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"With so many Raspberry Pi projects to choose from, it can be tricky to find the one you really want to build. Our advice is to find a way to marry the Pi with something you really love. One great example is TV and movie robots - iconic characters from popular sci-fi that can be rebuild at home with a Raspberry Pi built in. Once constructed, your robot might be able to utter commands when a condition is met (perhaps a sensor detects motion). Or it might move around, learning about its surroundings, or reading information to you from Wikipedia. Whatever you have in mind, it should be relatively straightforward to plan and execute. It may take some time, however. Here are five example projects that show how you can combine a Raspberry Pi 2 or later with your favorite fictional robot. 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do The latest edition of the pint-sized computer is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there's 5 things you can only do on a Raspberry Pi 2. READ MORE 1. R2-D2 We've all wanted our very own astromech droid, haven't we? Sure, no one on earth is (currently) operating a light speed drive, but Star Wars droid R2-D2 has far greater abilities than onboard spacecraft maintenance. For instance, he can hold torches, carry a tray of drinks, and launch lightsabers across pits in the desert. Okay, it's unlikely you'll manage to get your own R2-D2 robot to do that… but don't let that put you off. Check out this little guy, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. While this project was based on an existing R2-D2 toy, that shouldn't limit your ambition. You'll find plenty of R2-D2 builds on YouTube. There's a massive R2-D2 building community online. Finding one that has a drive unit should be ideal for integrating a Raspberry Pi (and perhaps an Arduino, which you can use the two together) and developing a more realistic R2-D2 experience. Arduino vs Raspberry Pi: Which Is The Mini Computer For You? Arduino vs Rasp

How can your learning network help you? By helping you to sift through all the data to identify the information that will be most useful to you. By helping you to identify learning resources and opportunities. By coaching you and answering your questions as you try to apply your learning to your work. By sharing their wisdom with you through dialogue. Building a personal learning network is requires that you not only seek to learn from others, but also that you also help others in the network learn. Even when you are a novice in a field of learning, you can still make contributions. Did you read an article that might be of interest to others? Then distribute it to other in your network with a short note that you thought they might find it interesting. Did you hear of a conference on the subject? Let others know about the program and speakers and, if you attend, circulate your notes and papers you collect to other network members. A personal learning network can be your most powerful learning tool no matter what the subject.

Points to ponder

While it becomes impossible to live without your iPhone 4S, you must be a bit worried about the habit of the gadget eating up all the battery at inopportune times.there are still some vital tips and tricks you can follow to improve your Smartphones battery life. Low Down The Screen Brightness Just as it goes for your laptop devices, you need to lower down the brightness of your iPhone screen, which will enhance the battery life. Adjust the screen brightness under the Settings tab. Make Use of Wi-Fi When You Can Instead of making Voice calls, downloading apps or browsing the Web over your iPhone 3G or cellular connection, it is recommended to always find a Wifi hotspot or make use of your home network. This will help you keep away not only from data charges but also will aid you have a better battery life as your device will not be searching for the data signals. Remember, if you are in an area where there is no Wi-Fi hotspot, it is better to turn off the search and it will help save the battery life of your iPhone 4S. Do Not Use The GPS Tracking Feature If you are using apps that support the feature of Automatic GPS tagging and location such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, your iPhone is working overtime to determine your location. If you do not want to be Geo-tag your updates and posts, must keep the GPS function off. Do Not Use The 'Fetch' & 'Push' feature If you have your iPhone 4S set to 'fetch' the data after every 30 minutes time along with numerous apps to push new alerts and messages as they happen, then you need to turn off this feature on your device. This feature is going to drain your battery. Only use the facility when you really need it otherwise keep it off. Keep Your Notifications In Check To enhance your iPhone 4S battery time, you need to limit your app notifications to just the apps you make use of more often. This actually means that you have to say 'no' to the requests for all kinds of notifications you ge

joevans · My Wikis · My Mail · My Account · Help · Sign Out · wikispaces *This page can only be edited by organizers of this wiki.homeProtected * pagesubmenu o print o what links here? o rename o delete o redirect o unlock o view source * discussion * history * notify me Protected Welcome to our resource wiki for: Personal Learning Networks: The Power of the Human Network Judith Epcke (@jepcke) and Scott Meech (@smeech) Locations of visitors to this page Bold Italic Underline Color and Style Ordered List Unordered List Horizontal Rule Insert Link Remove Link Insert Images and Files Embed Widget Insert Table Insert Special Character Insert Code Cancel none Optional: a note about this edit for the page history log Optional: tags for this page, separated by commas Cancel Note that the content you create on http://creatingapln.wikispaces.com is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License. Please only submit content that you write yourself or that is in the public domain. Learn more about our open content policy. Insert a File Double click an image or file to insert it into the page. Show: please wait... Page: Jump: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Double clicking a file: inserts the file links to the file Upload New File notUploading Insert External Image by URL Enter an external image address, click "Load", then double click the image to insert it into the page. * Wikispaces Wikispaces * Video Video * Audio Audio * Calendar Calendar * Spreadsheet Spreadsheet * Document Document * Polls Polls * RSS Feed RSS Feed * Chat and IM Chat and IM * Slideshow Slideshow * Map Map * Bookmark Bookmark * Other HTML Other HTML Choose the category of application you would like to embed from the list on the left. Choose the kind of content you would like

"You think you want your news pinged to you on an app, delivered by tweets, foisted on you by posts. But you don't. Not really. You just think you do. You want to be seen as modern. In reality, you want to browse, to take it at a leisurely pace, to absorb it. You want it delivered on the age-old technology of your forefathers. You want it by email. No matter what you think, email, good old email, is still a reliable, portable, readable way of getting your news. Curated by someone who knows more than you, with content written by people who know much more than you. So forget your high-tech snobbery and sign up for these - the best EdTech email newsletters to subscribe to:"

"t's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom. Think about when you go to Starbucks to complete some work. Why do you choose to work there? Where do you choose to sit? I usually gravitate towards the comfy seating choices like the couches and big chairs, and yet, I see people choose the tables and chairs over and over again. Regardless, when you walk into Starbucks, you have choice. You get to choose where you sit. No one checks you in and directs you to a spot, telling you that you must sit there for the remainder of the day to do your work. If you need to get up, walk around, or choose a different seat, you are free to do so. As I sat in our local Starbucks this past summer, I looked around and thought-why can't my classroom look like this? After several weeks of planning and a little bit of faith, what resulted was this"

"But when you're new at something, it's slow. It's painful, even. You suck at it. And when you realize you suck at it, you feel defeated. You second-guess every move. You are thinking so intentionally about every step that you sometimes feel like you are going nowhere. Over time, though, it becomes the backdrop. You've moved past the mechanics and you know what you're doing. It's a bit like driving a car. Remember when you sucked at driving? Remember when your heart would race if you went on the freeway? Remember when you had to tell yourself to turn on the turn signal? Well, that's what it's like when you are new at a creative process. You're suddenly the pimple-faced new driver trying to avoid an accident. I mention this, because I notice students who have never hit a place of creative fluency. They have no creative endurance. They give up quickly. They get frustrated too easily. They need too many instructions. But, honestly, it's because creativity has always been icing on the cake (which, honestly, is precisely what makes carrot cake a cake and not a loaf of zucchini bread). It's always been a "when we get to it" activity. It's been the culminating project. Then suddenly you have students who struggle to get anything done. However, it's not laziness. It's actually the byproduct of rarely getting the chance to make anything. "

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"What makerspace materials and supplies should you buy or stock for your hands-on learning lab?  There are a lot of options out there to choose from and it can be confusing when you're first starting out as a maker educator.  Instead of just spending money randomly on items you think you will need, it's always a great idea to work backwards first.  You need to make a list of your goals for your makerspace and then define some of the projects you want to do in your makerspace.  Once you have defined the projects, you will have a better idea of the materials you need to buy.  Since money is always tight and you can't buy everything, try partnering with another maker educator and share/trade some of your items.  Lets say you're both working on a series of robotics lessons.  Each of you can buy one type of robotics kit and then when you have completed a few lessons you can trade with each other.  This is also a great way to try out new types of kits, equipment or materials before buying them. Now keep in mind makerspaces don't always need structured lessons and are great for open ended exploration.  Give your students some materials, maybe a little instruction and then let them loose to see what they do. Here are some of the top makerspace materials and supplies a classroom or library should consider adding to their space.  They are not ranked in any particular order and they all have a STEM component to them.  Please let us know in the comments section if we are missing any good materials so we can send out an updated post later on."

"If you are a heavy user of Google Drive, chances are you already have so much of your content stored there. While Google Drive does provide some excellent organizing features that allow you to  sort out and categorize your content into an easily navigable interface , but sometimes the search process can be really overwhelming and this is why knowing how to smartly search your Drive can save you so much time and enable you to quickly locate and access your saved data. The visual we have for you today (for those of you who haven't seen it yet) features 8 excellent search tips to help you conduct effective searches in your Google Drive. Whether you are looking for documents that contain specific quotes or phrases, documents shared with you or with a particular person,  document under specific titles or type …etc, the tricks below will absolutely help you easily find them. All of the tips are taken from "

"[This is part of the Infographic Design Series. Check out the other posts!] Good visual arrangement for infographics is putting together graphic and visual elements in a manner that draws your reader's attention. The key to achieving simple, elegant and attractive content are ample whitespace and a well arranged layout. What is whitespace? White space is as its name defined-space that is unmarked in a piece of infographic or visual representation. It could be margins, padding or the space between columns, text and icons and design elements. Whitespace matters to create visually engaging content A page crammed full of text and images will appear busy. This makes the content difficult to read. It makes you unable to focus on the important stuff too. On the other hand, too much of white space can make your page look incomplete. It is always crucial to remember visually engaging content is usually clean and simple. Here's an example of what I mean. whitespace-matters Understanding common infographics layouts help ease visual arrangement Infographic layouts refer to the arrangement of your visual elements and your content. When you begin working on a piece of infographic, you should have a story to tell hence, you will need to select a layout that best suits your story. Using the right layout will ensure good readability and convey your message well. We have put together a cheat sheet for your quick reference to the right arrangement to use, here are six common ones you can quickly work with. Infographic Layout Cheat Sheet Useful Bait: Works well with most types of data. Rather than focusing on design, it works more for practicality, thus making it easy to read. For instance, a reference sheet where you can print it out and use it over and over again. If your content has many subtopics to a main subject, this layout enables you to segregate them into clean chunks that are easy to consume. Versus/Comparison: This layout is typically split vertically to

"Are you thinking about buying a 3D printer for your school or classroom?  Before you buy something that could turn into a very expensive paperweight, I recommend you consider these factors. How is a 3D printer going to enhance your curriculum?  Are you going to buy it first and explore the possibilities, or do you already have ideas for utilizing it with students to benefit their learning?  If you would give the second answer, keep reading.  If it's the first, you need to do more research.  If the sole purpose of the printer will be to perform as a 21st century copy machine operated only by the teacher, then you will be doing your students an injustice, as the cost would definitely outweigh the benefits.  The only reason to buy a 3d printer for your classroom is so that students can learn and create. Once you decide that this printer will benefit student learning and you have concrete ideas for curriculum integration, then you need to think about some down-to-earth questions like these"

"You've read about the maker movement. You've seen the posts with 3D printers, laser cutters, and three-axis mills in shiny new labs. And you want your students to start making, too. But you've got one big problem: you don't have a full lab -- or even a 3D printer -- because, like many educators, you don't have the biggest budget. Maybe you have no budget at all. But what if you could get started making tomorrow and didn't need all the fancy tools to join this movement? Making starts with a mindset, and simple materials are all that you need to get started. There are resources all around you, materials hidden in plain sight, tools just waiting to be used for a creative purpose. And with a little dose of ingenuity, you'll have your students making in no time. One perfect way start making on the cheap is through upcycling, the intentional transformation of hard-to-recycle materials into new products, thus saving them from the landfill. This type of real-world project not only teaches making skills but also helps you integrate making into your subject area. Study material science, explore industrial design, or dig into environmental education. As an added bonus, a project like this ignites your students' entrepreneurial spirit. Here's the five-step strategy that I've used to get my students making products out of hard-to-recycle materials. These steps could be done in one class period each, but if you want more time for ideas and iteration, feel free to expand the timeline as you go. Expect a beautiful mess, a bit of chaos, and a lot of fun as your students start to save the landfills -- by design."

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

"Classical music is proving to withstand the tests of time, so you might be wondering how an app can help get you more in touch with this rich, inspiring art form. Sure, you may already consider yourself a classical music buff, but there's always more you can learn about how orchestras work, or how certain classical works are constructed. Or perhaps you enjoy classical music and want to immerse yourself into the genre some more, but you don't know where to start. Maybe you have kids, and you want to introduce them to classical music in a fun way. I looked at a number of apps-and some books-that can help you with any of those scenarios. Whether you're a novice to the genre, or a seasoned musician, you'll find something that will help you discover and learn more about great music."

"Many people find mathematics daunting. If true, this piece is for you. If not, this piece is still for you. What do you think of when you think about mathematics? Perhaps you think about x's and y's, intractable fractions, or nonsensical word problems. The cartoonist Gary Larson once depicted hell's library as containing only giant tomes of word problems. You know, "If a train leaves New York…" I was trained as a mathematician, and I will let you in on a trade secret: That is not what mathematics is, nor where it lives. It's true that learning mathematics often involves solving problems, but it should focus on the joy of solving puzzles, rather than memorizing rules. I invite you to see yourself as a problem solver and mathematician. And I'd like to introduce you to the man who once invited me to the study of problem solving: George Pólya."

" PreviousNext The True Meaning Behind 50 Flower Types By Janelle | source:HereDec 31st, 2019 Whether or not you realize it, you see flowers every day. A joyful budding bloom peeking through your window, rich and lavish arrangements perched on pristine vases, freshly cut stems ready to be sold in the market. But though you may admire the colors and fragrances of these flowers, do you ever stop to ponder past their beauty? What do they mean, and what do they symbolize? The etymology of flowers has indeed survived, shifted, and grown throughout thousands of years. Arisen from this is the term of floriography or 'the language of flowers'. This is defined as a cryptological communication through the arrangement or use of these flowers that can be seen as you trace through history. Though the term was first introduced in the seventeenth century, there is no arguing that the symbolism of flowers was well reflected through means of art, literature, and mythology at an even earlier age. There is a beautiful correlation between a flower's physical attributes and the meaning it takes possession of. For instance, the taraxacum-commonly known as a dandelion-comes from the French dent de lion, literally translating into 'lion's tooth'. If you have seen and touched an actual dandelion, you might be aware of the fact that its leaves are rather coarse, poking out like little teeth, yet with its sunny yellow hue, it is said to be a flower of hope and joy. Thus is the strange and amusing nature of the monikers and the meaning of flowers. As you grasp a better understanding of the soul of these petaled wonders, perhaps you may take an extra moment to stop and consider their beginnings. Whether you are choosing flowers for your wedding, picking a bouquet for your loved one, or simply gazing at a lone bloom, remember how they sprung from the fertile grass of our lands."

"At last week's iPad site visit, a student on the panel was describing her favorite iLesson: "It was in science. It is an interactive periodic table (app). We were learning about the elements. You click on an element and it gives you the history, who made it, how you use it, what it is used for. Another cool feature is you can make them. You can keep on adding neutrons, electrons, and protons as much as you like and every time you click on the plus or minus, it tells you what element you just made. The results were really amazing. We had more interest in the periodic table than we ever had before mainly because it was fun, it was interesting, we actually got to play around with it and see what we could make with it instead of just giving us a piece of paper and telling us 'research these'.""

"Hold up.  Before you ask me what kind of 3d printer to buy, I want to introduce you to something even better. Someone, actually. Seymour Papert.  Let me guess, if you're like me, you were NOT introduced to him in your college coursework on education.  Then one day, you discovered his work and started reading it.  Articles dated from around the year you started kindergarten, talking about empowering children to use their creativity and how technology's role plays into all of that in a beautiful way. Then you realize this Maker Movement unfolding around us?  It's so NOT about products. It's not about the flashy kits and lists of things to order.  In fact, that STUFF is an INSULT to what it really is.  You don't need tons of expensive stuff or a special room where creativity is allowed.  You need to make the environment, wherever it may be, the kind of place that brings the makerspace OUT of each child.  And to do THAT? You just need to know your kids. What are their needs? What do they like? What are their passions? Empowerment comes out of connecting with kids and then letting them steer the ship."