Finding time in her busy teaching schedule isn't easy, but LS Science teacher Ms. Derrien continues to construct the AR Sandtable.
To accommodate the range of students (Beginners - 6th) who will be using the table, she had to customize the height of the cart and drill new holes in the leg supports. Chaulk up the drill press as another tool that Ms. Derrien now knows how to use!
The projector and Kinect camera need to be positioned 42" above the surface of the sand. Below, Ms. Derrien attaches the projector mount and supports for the camera
The LS Maker-space received a new addition today with the arrival of its sencond 3D printer, joining our Form1+ is an Ultimaker-2. We have high hopes - and a lot of work for this printer. We equipped it with PLA filament and had it up and working in under 45 minutes.
Getting right to work.
The first prints were stock objects - the Ultimaker robot and a stacking cup
US AP Physics students used Clifford, the big red laser cutter, to cut pieces need to secure their solenoid engine. Initial prototypes were completed in cardboard to finalize sizing and placement.
The final cuts were made out of 1/2" plywood - a bit of a struggle for old Clifford, but he was able to make it through.
The 5th grade Spanish teacher Omar Machado enlisted Clifford - our big red laser cutter to engrave a 3' of a map of South and Central America in plywood.
Students then used Playdough to color code the map, carefully following the detailed contours of each country.
Being in the moment requires a quality of attention that engages all our senses. Last night we witnessed this quality of deep attention and focus as the Patriots and the Falcons faced off for the Super Bowl. Players have to attend with all their senses indeed their whole bodies as they play. Indeed they most likely enter a state of "flow" (see mihaly csikszentmihalyi's work) during play. And some athletes choose to take a few minutes to attend to themselves in-between play as well as we see LeBron James above.
This quality of deep engagement and attending to the world outside oneself or within oneself is related to mindfulness. But of course the image of football players is far from the image of mindfulness that most of us have come to accept. Mindfulness conjures up an image of a person meditating in a beautiful setting unlike LeBron above who is taking time to breathe amidst the high level intensity and noise of an arena.
Mindful attention is being present in the moment with all our senses. Mindful attention is slowing down enough to breathe deeply and engage with the world in which we find ourselves be it a sports arena, a sports field, an indoor classroom or a beautiful setting like an empty beach.
Research shows this kind of engagement with all our senses can in fact facilitate learning. "According to the researchers, it is easier to learn vocabulary if the brain can link a given word with different sensory perceptions."Read more
In the 7th Grade Science classroom students designed an interactive object using a MakeyMakey kit. Students were asked to create different locations on the object, where by touching will complete a circuit and produce distinct sentences in the language they are currently studying at the Middle School.
Do young people need to learn digital literacy? Young people after all are facile with devices and technology. Where is the necessity with digital literacy? This article draws a necessary distinction between facility with social media skills and digital literacy. The author, Clifford L. Green of Learning.com writes: " Social media skills are vastly different than digital literacy skills such as proficiency in keyboarding, spreadsheets, database, and word processing. These are basic skills necessary for success, and unfortunately those that are sorely lacking. Schools increasingly report the lack of these skills is creating a barrier to student academic performance ...Read More
In the 8th Grade Stephanie Moon's Art and Tech Class students are exploring 3D Printing Pen and are giving an Art Challenge to design a 3-dimensional "drawing" that communicates a personal and social message to the viewer through the use one of the following concepts:
merging multiple images to create symbolic meaning
words as visual forms to communicate meaning
a close examination to make us more aware of something
Padlet is a virtual wall, it works like an online sheet of paper where students and teachers can put any content (e.g. images, videos, documents, text) anywhere on the page and from any device. Key features include customizing the wall and the background; choosing how the posts appear on the wall; setting up privacy settings
At the MS teachers use Padlet in Advisory as a way of getting feedback about various units. For example, here is the teacher feedback on 7th Grade Orientation 2016-2017
Upper School math students use old-school blue/red 3D glasses to see GeoGebra in 3D. GeoGebra is a dynamic mathematic manipulation application that allows students to visually explore geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus equations. Here's a photo of Christine Oulton's Algebra 2 class using the 3d glasses:
"When President Obama won re-election in 2012 and a Democratic tide gave the party a big majority in the Senate, why did the House of Representatives remain firmly in Republican hands? The result was even more striking since voters cast 1.3 million more ballots for Democratic House candidates than Republican ones".
Building off of a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics lesson, students in Randi Currier's 8th Grade Math class discovered a major factor behind the House of Representatives’ incongruous outcome: Gerrymandering.
They masterfully led a discussion about the brilliant Republican strategy, operation RedMap, following the 2010 census. Using the architectural software SketchandCalc, students calculated ratios to objectively evaluate the likelihood that a district had been gerrymandered. They learned the layout of their own Congressional district, how districts are often manipulated, the effect of technology on re-districting, and various relevant analytical ratios.
Randi Currier's most valuable take aways from the lesson: "Exemplars for us all, they thrived on data-driven, respectful, productive discussions around a hot political topic".
The new D.I.Y Zone at the Middle School is now open for students use. D.I.Y. Zone (Design Inspiring Youth) is a program designed to encourage our middle school students to design, create, and innovate using a variety of tools in our new Makerspace.
This promotional video was created by Kelley Schultheis. Kelley is a MS science teacher. Kelley is also helping with setting up and coordinating all maker space activities at the MS
Middle School campus has 3 Interactive Digital Display Boards. We are excited about the new ways of sharing updates, announcements and projects with our community. To create these great looking, dynamic and interactive digital displays we use a web based management tool, Rise Vision.
MS Digital Displays:
Terrace Level - general information, schedule, announcements, updates
1st Floor 7th Grade Foyer - September & October presentations
Wellness Collaborative Week with Will Slotnick
Banned Books by LLC
Arts for Social Change Elective : Save the Turtles by Guerilla Artists
Andrea Pinkney, Visiting Author by LLC
2nd Floor 8th Grade Foyer - an opportunity to "display" / share current/past work/project:
Arts (Quarterly)
Winterfest (December)
Film night (January)
Festival Play (end of April, May)
Spring Concert (May)
Musical (May)
The morning of October 31st MS digital screens were haunted! .... I love remixing scratch programs. In Halloween spirit, I remixed A Song for Halloween. I've added backdrops of the MS images to create a haunted ghost effect in the school!
During three weeks in October, students in Stephanie's Moon Art & Technology elective class at the Middle School worked with visiting artist Halsey Burgund to create a local installation of audio art, "4 Corners & 4 Questions." You can experience this virtual installation on our Middle School campus! Just download the Roundware app from the iTunes store; then when you are on campus, click on LISTEN or click on SPEAK if you would like to participate in answering any of the 4 prompts. Enjoy the experience!
This exploratory project enabled students to learn about the concept of sound art, and to be introduced to the work of Halsey Burgund who is a sound artist in the Boston area exploring the richness of sound as an art form and combining this medium with technological tools to create installation experiences. He works with several institutions including Harvard University, the Museum of Science in Boston, Miami Art Week, and the MIT Media Lab, to name a few. He has also programmed his own phone app (Roundware) which enables the audience to both contribute their voices to the work as well as to experience it. Here are a few other samples of Halsey's work:
Middle School teacher Betsy Canaday did a launch grant during the 2015-2016 school year to explore ways technology can help students understand the complexity of the characterization in one of the novels within the curriculum. This novel, The Outsiders, is a story about high schoolers in the 50's. Ms. Canaday wanted students to explore physical and emotional characterization in today's tech setting, using social media and online communication. Her original project blog post is here.
I asked Betsy to reflect on her experience doing The Outsiders project again this year " The Outsiders project was even better the second year. The modification of using Google Doc to create the page template was much easier. It made for a seamless way for students to share with each other and me. I was really pleased that Zoe and Ethan joined in to do this project, too. They reported that it went really well - tons of fun for the kids. Next thing we need to focus on is how to improve the writing portion of the project. Below are the published flipbook projects"
Every Friday approximately twenty four students get together for lunch at the Library Learning Commons. They are the students in the Middle School Literary Club. They talk about favorite books, play trivia
games, talk about movies and read during lunch. They also share treats for dessert. Sometimes they also create media projects like the one below. In this interactive Halloween Pumpkin display studnets used Make Makey to create an interactive audio experience. They recorded scary passages from the books. A quick video below captures the feel of this exhibit!
They masterfully led a discussion about the brilliant Republican strategy, operation RedMap, following the 2010 census. Using the architectural software SketchandCalc, students calculated ratios to objectively evaluate the likelihood that a district had been gerrymandered. They learned the layout of their own Congressional district, how districts are often manipulated, the effect of technology on re-districting, and various relevant analytical ratios. 
