Our second annual STEAM Fest event will take place on March 10th this year. In fact, STEAM Fest will officially kick off Science Week instead of closing it as it did last school year.
This year's motto is: MAKE a Difference-Think Globally, Act Locally
While we have been meeting as a core committee over the last few months, and promoted it in various ways around the school, the real action and visible preparatory activities have just gained momentum.
The kids were introduced to STEAM Fest prior to Christmas Holidays in order to start gathering up their ideas and building their teams. Upon return to school in January, student project sign up began for a spot at the Fair. The deadline to fill in the Google Form was last Friday, January 13th however, we left the intentionally left the receiving responses option activated on the Google Form and it has paid off. We have had a continuous flow of submissions over this past week as well.
We are taking things up a notch this Friday. The predominately 10th, 11th and 12th grade STEAM Team leaders who have been actively speaking to students across Secondary in Assemblies, will be running a Mini Maker Meet-Up at the cafeteria during lunch time. As soon as the bell rings they will roll down a mobile maker cart and run 2 different activities of their own choice,each.
These activities are designed to capture student interest, imagination and enable everyone to have a 'taste' of some of our newer Gadgets, and design activities as well as encourage additional groups to sign up a project.
Below are the photos from the event.
If you would like to learn more about STEAM Fest 2017 or STEAM Fest 2016 have a look at our Official Website.
Please click here to view the entire gallery on flickr.
This week we have continued our study of Input Devices in 11th ITGS. The students randomly selected one input method to focus on and then scripted a short In Plain English Style video.
Some opted for paper cutouts, other whiteboards, and pens. The resulting videos were varied not only in content but in method. The students not only consolidated their understanding of these input methods but also found creative ways to teach others about them.
Here is a short mash-up of those that were turned in today.
With the arrival of our new Leap Motion devices, and our existing Google Cardboard we have had the opportunities to really explore with our students. These coupled with our existing iPads and QR code Apps, have lead to a series of exciting activities so far, this school year.
Leap Motion in 11th Grade ITGS
We have been looking at input devices in 11th grade ITGS. This was a prime opportunity to test out with the leaps and have the kids prepare their own activities. During the session, we worked with both the Leap Motions and MakeyMakey input devices, both of which are powerful learning tools, however, this post is about AR and VR, so we will leave the MakeyMakey discussion for another time.
In order to prepare for the lesson, I provided students with a link to the Leap Motion Gallery and asked them to choose and download a couple of modules they were interested in trying out. It is important to note that there are a great variety of activities to choose from, unfortunately, some are not available for Mac users. It was easy to share the information with students, as we are using Google Classroom to run our lessons and communicate with each other. The kids had a wonderful time exploring different modules. You can view some of the work they did in this mashup video from the input lesson.
*We did find, that we had to really work initially to get used to the range that the Leap Motion would detect. Students persisted and did get the hang of it rather quickly in the end.
Google Cardboard in 12th Grade ITGS
In 12th grade, we have been looking at wearable technology, what better time to bring out the Cell phones and Google Cardboard.
The kids downloaded the appropriate app to their cell phones for homework and after a brief introduction they partnered up and we took the tech outside. It is important to have kids working in pairs with VR as it is easy for them to trip and bump into things. Our students spotted each other in partners and took turns with the viewers.
The excitement quickly crescendoed, as students explored using these simple cardboard devices. They were immersed in what they were doing, actively exploring, evaluating the technology and having a great deal of fun doing so. All we needed to accomplish this was the cheapest of cardboard viewers, their own cell phones, and the free apps. You can even download templates to help you build your own cardboard viewers.
Please see the previous post for a short video and further details on this activity.
QR Code Scavenger Hunt-6th Grade LRC Orientation
Each year we host an orientation session in the Learning Resources Centre for the 6th grade students moving up to Secondary.
This year we decided to take advantage of the popularity that has grown around Pokemon Go and use it as our hook. We used our Pokemon theme, along with our existing iPads, a QR Code reader (We prefer i-nigma), paired with physical QR Codes to build a massive (I kid you not-over 100 students strong!) scavenger hunt.
The QR codes were used to place scannable text clues within Pokeballs which were distributed around the school, along with Pokemon characters. We used Google Maps to create a perimeter map for the work and determined different routes for each team.
Teams started off with a small Ziploc bag containing their first QR Pokeball clue and a copy of the map. Each team was given an iPad. It was delightful to watch the students tearing across the field, verifying their positions on the map, discovering their clues and rushing to see which would be the first group to finish. Some of them even ended up in the shrubs outside the headmaster's office. Upon arrival at the LRC(They all ended up here), they had a book related clue to resolve and activity to complete upon finding the right location and identifying the book. They were then given some time to browse the resources on offer.
Here are is a link to the photo gallery for the event.
We have plenty of other activities planned for the school year involving our modest collection of AR and VR devices and applications and are looking forward to discovering, even more applications to use in our regular lessons and special events. The next step is to have t-shirts made for our annual book week, covered in interesting codes and having students scan us as we move about the school.
*One last note, we used to create VR pop-up books using Zooburst, which was a great application, however, the site has since closed. They do offer an App however that seems to still be available. It is an app worth investigating.
Last week we spent half an hour testing out and evaluating Google Cardboard in our HL ITGS class. This was part of our preliminary work on wearable tech. The students viewed a video overview, learned how to use the headsets and the Cardboard App (which runs 360 degree videos), then assembled the devices. Next, we headed outdoors to the grassy area in front of the LRC. Luckily, there was a respite in the rainy weather and the grass was also dry, enabling us to purposefully wander around the grounds, whilst immersed in different VR environments.
It was fascinating to observe the kids as they took tours, spotted their partners and shared their locations and findings, all without leaving the lawn in front of the LRC. This work was punctuate by excited exclamations, location call outs and the regular directions of the spotters.
The next step is to continue the debrief, and record their findings on their response sheets. Interestingly enough, the students were very impressed by these cheap cardboard constructions built for cell phones, despite their awareness of the range of alternative high tech VR devices currently available. It will certainly be interesting to read their written responses to the this experience.
Over the last few months we have been working with our 7s on a rather large, but very exciting sustainable farming unit.
This involved research and recording, learning how to use spreadsheets for orders and plant growth, planting vertical gardens and caring for them as well as creating vertical gardens in Minecraft Edu. Click here to view the lessons.
The unit came to an end last week with what we have named Salad Day. It isn't actually a day, but about two hours of harvesting, washing and sharing the produce that grew.
Our cucumbers were still flowering as were the tomatoes, but the basil, radishes, cilantro lettuce and even some of the carrots were ready for eating.
The kids had a lovely time as did the teachers and everyone really enjoyed the fruits of their labour.
We have deliberated for more than a year, about the purchase of a 3D printer for the Learning Resources Centre and ICT Department. During this time, we looked at many models under $1000, had people in, gone on courses, and viewed even more at ISTE 2015. Finally, last week, we made a decision. We really liked the Polar, and may buy one yet, however it was too late for us to spend that kind of money. We decided to go with the XYZ Davinci instead.
It took a week for the printer to get to El Salvador, which was a feat in itself and about 2 days, made up of a few minutes here and there, in between lessons and end of year activities, to get things going.
Our first calibration attempt failed and the first printout was messy, probably due to the quality selected and the calibration having failed! Perhaps the most challenging aspect of setting it up was getting the filament to catch. After reading numerous forums and trying things out based on advice, I decided to give it an gentle nudge while the extruder was trying to engage it. Finally, it worked!
I am presently trying a slightly different model at a higher quality to see what it can do. The XYZ is a wonderful not so little machine and XYZ website is very useful. I would strongly recommend the beginner tutorials. They are quick, to the point and very helpful for noobs like us.
I can't keep my eyes off of it. I find myself entranced, watching it create its little model. It is like watching XYZ TV.
Here is a short video to show its progress. I have also included an image of the SketchUp model it is based on, which was created by one of our very able 8th grade designers.
I will upload a shot of the final model as soon as it is done. Which according to the screen should be in about 55 minutes time.
Here are the two first attempts. The improvement is quite noticeable.
The next step is to calibrate it tomorrow and try again.
The 6th Annual DVA was a Fantastic success. This was a gala event in which students, teachers and parents came from across the school in celebration of ABC student digital video work. A wonderful audience was in attendance to witness the numerous awards that were given out during the evening.
We would like to offer an additional word of congratulations to Victor Hugo Salazar in 11th grade, who this year became a member of the DVA Committee and produced the final video production for the show.
The kids were introduced to STEAM Fest prior to Christmas Holidays in order to start gathering up their ideas and building their teams. Upon return to school in January, student project sign up began for a spot at the Fair. The deadline to fill in the Google Form was last Friday, January 13th however, we left the intentionally left the receiving responses option activated on the Google Form and it has paid off. We have had a continuous flow of submissions over this past week as well.
