Be my Manatee

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A play on words from the popular TV show 30 Rock – NBC.com “I will be your mentor, and you my manatee”.

Idea that has been brewing after I found the app Be My Eyes…

Why not a Be my Nerd? Be my Mechanic? Be my Stylist?

When you want help, you want it from a person, right then and there – you don’t want to search on Google and sift through thousands of pages, videos and tutorials that do not apply to you.

You want to get an expert on the phone and show them what is going on…

Open the app, choose a problem category and the system will start ringing the experts – once one picks up, your session starts.

Thought the expert was helpful? Donate some money for his time – he will be very thankful – and you’ll be able to call him back if necessary.

 

Learning Environments – Week 8 – Reading Assignment

Assignment

“Imagining the Cognitive Life of Things”, Edwin Hutchins, 2006
“A sociohistorical approach to remediation”, Michael Cole and Peg Griffin, 1986
Response

“… the insight that language gives us the world twice. As Alex- ander Luria (1981, p. 35) put it:

The enormous advantage is that their world doubles. ln the absence of words, humans would have to deal only with those things which they could perceive and manipulate directly. With the help of language, they can deal with things which they have not perceived even indirectly and with things which were part of the experience of earlier generations…

” Cole M. & Griffin, P., 1986 pg. 1

New technologies and forms of communication will hopefully give us the world thrice. These two readings coincidentally linked to a few other readings and experiences I had this week.

“We seem to forget sometimes that speaking is an embodied activity.” (Hutchins E., 2006 pg 1). I made the obvious association with a lecture by Janet Vertesi (Links to an external site.) speaking about her research “Seeing Like Rover: Visualization, embodiment, and interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (Links to an external site.)”. The scientists would twist their bodies to be able to figure out what would be the Rover’s next moves. Their thinking, learning and communication was enhanced by their bodies.

It also reminded me of Kuhl’s research showing that babies exposed to Mandarin through speakers did not learn how to recognize certain speech syllables. The ones exposed to the same content but delivered by humans were able to recognize the speech syllables.

So intrinsically, we learn from human beings. We need classrooms. But we need scale. Technology scales. But so far it seems like effective learning has not scaled along with technology or its promises.

How might we deliver this invisible exchange and engagement that only happens between humans with technology? The written word has brought us thus far and we are now exploring with new interfaces. These new interfaces one day could be able to tap into the necessary wavelengths to facilitate or scaffold learning in a more scalable fashion.

I also saw a lecture by Sean Follmer about his work with space displays (inFORM – Interacting With a Dynamic Shape Display) and other “Tangible User Interfaces (TUI)” Ishii, H., 2008. If we think ahead we will see interfaces that will be able to transmit with much greater resolution, educational concepts, enhance remote interactions between humans and hopefully enable more effective learning to happen.

“I do believe that TUI is one of the promising paths to his vision of invisible interface.” Ishii, H., 2008

Notes

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Intro to Teaching – Week 8 – Reading Notes

Reading 

  • TPPT Ch. 4: 51-100

Zoom in and out and focus on the following question: How does Lampert establish norms for students to do the sort of mathematical problem solving she wants them to engage in?  What factors does she consider?

  • “Evidence-based Practices in Classroom Management: Considerations for Research to Practice”, Simonsen et all (pdf)

Think back on a student who struggled behaviorally.   As you read, keep this student in mind and relate the readings back to him/her. 

– or –

Think about a teacher who had the best classroom management and the one who had the worst classroom management and relate the readings back to him/her. Reflect and come ready to discuss.

Notes

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Tech 4 Learners – Week 8 – Reading Assignment

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Reading: 

“Tangible Bits: Beyond Pixels”, Hiroshi Ishi, 2008 – MIT Media Lab

Response: 

Tangible interfaces can express information regular screens cannot. The TUIs act upon senses other than sight and hearing by providing physical feedback to relay information. This additional information about the subject matter can be provided by means of force, movement, size, heat or any other way to invoke more senses. Think of a screen that is able to transform its surface to feel like velvet and show in 3D the item you are designing. TUIs gives you information you can touch.

The 3D nature of TUIs can potentially aid in education with applications that could enhance motor skills, sculpting, modeling, movement understanding and several other concepts that would be easier to learn through direct physical representations. As TUIs evolve to offer more resolution and proximity to what they are actually modeling, will serve to enhance virtual reality and immersive environments by providing stimuli to all of our senses in unison to represent information.

The application of TUI that I find more interesting is “Tangible Telepresence”. As I understand it, this type is the one who most actuates your senses in comparison to the other types. This modality attempts to bring some realism about what you are observing into your experience. It will attempt to convey the amount of acceleration force a race car driver is feeling while you watch a race. It will make you feel the vibration patterns created by wave sounds colliding in a physics experiment. It will help you choose clothes based on how the cloth feels instead of relying solely on how it looks.

Notes

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LDT Seminar – Week 7 – Class Notes

Today we met at the d.School and started of with talks by:

  1. Shelley Williamson
  2. Anastasia Radeva
  3. Camila Farias

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Then we had a very interesting session lead by Dr. Susan Wise from the d.K12 Lab Network, the longest running lab in d.School.

We found a partner and designed a product for him… in all of less than hour. My product was for Marc Campasano. The idea was to make him have a greater appreciation for jokes by reading negative or serious statements. Went around the room and collected some jokes and some serious quotes… the jokes were fun… but the serious quotes had little affect on how much he enjoyed the jokes. Guess he appreciates them enough already 🙂

The one designed for me was quite a bit more interesting. Somehow he derived from my experience in shutting down a business, having several meetings and learning from it. His app would read my Calendar items and after each meeting it would prompt me for feedback on the meeting with questions like, “How did it make you feel?”, “What did you learn”, and so on… great idea!

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Qualitative Research – Week 7 – Class Notes

Was my turn to bring some snacks – brought a bag of nicely cut celery and hummus – delicious. One friend had never tried celery before!

Here we are discussing the Propositions our groups drew from the interview data presented in the readings.

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And I almost ate the Play Dough Gold Fish made by Saia! She almost tricked me into eating it… kkk

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The real thing!! Below… way too similar!

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Class Notes:

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Tech 4 Learners – Week 7 – Class Notes

Had some of the parents and kids from OMS come watch our presentations. We were actually the first ones to go – Soren presented and I controlled the slides… went a little over time but went well.

At the end of class, stayed back with Alex, Karin and Marina to try to get to some kind of breakthrough or decide upon next steps that we could make with our project. Karin thoughtfully asked if there was anything Marina never tried and would want to. She said Virtual Reality… got the juices flowing…

How could we have A engage, practice, and develop his verbal communication skills within a virtual world. Would he verbalize in order to interact with the game? Could he drive a car with voice commands? Would he engage in the task of teach an agent within this world – or engage in verbal play with a virtual character?

Back home I thought of Minecraft – would he engage in that level of focus requiring activity? Could he interact with the game using an existing world and voice commands?

Some of the feedback we got:

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