TechIntersect

I just learned that one of my students died. Sarah Corbett. It’s been a few years since I had her in class, but she was unforgettable. Always smiling. Full of life & spreading joy everywhere she went. That’s just how she was.

I didn’t sleep well last night thinking about it. How can someone so young be called home so soon?

I am reminded of a quote by Og Mandino, the author of “The Greatest Salesman in the World” and an entire series of books related to successful living.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

I read those words many years ago. I think they are from “A Better Way To Live”. Sometimes I try to do it that way, but much of the time I forget & focus too much on myself. When you lose a student you look back and wonder if there was anything you could have done differently. With Sarah, I could have gotten to know her better, she was so obviously such an amazing person. She touched the lives of many people around our campus.

I think that God permits evil & tragedy in the world because it can bring out the best in people affected by it. Note I said it can bring out the best, not that it always does. Sometimes we are so wounded & hurt that we miss out on opportunities. Opportunities for doing good.

If you teach long enough, tragedy is bound to happen. Sarah is the second student that I am aware of. Mark was my first, shortly after I first began teaching.

Mark took every ounce of patience and kindness that I could muster. He showed up in my class one day with an interpreter because he was deaf. He was a wonderful guy, but he took ten times the amount of effort that every other student took, not necessarily because he was deaf, but because he wasn’t really academically ready for what we were trying to do. Still, he was in my class and I worked with him. He was so proud when he was able to purchase the necessary parts and build his very own PC. I took this picture:

After I heard about his passing, I was so glad that I was patient with him and kept any frustrations I might have had to myself.

Mark & Sarah will serve as a reminder to me to treat each person I meet as if I knew they weren’t going to be here tomorrow because sadly, sometimes it comes true.

A strong effort is being made to raise the standard of teaching in our public schools.

Wow, does that ever sound familiar? The more things change, the more they stay the same. And get a load of the teaching certificate requirements in Kansas in 1911. They had three levels of certification back then. They were starting to crack down on teachers that hadn’t completed high school.

Sometimes I take it for granted that colleagues and friends know about most of the same technology tools that I know and use, but it just ain’t so! Likewise, they know about things that I don’t know about, so I am taking it upon myself to write a post compiling a list of  the tech tools that I use on a regular basis and hoping that other folks will do the same. (If you do, please comment here with a link to your list.)

These aren’t tools that I’ve heard about and dinked around with a bit; these are things I have discovered that have enough value that I keep returning to them. I will post my list here and I’m hoping you will comment with tools you frequently use as well.

• Google the reigning king of all search engines. I frequently use Google Image Search as well.
• Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (everyone uses this now, right?)
• Wikimedia Commons is a great place to find Creative Commons licensed images.
• Magnatune is an excellent repository of low cost and Creative Commons licensed music.
• Firefox Web browser extraordinaire. Love it for the 3rd party add-on tools
• Stumble Upon use it to find a random website that matches your interests or to drive traffic to sites you like. I use it’s Firefox plugin
• Diigo has all but replaced my browser favorite bookmarks. Save sites you like online, share with others, highlight & comment right on webpages.
• Camstudio is a free screen capture tool that saves AVI and SWF video files.
• Tinyurl is a web address shortening tool. If you send URLs to people shorten ‘em up with Tinyurl
• Edublogs is where I do my education blogging. Free blogs have ads, but paid supporters are ad free.
• Twitter is becoming my communication tool of choice. Love the conversations, and I can still block spammers there.
• Tweetdeck is an awesome program I use to do most of my Twittering.
• Facebook is how I keep up with students, family & friends.
• YouTube is where I post videos
• Flickr is a place I store & share digital photos online.
• ShrinkPictures is a cool little website to “webify” your digital photos too big to e-mail or post online
• Alice is 3-D virtual software that teaches the basics of computer programming, and also lets you make fun, interactive stories
• Scintilla is a text editor that highlights computer programming and html code. I make most of my web pages with it.
• Google Docs is a great way to create online documents you can share & collaborate with. Online surveys are surprisingly easy to create. Includes word processing, spreadsheet, slideshows as well.
• Audacity is an excellent audio editor I love to use.

One tool I would use if I didn’t have Photoshop is Gimp. Gimp is a free photo editing program that is quite popular.

I am sure there are many others I haven’t thought of, but these are the free tools that I use most often. When I need a piece of software and I want to see if there is something free, the first place I look is Sourceforge which is where open source programmers share their work with the world. Check it out, you might find something there you really use and like.

On my wish list is a free non-linear video editor and a free vector drawing tool. Do you know any?

You may be familiar with the famous “Last Lecture” which spread around the internet last year. It was given by Randy Pausch who passed away last summer. If you haven’t seen it, you really should take a look at it.

What you may not be familiar with is the work he did in computer science. The project of his that I am most familiar with is called “Alice.” I had heard about Alice several years before I actually took the time to check it out, and after I did, I regretted taking so long.

This software is amazingly cool, and simple to use – even a middle school kid can master it. It was designed as a tool to teach the fundamentals of object oriented programming, but kids can also use it to tell interactive, digital stories in a 3-D virtual world. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.alice.org and it works on Macs or PC’s.

I have posted two tutorial pages on my website. One is an overview of basic computer operations such as input/output, storage memory, loops, decisions, and math calculations. Another is an example of how to calculate distance using the distance formula with Alice. Both can be downloaded from http://www.billgx.com/alice/

I recommend that you work through the built-in tutorials on Alice before you try to work through my tutorials. The built-in tutorials will explain the basics of the Alice interface, as will as some of the operations that Alice can do. If you are hungry for more, I highly recommend Dick Baldwin’s free Alice tutorials. It is where I went when I was first learning about the software. They can be accessed here: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm

I want to encourage everyone to TRY THIS SOFTWARE! If you have even modest computer skills, you will be able to figure this out. I would love to hear how you have used this software with your students!

These YouTube videos give you an idea of what can be accomplished with Alice. If you want to record your own videos, be aware that Alice doesn’t have a built-in ability to save video. Simply download the free CamStudio software (sorry it’s for PC’s only), which can record your Alice movie from your screen, and you will be set to share your work with the world as well.

Yesterday was the fall kickoff at the K-State at Salina campus. I was pleased to see evidence of our school’s progress in social media. K-State at Salina is now on Twitter and on Facebook. I like to think, although I can’t back it up with any hard evidence, that my own involvement in Web 2.0 tools & talking about it around campus had a little bit to do with our moving forward in this area.

I was particularly impressed with K-State’s new president Kirk Schulz, who dropped by for a few minutes to welcome us back for the fall semester. He blogs. In fact, he blogs about K-State at Salina. We are really pleased to have a leader who acknowledges and values the good work we do in Salina.

President Schulz also tweets on Twitter and is on Facebook, easily making him the most Web 2.0 saavy CEO in the Big 12 Conference. Check out the contact pages for the various Big 12 presidents & chancellors listed below. Some give phone numbers or e-mail addresses, others don’t even give that much, preferring to use the US Postal Service for their correspondence.

Big 12 Leadership Contact Information

Colorado
http://www.colorado.edu/chancellor/

Iowa State
http://www.president.iastate.edu/homepage.shtml

Kansas
http://chancellor.ku.edu/index.shtml

Kansas State
http://www.k-state.edu/president/

Missouri
http://chancellor.missouri.edu/

Nebraska
http://www.unl.edu/ucomm/chancllr/

Baylor
http://www.baylor.edu/president/index.php?id=57010

Oklahoma State
http://president.okstate.edu/index.php/administration

Texas A & M
http://www.tamu.edu/president/contact.html

Texas Tech
http://www.ttu.edu/administration/president/staff.php

Oklahoma
http://www.ou.edu/president/contact.html

Texas
http://www.utexas.edu/president/

Welcome to K-State Kirk Schulz! Your efforts at running a transparent administration are welcome and appreciated. You have set the bar high for university presidents everywhere.

For a while now, I have been pondering the notion of literacies beyond that of the written word, particularly that of visual and new media literacies. In the fascinating article “Expanding the Concept of Literacy” Elizabeth Daley goes so far to propose that multimedia and the language of the screen is the current vernacular; a true new literacy equal in importance to traditional literacy of the printed word. It seems to me that educational institutions have a long way to go towards recognition of non-traditional literacy, however I have observed some progress on occasion.

For example, Daniel Pink recently wrote about how the University of Pennsylvania, which normally assigns a book to the incoming freshmen class to study and analyze, this year has assigned a famous painting for study and consideration. I find the story interesting because it suggests a broad recognition of visual literacy as a valid and important field of study at that institution.

Intrigued, yesterday I tweeted the story out, seeking thoughts on the idea and unfortunately have been away from my computer for a day and wasn’t able to reply to anyone who responded. Some things are ill-suited for discussion on twitter anyhow, and this story and its accompanying ideas seems too big for 140 characters, so I wrote this quick post to continue the discussion. Here are some of the ideas that were suggested:

Chris wants to open a can of copyright worms…

Chris, I know we are in a mash-up world, but I’m going to have to learn a whole bunch more about copyright before I could effectively lead such a discussion. And it seems like the more I learn about it, the more confused I get. Still, it would certainly be interesting! How much is fair-use? How much can you expect to use before you get into legal trouble, etc.?

Jeff gets right to the heart of the matter with a suggestion of turning it into an explicit lesson in visual literacy…

Most of my students are definitely left-brain oriented, and this suggestion would certainly lead to some lively debates and discussions. What do you think of doing this debate-style and just randomly having people argue for and against? I would love to get some engineering technology students arguing for visual literacy because I certainly more often hear arguments against needing this kind of knowledge.

Then we have Dr. Taylor confusing the heck out of me…

This is why I think some things are better discussed somewhere other than twitter. When we abbreviate to the point that the message becomes confusing, maybe it’s time to take it to the blog? Rel ` icons? Is that religious icons? Ren ` ports to Cubists & Bacon? Not sure what ren ` ports is either.

I’m liking your postcard idea, but would like some further clarification on this before I comment further. I hope you can take my gentle ribbing, but either I’m just too tired or too thick-headed to decode that last tweet.

We have some terrific ideas starting us out here, I’m wondering if anyone else would like to weigh in?

At my school, we have a freshman experience class, although I am not directly involved with it. I’m not sure if they have an assigned reading assignment, but something that the incoming freshmen could do together to start developing critical thinking skills I think would be awesome. Why not a painting? Congratulations Penn, I think this is a fabulous idea for welcoming new students to college, and getting their feet wet in the world of literacy. Perhaps a video lesson might be great as well. Show them an indie or foreign film that none of the students are likely to see.

What do you think of using a film for developing visual literacy? Video is definitely a part of this generation’s lives, the trick is finding a film that they haven’t seen yet.

One film I have shown past groups of students is the French film Amélie. It is full of complementary colors and stunning visual imagery. I have yet to have a student who has seen it before I have shown it to them. Most are skeptical that they can watch and enjoy a non-English film with subtitles, yet most are surprised at how well they can follow the story.

If you have more ideas & suggestions on developing visual & new media literacies, I would love to hear them! I’m particularly interested in seeing detailed plans on how these literacies are being taught.

I’m also interested in hearing what you think about the whole notion of alternative, non-printed literacy.

I awoke early this morning because today is the 2nd Annual Fun With Science Day in Clyde, KS. Last year, on the Saturday before the kids started back to school, we held the first  science fun day in the park and it was a big hit. In our town of 500 people, we had more than 40 kids show up for the event, and I suspect we will have as many or more today.

I think this is a great time of year for an event like this because the kids are getting bored and ready to get back to school. Our event is geared for K-6 grade children, but anyone who’s a kid at heart will have a good time.

This year I am particularly excited because I’ve managed to convince a real research scientist to join us for the event. Dr. Sundeep Rayat from K-State’s Chemistry Department is coming to show the kids some cool chemistry stuff. (Check out her web-page to see how super-smart this lady is!) The cool thing is that I didn’t really know anyone from the Chemistry department until I met Dr. Rayat at the Wakonse Conference on College Teaching. Through that common experience, we have developed a friendship that ultimately has enabled the kids in tiny & very rural Clyde to rub elbows with a world-class scientist this weekend. How cool is that?!?

Recently I uploaded some never before seen videos from last year’s Fun With Science Day. This first one shows the kids experiencing conservation of angular momentum. This is the same rule of physics that allows an ice skater to speed up while spinning by raising their arms and bringing their mass towards the center.

This video shows the kids playing with “Oobleck” or “Cornstarch Goo” which is a non-Newtonian liquid. Isaac Newton described the basic properties of a liquid, which most liquids do posess, but this liquid defies the rules. It is part liquid and part solid, depending on its environment. A strong impact aligns the molecules letting it behave like a solid, while a gentle touch releases the molecules and it behaves like a liquid. Isn’t that weird? And the kids love it! You just mix enough water into cornstarch to make a batter, and this is what you get!

The weather calls for a chance of showers today, but I’m hoping we can pull this event off without getting soaked. I just looked at the radar map and everything is north of us right now, but some cells are firing up out west of us, which means we could catch some rain later today.( It’s been an unusually wet and cooler summer. Normally in the 90’s & 100’s and bone dry this time of year, but yesterday was pleasant, only 88 degrees.) But I’m keeping my fingers crossed. A lot of people have put in a lot of work to make this event happen, so hopefully we’ll make this one happen today without any bad weather.

A couple of short videos from my work at Twin Valley this summer.The first is about milking cows.

And here I am at the Demolition Derby

What do you think?

My Grandpa Jo just after returning home from the Pacific Theatre

This week I called the Central Prairie Honor Flights office to ask about my Grandpa Jo’s application to visit the Washington D.C. WWII memorial. My 85 yr old Grandpa said he would only go if I would accompany him, so earlier this year I applied to be his guardian on the trip. Hundreds of Kansas veterans have applied for this opportunity, so we have had to wait our turn. It now looks like we will be traveling in September or early October.

Grandpa was a combat medic in New Guinea & the Phillipines. I am a veteran of the USS Missouri, the site of the Japanese WWII Surrender, but my service on that famous ship was during the Gulf War era. The above photo shows us together with our Cold War certificates. Grandpa served at the beginning of the cold war; he was actually an occupation army soldier at Hiroshima, Japan after the bomb was dropped. I was stationed in Japan when the Berlin Wall fell, so we at both ends of the Cold War era.

No WWII veteran has to pay for his or her own flight, it is all supported through sponsor donations. If you know a veteran, perhaps you would consider sponsoring him or her on this amazing journey. If you have a large circle of influence, perhaps you could join me in spreading the word about this worthy cause. The national office can be contacted by visiting this link. If you want to support a specific region, you should contact the appropriate regional office.

This video series was produced by a Wichita, Kansas television station and does a wonderful job of explaining how this program works. Check them out!

Since each video automatically plays, I will give you the remaining three parts as links:

• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

I think this is an awesome way to show appreciation to those who sacrificed some of their youth to support and defend freedom. Please consider supporting a veteran today! And stay tuned to this blog for further updates. I will be sure to share photos & video as this story progresses.