in partnership with Jason King, Yu completed more than 65 projects, many of them for companies involved in new media and innovative design technologies. This felicitous pairing of clients and architect meant that each could learn from and teach the other. For example, in a trio of “e-business centers” for IBM, located in Chicago, New York City, and Atlanta, Yu and King—whose firm was called Design Office—designed a conference table that used projected images and interactive technologies developed by IBM. In a more recent project, the Honda Advanced Design Studio in Pasadena, California, Yu borrowed an innovative fabrication technology from the automotive industry and used it to create a sensuously curved interior wall."