Intersection of Art & Technology

Every now and then on the web, one comes across a brilliant example of using technology to support an artistic effort. The following video by the dance troupe Enra in Japan is a great example. Its use of projected light adds a unique visual element to the dance performance. I wonder how they created the projected images. To me, this video exemplifies the approach we strive for with technology at BB&N. We want to extend and enrich the curriculum using technology tools that add new meaning, enable new functionality, or enrich the meaning of the learning.

First Stab at the Makey Makey

[In this blog post Upper School Academic Technologist Nick Wilson describes his exploration of "Makey-Makey" technology, and how he is sharing it with the upper school faculty.]

So I've had a Makey Makey sitting on my desk for a few months, and until last week, I hadn't even opened the box. After seeing a video of the Makey Makey's creator Jay Silver on TED back in the winter, I felt inspired and compelled to get one. But as they so often do, work and life get in the way of things, especially creativity. And so the Makey Makey sat on my desk, all but forgotten, until a couple of weeks ago, when my colleagues and I decided to schedule our first technology professional development workshop devoted entirely to "play."

Rather than simply send out the all-too-commonly unread mass email announcement, or post fliers above the copier machines, we decided to advertise our workshop with whimsical crafts, making use of the same tools we wanted to bring with us to the workshop. Finally, I had a reason to unpackage my Maley Makey, and start playing with the very serious intent of doing "work."

The Makey Makey is a very simple device, reminiscent of the original Nintendo Entertainment System game controller, but with sharper edges, more holes, and exposed electronic components on the back.

  

It runs off of USB power, and acts as a sort of modified "keyboard" (without any obvious keys). In fact, it would be like having a keyboard for your computer that only consisted of the four arrow keys and a space bar. The sixth input on the Makey Makey functions like a left mouse click. Super simple. The Makey Makey comes with seven colored alligator-clip leads, which you use to create connections between the designated buttons (keys) on the Makey Makey and other conductive objects (spoons, fruit, coins, aluminum foil, etc.). There are also six "ground" input/output connections on the Makey Makey. The "ground" connections serve to complete the circuits you'll end up constructing to control the buttons (keys) on the Makey Makey. By building these mini circuits, you can control your computer's interface, such as scrolling up, down, left, or right, entering spaces between text, or clicking on objects. In the video above, Jay Silver shows some examples of this being used to create things like pianos and drums on the computer, but of course, with just a little bit of imagination (and a little bit of computer programming experience), the Makey Makey can do much more.

To advertise for our workshop, I decided to make my own five-key "piano" with the Makey Makey, and the process was made MUCH easier by using some HTML5, Javascript, and some help from Google Coder. The Google Coder site lists a bunch of easy-to-hard web-based projects that are specifically directed towards use with the Raspberry Pi, but are easily adapted for regular computer use. I chose to use their "Music Boxes" project for my Makey Makey for its simple interface and use of HTML5, which I have some experience with.

HTML5 is great in that it lets you use media "tags" in your HTML code, rather than fussing with overly complicated syntax or plug-ins like Shockwave. To make a long story short, the Music Boxes project provides you with some basic HTML code and instructions to help create the site picture above, and associate various musical tones (which come with the Music Boxes project download) to the individual colored boxes. The result is that when you click on a box, the browser plays a tone. With a mouse, this means you can play one tone at a time.

Using a combination of HTML and Javascript, however, you can associate the various tone files with keyboard keys, turning your QWERTY keyboard into a virtual synthesizer. Enter the Makey Makey. Using the five Makey Makey buttons (keys), I was able to take the Google Coder Music Box code and write my own little program and create a real-life "synthesizer" that my colleagues and I could play together in our faculty lounge. Here are some images of the result. Not an elegant first stab, I'll admit, but I have plans in the works for the next iteration already!

Technology in the World Language Classroom

Last Tuesday (5/13/14) Lower School Academic Technologist Jen and I attended our monthly MEMSET meeting at Tenacre Country Day School in Wellesley. We were pleased to meet Mercé Garcia, a Spanish teacher from The Chestnut Hill School.  Mercé Garcia's presentation was on the use of technology in teaching foreign language. Mercé has a wealth of creative ideas (and energy!) on how to incorporate technology in education. Below is a list of tech-tools she is using in her classroom. Although the examples she shared with us just use technology to teach language, the same tools can easily be applied to other subject areas. Please let myself or Jen know if you would like to learn more; we would be happy to chat with you about your ideas.

World Language Tech Tools:

• voice thread
• sock puppets  
• dibujos.net
• Scratch
• MyCreate
• Voki
• Google voice
• Toontasic
• NearPod
• iTalk - recording app (3min limit)
• Dragon Dictation -Spanish kids have to pronounce words and sentence clearly. Great for phonemes
• Sphere- used to be tourist: great warm up activity to describe the weather or scene, in language direct them to turn up, down, left , right -hotel reservations
• Book Creator / iBooks Author
• Foreign language scavenger hunt using iPads

8th Grade Science Journal

The BB&N 8th grade class of 2014 designed and conducted field studies at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, MA. The Knight Science Web Journal is a compilation of all of those reports. Here is a link to see it: http://tinyurl.com/KnightScience2014