Robotics Poetry

We all have read poems when we were young students and some of us are still fond of reading them. The beauty of poem is that it conveys powerful meaning in few words; it has ability to touch our heart and convey our deepest feelings. But have you ever heard of Robotics Poetry? No? Well neither did I, till I came across an amazing article talking about 7^th and 8^th graders developing deep understanding of poetry in Allegheny Valley School District, Pittsburgh, by playing around with robotics. Rather than focusing merely on STEM this school district is working on STEAM where ‘A’ stands for arts (creativity). The emphasis is on integration of left-brain and right-brain so that A Whole New Mind mentioned by Daniel Pink can be developed in the students. The thinking that is emphasized over here is that capacity to innovate, create will determine the jobs and salaries of people in future. 

Students created awesome dioramas with robotics tool kits containing sensors, motors, LEDs and a controller. These students spent two weeks analyzing the poems - The Pasture by Robert Frost, The Human Seasons by John Keats, El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe…..and creating visual imagery for their dioramas. They recorded themselves reading the poems aloud in ‘Audacity’; these voice files turned on the LEDs and motors leading to change in light and movement of different objects in their dioramas! Out of all the dioramas I liked The Pasture by Robert Frost a lot. Take time to watch these beautiful artifacts and share your thoughts!

Datoo

Technology has given momentum to self-expression as well as communication. In response to current trends towards increasing connectivity, German-American industrial designer, inventor and founder of Frogdesign Hartmut Esslinger has come up with idea of wearable technology called Datoo or DNA tattoo. According to him ‘The idea of ‘Datoo’ is to use the human body itself as hardware and interaction platform through use of minimally invasive, recyclable materials’. Datoos will be created on the body or clothes or accessories so that users can have constant access to them. Energy will be pulled from human body to run the programs. At the end of the day these tattoos can be washed off and next day, user can order a new one!

Reference:
Datoos: Body as phone. Retrieved March 5, 2013 from http://community.sprint.com/baw/message/50492#50492#50492/Even%20minimally%20invasive%20sounds%20worrisome.
Mobile technology merged with body art. Retrieved March 5,2013 from http://www.esato.com/archive/t.php/t-135887,1.html

TED Talks Education

I fell in love with TED talks when in one of the courses of CTER we were told to watch a video of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on ‘Changing Education Paradigms’. Since then I have viewed so many TED videos and found each one so unique. It’s a nice learning experience for me when I listen to inspired people talking passionately about things that matter the most to them.
Few days back, one particular Twitter feed relayed information that TED has teamed up with PBS to deliver talks on education. On April 16 of this year PBS is going to air the first televised TED event, TED Talks Education. The first three speakers booked for this event are: Geoffrey Canada (of Harlem Children’s Zone), Bill Gates and my favorite: Sir Ken Robinson! These speakers will discuss and share their ideas on the ways to curb the high school dropout crisis in USA. I think this is an apt topic to start talks on education because despite taking so many measures and adopting different strategies to keep students in school, it still remains a significant national problem.

Visuwords

Today I came across this very interesting website: Visuwords 
It is an online graphical dictionary. The users can not only look up the words but also the relationship of that word with other words. The diagrams are produced in a mind-map format. Each word can be clicked on to discover its meaning, additional word associations, synonyms and antonyms. Take a look!

Reference:
http://nhfledtech.wordpress.com/