#InventToLearn #ISTE2014 Workshop: Projects and Inspiration

inventToLearn

Inspiring and fun day of reflection, making and tinkering. Check out the project ideas, blog posts, and resources. Thanks Sylvia and Gary for the great day!  You guys are my inspiration.

 

 

Posts From InspiredToEducate.NET

 

10 Community Service Challenge Ideas for Civic Hackers

Hack for change picuture
As I have started to share the story of the National Day of Civic Hacking with my friends, local designers, programmers and family, I commonly receive the following question:  What kinds of projects can I do?
I wrote this post so that you’re not stuck with “blank paper” syndrome.   Innovation is sparked by context, looking at needs and challenges.   When you attend a hackathon like the National Day of Civic Hacking, the organizers or event sponsors often share project ideas, challenge statements and support material.    You, however, do not need to limit yourself to those ideas.    I wanted to briefly share a few project ideas to help inspire you during your next civic hacking event.   Most of the project ideas come from a community known as “Random Hacks of Kindness.”   Please consider joining us and citizens around the nation in the National Day of Civic Hacking. (see details below)   It will be a fun and innovative weekend of community service to YOUR community.

Looking for more inspiration? Check out the following:

 

Hack for Change 2014

InspiredToEducate.NET Posts

theClubhou.se: Growing an Awesome City through a Culture of Making

Check out https://www.facebook.com/theClubhouseAugusta

Maker spaces are starting all across the country providing a welcoming environment for tinkering and inventing.  In these spaces, you’ll find programmers building cool apps.   In the same space, you might find a class of young people learning how to build their first Arduino project.  You might find an inventor prototyping components for a new product using the 3D printer.   In this past week, I had an opportunity to experience a vibrant Maker community in Augusta, Georgia called theClubhou.se.   In this post, I want to share a few ideas from this community for growing your city.

How does theClubhou.se Support the Augusta, Georgia Community?

  • Supporting Young Makers: The community actively encourages young people to appreciate science, technology, engineering, art, and math through their “Young Makers” program.   Class topics can include web programming, Manga, Arduino programming, 3D printing, and much more.  Mr. Charles Gantt shared his experiences organizing and leading some of their Young Maker events.  At times, kids have a hard time feeling welcome with their peers in a traditional school environment.   Charles has been encouraged that their Young Maker events often provide an environment where these kids feel a sense of welcoming and belonging.  (Very cool!)   The kids can really get into their building projects.   In many cases, the students don’t want to go home.
  • Creating Jobs: The community attracts people engaged in tinkering and technology.   Some community members who met through the organization have started building start-ups in Augusta together.   (Check out http://www.txtcam.com)   In other cases, a job seeker meets a potential employer through an event.  In this case, theClubHouse.se acts as a social connector for job creation.
  • Community Innovation: I would encourage you to check out the social media feeds on Twitter and FaceBook to see the output of the group.   In the past weekend, the community participated in the international NASA space apps challenge.   It’s fun to see the new ideas and projects from people who are passionate about technology and helping others be successful.   Great ideas need to be spread and shared.   The community has hosted TedX events in their space.
  • Supporting the “Cool” vibe of Augusta:   I think it’s awesome that the community is actively leading the http://superhappyaugusta.com/ block party in late May.   The event helps to connect the community of artists in Augusta to the community of hackers.   Very fun and cool!
How do you support an awesome Maker community?
Charles mentioned that everyone in the community wants to make something that they can feel proud of.    I think these citizens of Augusta, Georgia have built something that is very special: a welcoming and innovative Maker community.   I appreciated Eric Parker, Grace Belangia, Charles J Gantt, and Vinnie Ingallinera for sharing their experiences.   I wanted to share some of their tips for building a Maker community in your area.
  • When you’re building your own space, do not immediately start purchasing expensive equipment.   Focus on building the community.   With the community feedback and support, collaboratively start making tool purchase decisions.
  • The community is generous.   In many cases, the community will share personal resources for the benefit of the community.
  • Partner with user groups and community groups in your area.
  • Encourage of a culture of pride.   The community should be proud of EVERYTHING it does.   This applies to teaching, building a culture, or making cool stuff.
  • Find ways to serve your greater community.
  • Find Makers.   Help those Makers become successful in their passion.
  • Encourage a DEMO culture.   If you spend time in the community space, at the end of the day, you are encouraged to share the product of your work with the community.    It’s kind of like “show and tell” for Makers.   It helps others to learn from your experience.  It might trigger other innovations too.
  • How do you financially support the space of the community?
    • theClubhou.se is supported through monthly memberships.
    • The community regularly sponsors events.   In many cases, the events are sponsored by community partners and companies.
    • In the future, the community will be supported by grants.
    • In the future, the community will be supported by co-working space membership fees.
I want to express my thanks to Eric, Grace, Charles, and Vinnie for taking time from their busy schedules to share the story of theClubHou.se .   I also want to thank Brent Lanford from Middle Georgia Regional Commission for inviting me to tour this community space.  It was SO fun taking a road trip with him and his team to visit this maker space.   Thank you Kristi and Robert for the great road trip conversation.   I’m excited to work with Brent and other community leaders to grow a Maker culture in Macon and Warner Robins, Georgia.
People to follow from theClubHou.se
  • Eric Parker @ep_aia: architect+entrepreneur, designing a box where the outside is in, and then thinking outside the box again @HackAugusta @_Clubhouse
  • Grace Belangia @GraceBelangia: The girl in green. TEDx Organizer, HACKAugusta, theClubhou.se, triathlete, event planning. Connecting, communicating and collaborating with your community.
  • Charles J Gantt @CharlesJGantt: | Tech Journalist | Reviewer | Maker | Drupal Developer | Gamer | Writer | Photographer | Kayaker | 3D Printer | DIY Electronics Geek | Tech Junkie
  • Vinnie Ingallinera @TonyStarkWannaB: This wanna be Tony Stark is masculine, malevolent,and mysterious; with a penchant for both the adventurous and intriguing.

 

 

5 Free E-Books on Scrum and Agile Testing

For teams that do creative work, Scrum has become a popular management framework to help improve team focus and provide a disciplined pattern for continuous improvement.  Working with teams that use agile/scrum, it has been fun to see how the leadership and meeting patterns in scrum help improve positive communication in the organization.    I don’t present Scrum to you as “THE” perfect solution for running your projects.   No project management framework is perfect.   I,however, do believe that Scrum helps your team and organization discover ways to improve together.     As Ken Schwaber would note, Scrum has just enough structure to help your team start the continuous improvement process.

To help support some of my friends who are just getting started with Agile development,  I wanted to collect together a few free e-books that review Scrum, Kanban, and the engineering test practices linked to agile.    As I continue to improve my thinking around agile leadership, I believe it’s important to help our teams learn how to engineer software so that it’s easy to test and change.    Creating software that’s easy to test and change starts with thoughtful design.      

InspiredToEducate.NET Posts 

Join the National Day of Civic Hacking

Hack For Change

Are you a programmer, community leader, or designer wanting to make a difference?  Mark your calendars for May 31 – June 1, 2014 for the National Day of Civic Hacking, a fun weekend of community service using design, programming and technology.  Whether you’re a novice or expert, all are welcome!

 

Why Join the Civic Hacking Day

  • Contribute to Your Community: The news is filled with challenges and problems that face our nation, state, and local communities.   On this weekend of community service, technologists across the nation join forces to grow our communities and prototype solutions.
  • Learning by Doing:  I greatly appreciate that the “National Day of Civic Hacking” is open to everyone!  You do not need to be an expert in technology to be a part of the event.   The event is an fruitful opportunity to learn from community designers, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and programmers.   Since the event only lasts one or two days,  teams design very simple solutions to a focused challenge.   The weekend time bounds create an intense and fun learning experience. You learn innovation by doing it.
  • Network with Creative Designers, Programmers, and Leaders: Creatives love to share their craft.   The Civic Hacking Day provides an opportunity for you to get inspired by new ideas, new design techniques, novel tools, and positive social connections.
  • Gain Insight into Community Challenges: The event shines a light on civic challenges and open data.   Collaborating with other innovators in your area, you get to study of problems in your community that YOU care about.
  • Experience the Creative Process:  The 1 or 2 day time box forces teams to explore simple solutions.   Teams will need to focus on one problem, brainstorm potential solutions, prototype a solution, and pitch the idea to your peers.   This is a weekend of action and focused creativity.
My Experience
Last summer, I had the opportunity to participate in my first civic hackathon in Macon, GA.  I spent the weekend prototyping a social network site to encourage and support student entrepreneurs to design a business plan, prototype ideas, and learn by experimentation.   During the weekend of building the site, I learned a lot with my team.  ( check out this post for more details )   It was fun building a social network.   We, however, struggled with keeping our idea focused and communicating the vision.   After supporting the community site with blog posts for months, I decided to pivot the idea for the community site.   While business minded high school and college students exist, these students are a very small minority.   I still believe that it’s important to give hope to high school and college students.   I’m still troubled when some of my young friends graduate from school and struggle to find work.   My personal goal was to give students inspiration and help them discover that they have options.  So, In the spirit of the lean startup, we created a minimum viable product(MVP), we tested it, and I learned lots of lessons.  

As I reflect upon the past year, I feel like I’m still accomplishing the vision of Changella website by mentoring our local Mercer University Google Developer Group.   I love teaching the craft of software and web development.   It has been fun to challenge our group to think about software as a means of positive change.   Technology is not an end.

 

How Do I Get Involved?

To learn more about the event get involved, visit the following website.   Events are organized across the country.

http://hackforchange.org/

What’s a Hackathon?  

InspiredToEducate.NET Posts

 

 

 

Why does this Programmer Enjoy Learning from Teachers?

Teacher helping student

While I work as a professional software engineer and scrum master, I have become passionate about creating environments of learning and becoming better as a teacher. While some of my geek or software buddies believe that I’m weird, I believe that my internal drive to learn more about education and learning is meaningful. For our readers, I wanted to share a few quick reflections regarding the impact of my study of great teachers and leaders.

1. My wife is a teacher: My wife Dr. Sarah Rosario works as a college professor teaching biology and microbiology.    At the Rosario dinner table, it’s common for us to share the high and low points of our day.    It’s really hard for us to avoid the topic of education since Sarah is growing young minds in college daily.   It’s great to hear Sarah connect with her students and help them grow.   It’s difficult to hear the times that her students let her down.   Sarah works REALLY hard to grow her students and create success for her students.  I guess… I study education technology and learning to help support my wife in her career.

2.  I’m a Dad. Teaching is my job: We have wonderful kids.   We have been blessed with good teachers in our schools so far.   As I study blogs on educational technology,  I am often reminded of my core responsibility to be a teacher to my kids.   As I have studied the book “Invent to Learn”, Makers movement in education, and project based learning, it has been fun to apply some of these ideas with my family.   Sarah is really good at getting the family to be outside and connect with learning in nature.   As parents, we are trying to grow as teachers.

3. Teaching gives me joy:  It’s one thing to write a cool piece of software and get it working.   It’s completely AWESOME when I see my team members growing, learning, and succeeding in writing well crafted software or using Scrum.    It’s cool to see junior team members take small “nuggets” of programming techniques I’ve taught them and see them teaching others.  Teaching creates more teachers.

4. Learning creates change: During a financial peace class, my wife and I got this precious tip from Dave Ramsey: Do business with people who have the “heart of a teacher.”   For some reason, that advice really stuck with me.   That phrase inspired me to make teaching a central strategy for growing success for my team and our communities.   It has been fun to coordinate a small professional learning group at work to help us become more innovative and serve our communities more.
( Check out this blog post on the book club) We are discovering that excellence in learning leads to excellence in culture.

5. Technology does not guarantee learning: In agile culture, we have a wonderful phrase: “People are more important than processes and tools.”   As I have studied teachers adopting educational technology, this insight is very clear and repeated.    Even if you give your students the best mobile devices and apps, I does not mean that your students will grow and learn.    It has been fun to study how great teachers plan,  give selflessly, organize games, and environments where students can have personalized learning and coach their students to move forward.

6. Machine Learning:  One of my hero’s from the machine learning research community is Sebastian Thrun.   His research team at Stanford won the DARPA grand challenge for driving an autonomous car across a desert maze.   This was an amazing scientific achievement in computer science.   I’ve noticed that people who love machine learning also love human learning.   Mr. Thrun has been a key leader in building UDacity , a start-up seeking to democratize higher education.     I love machine learning as well.  I think it has been important for me to study the learning of children to help focus my thinking in machine learning research.

7.  I am thankful:  I have been VERY blessed by my parents and my teachers.    The blessing of great education from my teachers and parents is a debt that I can never repay.   I hope that the small little lessons that I share on InspiredToEducate.NET help me pay forward the gifts given to me.   Perhaps a small lesson in leadership might transform a business.   Perhaps a young adult discovers a new career direction by learning how to code.   Perhaps a teacher discovers a new way to engage his or her students in learning how to learn by learning to program.

How can I help you?

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote a piece “Who Needs to Know How to Code.”  The article describes some of the benefits for kids and business executives to learn how to code.   While every business leader or kid does not need to become a developer like me, the article suggests that all people benefit from learning the thinking styles connected to coding: critical thinking, experimentation, tinkering, technical communication, etc.   By design, I would like this blog to serve anyone who wants to learn to code, design, and make.

I would like your help to focus the content of our blog.

  • What topics in code or maker education would serve your students?  What would help you as a teacher?  What would help you as a parent?  
  • What topics in learning to code would help you take your career to the next level?

 

 InspiredToEducate.NET Posts

 

 

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathycassidy/8522478858/sizes/m/in/photostream/

3 Steps to Energize Your 2014

How was your day? Did you feel energized by your activities or work? For me, this is such a powerful question. We have no clue how long we will be blessed to live our lives. I consider each day a gift and treasure. I know that I feel energized when my life activities are aligned with my “why.” My “why” refers to my mission, my purpose, and values. As human beings, we thrive and get energized when we can connect to our purpose.

How was your day? Did we make a difference?

Was there a time in your life that you felt energized by your work? For me, I greatly enjoyed my life working in graduate school in computer science. I have admit it was an odd mix of activities. I worked for my first startup. It was a small Catholic church where I served as a minister of music. I also served our church in all aspects of technology. Since we held worship services in a school cafeteria, our teams needed to setup and manage sound and video equipment. Our pastor and my friend, Father Stephen was a great teacher with an eye for marketing and strategic planning. It was a pleasure getting to collaborate with him and other team members on website design and other marketing efforts. More importantly.. We built a shared vision for our family and community. We also had a great zeal for college ministry too. It was awesome to support students in their faith through music, education, and building community.

On the computer science side, I was learning how to contribute knowledge in a research area known as machine learning. This technology can be used to help keep spam out of your inbox, helps websites recommend products to you, or empowers cars to drive themselves. I love learning about artificial intelligence since it is ultimately a practical study in ourselves. How do we think? What does it mean to be self aware? How are we creative and combine ideas? How do we learn?

Today.. I know that I am actively working to steer my family activities and professional direction so that I keep myself faithful, service oriented, and curious about the world. I hope to encourage others to do the same.

I greatly recommend the following talk by Simon Sinek. He shares some awesome reasons why you should focus your energy and passions around a mission and purpose. Check out the video the here.

What are three things can you do to connect with your Why?

1. Give yourself quiet and space… In order to connect to your sense of significance, it is critical to give yourself silence. There is a great gift in creating space for quiet reflection. If you are a person of faith, consider taking your question of purpose to prayer.

2. Journal… In addition to quiet reflection, consider keeping a journal. Write about your dreams, fears, your wins, and reflections. There is a power in getting your dream and purpose on paper.

3. Seek out community… I love Jon Acuff and his teachings on fear. He would claim that a big enemy of living your life with purpose is fear. I believe it is easier to clarify your purpose in life my seeking out others who share your values and vision for life. If you talk about your mission and purpose, you are more likely to learn and take action. Positive friendships and community are a great way to defeat fear.

Life is too short to do work that lacks meaning and purpose. How was your day? I hope your tomorrow is bright!

Related Posts

7 Blogs to Encourage Young Entrepreneurs

http://www.college-startup.com: Started by Ben Bleikamp, this blog began teaching people how to make money from their dorm room.  Their community of authors now share insight to a broad range of topics of running an Internet based business.

http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/ : “Founded in 1999, YoungEntrepreneur.com has become one of the largest online forum communities for entrepreneurs worldwide.”

http://youngentrepreneurfoundation.wordpress.com/ : “The NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation (YEF) is a 501(c)3 organization affiliated with the nation’s leading small business association, the National Federation of Independent Business. The non profit YEF is building the next generation of small business owners and entrepreneurs by providing entrepreneurship education to high school students in the classroom.”

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ : My friend Scott Ross, recommended that I check out the book “Tribes”, a cool book on the power and opportunity of building community.   I greatly appreciate Seth Godin’s wit, wisdom, and craft for stories to motivate and teach.   If you’re interested in community management or marketing, Tribes is a very important book.   Learn to boldly share your passion for your ideas, connect people with communication, and start the journey of leading.

http://michaelhyatt.com:  My wife and I have been greatly inspired by the work of Mr. Hyatt.   In his New York best selling book Platform, he coaches leaders to “get noticed in a noisy world.”   I really appreciate that his blog and book aren’t just about the mechanical process of learning social media.   Michael shares practical steps on improving your character, leadership skills, in addition to his expert wisdom on social media marketing.

http://www.jonacuff.com/blog : Jon Acuff, author of the books Quitter and Start, is beyond fun and insightful.   His sense of humor rocks!   He has a great talent for entertaining you with funny and silly stories while coaching you on how to start your venture.   I believe his message of starting your business without taking on debt is VERY important.   He encourages his readers to start learning, exploring, and editing their dream as soon as possible.

http://www.daveramsey.com/entreleadership/podcast : This online radio program by Dave Ramsey’s team is an amazing tool for growing your knowledge on all aspects of business.   Dave’s teachings of “EntreLeadership” are grounded in principles and are practical.   His team has interviewed some of the best thought leaders in leadership and business.    In my work, we’ve been running a book club around the culture introduced by this book.   It’s influencing how we positively grow our team members, market our business, and grow relationships.

Want more? Check out the following resource:

http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/50-blogs-for-young-entrepreneurs/

We always enjoy learning from our readers.   What blogs inspire you and your work? 

Photo taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/caro6302

Related Posts

 

 

 

 

Ownership in education

Coaching in Teaching

How do we encourage our students to take ownership of their education? Over and over again I encounter students that want to sit passively in the classroom and receive knowledge. They expect me to tell them what they need to know and then the memorize the bare minimum necessary to pass the course. As soon as the semester is over, any knowledge they might have gained is quickly lost. This model of “education” is inherently flawed. It does not encourage life long learning, subject literacy, or critical thinking. Instead, it generates mindless drones.

My job is not to make students learn. I cannot do that against their will. Instead I see myself as a sort of personal trainer. I can point students in the direction of knowledge, but I cannot make them think. They must take an active role in the process. If someone buys a membership to a gym but never uses it, they will never get into shape. The same concept applies to the classroom. A student can pay thousands of dollars in tuition but never learn a thing.

As teachers there are many tools we can use in the classroom to encourage active learning. I am by no means an expert but here are a few of the things that I am trying to use to help my students take ownership of their education:

1) Make it relevant and relate able. One section of my introductory biology course where students really seem to get interested in the material is genetics. The subject is not easy but they can easily see how it can apply to their own lives. We spend a lot of time talking about inherited diseases like sickle cell anemia. I tell them stories about friends of mine that have a little boy with cystic fibrosis. I make it personal. There is a great Nova documentary called “Cracking Your Genetic Code” that discusses some of the real life implications of genetic testing. Together, these things provide my students with the context they need to see why learning this material is important.

2) Don’t talk at them, talk with them. I am totally guilty of this, especially this semester, but it is important to allow your students to engage in a conversation relevant to the course material. One thing that can help is to use case studies. I do this more in my microbiology course, but there are a lot of resources available for general biology courses as well (One great resource a comes from the College of Charleston and can be found here). Again, these provide relevance, while encouraging discussion.

3) Be smart about homework. In my introductory biology course I am using an online homework system that allows me to build pre lecture assignments that are designed to engage the students in the material before they come to class. They are relatively short And it is my hope that they might actually crack open the textbook before they enter the classroom each week. I also provide post lecture assignments that examine how well they understood the lecture content. I have mixed results with this approach. Some students seem to be much more engaged in the classroom after completing the assignments, but mostly I get a lot of complaints about how much work they have to do each week. I hope to continue to tweak this process in the future. I want to bring more of the homework problems into the classroom and use them as a platform for discussion.

Key Question: What have you found that can help engage students more deeply into the course material? One thing that I am hoping to explore more in the future is to use inquiry based labs. I’ll save that for another post later.

Top Posts From Dr. Sarah Rosario

 

Photo by John Brooks

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Free Visual Analysis Tools to Help You Gain Insight Faster

Visual analysis of DNA

Visual data analysis help organizations make decisions and learn faster by leveraging our natural ability to visually detect patterns quickly.This presentation reviews the motivation to visual analytics research.  We also review demo visualizations from D3JS.org, Google Charts API, and other tools.

Check out D3JS.org to learn more about their awesome JavaScript visualization tools.

Programmer visualization tools

Visualization tools for non-programmers

Related Posts

 

Photo attributed from lenards