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May 10, 2008
Saga of the Wiimote Whiteboard
Been having a good time this week really being a geek again!
My project has been to make my own Wii Whiteboard as developed originally by Johnny Lee of Carnegie Mellon and featured at the 2008 TED conference. This let's you use your $40 Wiimote, a homemade <$10 IR Lightpen, and any surface in place of a commercial $1000+ whiteboard system. You bring the computer and the projector and here's the rest of the story.
The basic idea here is to use the Wiimote's infrared camera to point at an infrared light source and relay that information back to the computer via Bluetooth. As with so many other projects, the Wiimote projects have had most of their development on the Windows side and there are many variants of the software around the web. Although there are fewer choices, the ones I found did the job just fine.
So, what's needed.
First, you need to connect your Wiimote to your computer via Bluetooth. On the Mac, that deed is done quite simply through the System Preferences. Fire up the Blootooth control panel and add the Wiimote by pressing both the 1 and 2 buttons simultaneously when it's time to have the device discovered.
Second, let's just try to use the Wiimote as a remote mouse. For this task, the best software I found was Darwiin Remote. Again, a few little tricks. Although the directions tell you to press the software's "Find Remote" button and then the Wiimote's 1 and 2 buttons simultaneously, I found it worked more reliably if you do it the other way around. So, press 1 and 2 and your 4 LEDs will be flashing. Press the "Find Remote" button and you get confirmation that the Wiimote is all hooked up.
One more thing to take care of here. You'll need to open the Darwiin Remote buttons and define the left click and right click. I used the A and B buttons since that felt most natural.
You could stop right here and have a remote mouse and amaze your friends! But let's get to the really interesting stuff!
Third, you'll need an Infrared Lightpen to turn the whole setup into an interactive whiteboard. The complete directions can be found on Johnny Lee's site but there are variations all over the place. The best directions I found were on Youtube. This will give you a good grounding in the electronics, even if you are as much of a novice as me! This other Youtube video gives a simpler version, but you need to find the right pen. I found it useful for the closeup of the diode.
Coolcatteacher, Vicki Davis, blogged about this and found a nice Flickr image. Here's my first attempt. (I know...but it works!)
Fourth, you need the software to turn that funky IR pen into a true Interactive Whiteboard tool. That's the Wiimote Whiteboard software. In this case, the Mac version. The simplest way to get this running is to press the 1 and 2 buttons on your Wiimote and then launch the software. You'll now be able to calibrate the pen and from there it can be used as a your Whiteboard mouse complete with left and right mouse buttons.
The biggest hurdles from here are tuning your setup of the projector, screen and Wiimote considering all our options.
For an educator's journey through all of this, you can read this post from Tom Sextro, the Technology Director for Holton USD 336, who is using these in the classroom. He does a great job of chronicling their journey.
Okay, it's not exactly simple, but it's $50 and a few hours or $1500. And, it's fun!
Posted by Pat on 8:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 22, 2007
Why WebQuests are so 20th Century
For many years I have been a great fan of WebQuests. They were really the hot ticket in the Wild West days of the Web back in the '90's. However, I think the time has come to move on and here's my reasoning.
First of all, the large number of educators who I meet still believe that a WebQuest is an online scavenger hunt. That was never true and the definition from 1995 bears that out.
Second, the benefits of WebQuests in the late '90's have largely been overcome in the wake of Web improvements.
- WebQuests were a great way for teachers to organize resources, but we now have del.icio.us accounts which are far richer and offer tag clouds that encourage broader thinking. We also have Wikipedia which predigests a lot of this for us and sends us off to great resources.
- WebQuests were a way for teachers and students to become more familiar with the Web...'nuff said.
- WebQuests provide a framework for scaffolding higher-order thinking...uh oh.
So now that we are in 2007, WebQuests no longer really do scaffold higher-order thinking.
- In most cases, the task is laid out for students right from the start so they are robbed of the higher-order thinking required to solve some problem set out for them and which the resources presented might support them in that thinking. To be fair, I looked at the WebQuest page and found these exemplars, which still have these problems. Tom March, one of the co-creators, tried to move the concept forward with his BestWebQuests.com and provides The 7 Red Flags: Warning Signs when Sifting WebQuests.
- The rich resources and search tools available on the Web now offer great opportunities for students collect, evaluate, and share resources. We'd be much better off helping students find resources that solve problems if the goal is to scaffold higher-order thinking.
If any more convincing is needed, just take a look at Instant WebQuests which encourages you to "Create a WebQuest in 15 Minutes." So much for thoughtful curriculum development.
But, I do believe (and taught for many years) that WebQuests were a great model for teaching with technology. I still believe that was true only now I think we've moved on by learning from these. Thanks, Bernie Dodge and Tom March! (BTW, both are still doing great work and a look at Dodge's Blog gives a hint that he might be sharing my point of view ... One Trick Pony!)
Posted by Pat on 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 13, 2007
Keeping Up to Date
I've been asked many times for suggestions on how to stay up-to-date with what's happening in technology. Here is a combination of what I use and what I'd recommend to get started. If these aren't your cup of tea, they will lead you to others that might suit you better.
- K-12 online conference -- This is a great place to see presentations by educators about how to succeed online. The conference was first held in 2006 and is now accepting proposals for 2007. Follow the links on the right side to browse presentations that fit your needs then sit back and enjoy a presentaton.
- Teachertube.com -- In the course I taught this summer, we used Youtube every day for videos that illuminated or extended what we were discussing. Unfortunately, this is blocked in most schools. You can find much of the same valuable content at teachertube.com, as well as many teaching specific videos. It also uses the same easy to search and view software.
- Edutopia -- This site is funded by the George Lucas Educational Foundation and is an online magazine. Its main focus is on how schools are meeting the challenges of the 21st century, but this also involves a does of technology. There are lots of great articles and videos of real classrooms in acton.
- EdTechWeekly -- This is a weekly discussion of the latest news and resources of interest to the EdTech Community which you can access either by subscribing to it as a podcast, by participating live via Skype, or simpl
- Del.icio.us -- This is a more general site for sharing bookmarks, but it is a great way to ride the coattails of any educator you might be interested in. To use it, first get a free login. From there you can add experts to your network. My bookmarks can be found at http://del.icio.us/sine. But I also take advantage of the work of a few expert and heavy users of del.icio.us. They are David Warlick, Will Richardson and EdTechWeekly. Even with just these three, I have an overwhelming number of links to follow at my leisure, but it makes the web so much easier!
Posted by Pat on 10:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 10, 2007
Where was Pat?
At the beginning of June, I took a trip to Europe for the first time. Now, I'm finally getting my photos organized because I'm doing a session on digital images and education. Here are my slides as organized in Picassa, uploaded to my Picassa Web Album, and turned into a slide show with code from Picassa Web albums.
Posted by Pat on 5:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 5, 2007
Moving All Our Apps to the Web
Over the past several years, more and more apps are moving to the web. This year, we've seen Google put both a word processor and a spreadsheet on the web. These have gotten some bad reviews because they don't have enough power for business users. For our purposes, though they are just what the doctor ordered! The apps are free; they are always available as long as you have Internet connectivity; and they are built for collaboration. The only thing they are missing for us is the label "educational."
This week, I've found the two missing apps to make a complete online and free suite for education. First is empressr.com. This is an online PowerPoint application. It is pretty bare-bones at this point, but it's got the other attributes.
The second find is bubbl.us. This is a free online concept mapping tool. Again, it's got room for improvement but it is always available and it's free.
With these kinds of free apps and the announcement that we will be able to buy the $100 computer in the US by this summer, looks like we are getting closer to one-to-one and the real breakthrough in integrating technology.
Posted by Pat on 10:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 23, 2006
An amazing class blog
I just stumbled across the most amazing blog I've seen in quite awhile. This is a team blog known as Smith's 9th Honors Class Blog. What's amazing is that it is used as part of the classroom discussion process. While students are using the fishbowl process to discuss the novel, others are using the blog to post comments and additional questions. In fact, in the single class period I just observed, there were 201 comments!
I just posted a link to this blog posting into their class site and invited them to help me understand the process a little better. What an amazing time to be in school!
Posted by Pat on 11:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 18, 2006
Faster Webpages
This weekend I uncovered a few shows that might make life a little easier for busy folks. One of the big things we’ve all been pushing for years is webpages for teachers. These are touted as a great way for teachers to stay in touch with parents and to keep parents informed about things going on in the school and individual classrooms. But many of our solutions have been hard or require more regular attention. I’m thinking here of true website development in something like Dreamweaver or even of making regular entries to a blog even when it’s well supported as in Edublogs.org.
Here’s something even easier.
Protopage – On this site, you can get your own page for free. The page looks like a selection of sticky notes and are just as easy to create and edit. You can include ready-made items or make an unlimited number of your own. A little warning, you can start right away on the sample page but it will expire quickly. Instead, go ahead and sign up. Then all you need to do is to give out your URL to all of your students and their parents.
Portaportal – This is like Protopage but just for bookmarks. Make sure to sign up for your account and then start adding links. Links can be organized by topic or by class or by project. Some can be permanent and others could come and go throughout the school year. This makes a great place to start your students.
So, no more waiting around for a webpage … Just do it!
Posted by Pat on 8:30 AM
