46 Tools for Creating Infographics

TeachThought, a site that has unique lists and information that you can use in your classroom gives you “46 Tools to Make Infographics in The Classroom”. Because visuals are important in learning, this list is a great one to browse as you look for tools and apps that will work for you. TeachThought tells us that there are an abundance of resources available, but that their personal favorite is the free Pictochart. Some of the others are iCharts, Dipity, Free Data, Google Chart Tools, Wordie, and Smile Widgets. The resources recommended offer different options, so you’ll need to look through the list for the ones that may be useful to you.

Redesign the Human Body & Other Projects

Shawn Cornally, who helps run a competency-based high school in Iowa, appreciates “nucleators”. His “nucleators” are objects, ideas, or tasks that encourage students to take off with design. In his blog, Cornally discusses integrating design into subjects like social studies and biology.  Students might be charged with designing a utensil for eating spaghetti, printing their utensil on a 3D printer, and then living with it for a week. Some might think of ways to redesign the human body so that it will be more efficient in today’s world.  Cornally is “digging the idea of fundamental design quanta....”

3D Printing: A New Mindset

T.H.E. Journal offers a complimentary download of a white paper on the advantages of 3D printing.  Information is included on bringing 3D printing into the classroom “to accelerate more effective design” and to reduce costs.  To access the paper, you’ll need to be logged in to the T.H.E. Journal; logging in is easy and free.

Incredible Bionic Man Challenge

Encourage your students to create a bionic body part for The Incredible Bionic Man Challenge.  According to the rules, students must be 13 or over, in Grades 9-12, and residents of a Cablevision service area in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or Pennsylvania.

Winners will receive a trip to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and $5000 for college. The contest begins on October 1^st and ends November 7^th.  Additional information is available on the Smithsonian Channel site. You’ll find guidelines to get your students started, help for teachers, contest rules, and FAQ. You and your students can also watch a preview of the Smithsonian Channel’s Incredible Bionic Man, which will premiere on October 20^th at 9 p.m.

Hummingbird Robotics for All Ages

As soon as I spotted the cardboard happy dragon-alligator at an ISTE booth, I fell in love with the Hummingbird Robotics Kit. With the kit, students, ages about 9 and up, can create all sorts of wonderful programmable 3D animals, people, and objects. They’ll especially like figuring out how to give their sculptures moving parts—like the jaw of the dragon-alligator or perhaps its tail.

Take a look at the tutorials, which show you how to program Hummingbird in 30 minutes, give examples of robots, and introduce you to squishy circuits, raspberry Pi support, making battery packs, using virtual programmer, and much more. The inexpensive Hummingbird Robotics Kit is a great way to incorporate STEM and STEAM (the A stands for Art & Design) into just about any classroom.

Replicators in Our Schools

It’s Star Wars in our classrooms with the arrival of replicators—3D printers. The “printers” work by reading designs developed by students using 3D software and then producing the designs through a layering process with an extruded plastic material. According to Worcester Prep (Maryland) science teacher, Colleen McGuire, “Some of my students are excited to ‘print out’ their own robotic designs without being constrained by the shape of Legos. Others are seeing the creative design potential to produce personalized products from jewelry to architecture. What we are doing gives our students a glimpse into the world that will be their lives.”

At the Southview Middle School (Minnesota), eighth graders are designing and “printing” better cup holders for automobiles. Teacher Peter Grimm says that the addition of the 3D printer has motivated more students to experience the engineering lab. Grimm explains that the printer adds excitement to learning because it brings “designs that existed only in students’ minds to life.”

Just think of what 3D printers can do now and what will be possible with this technology in the future.

Okay, Let’s Redesign Our Schools

As long as I’ve been in education, and that’s been a very long time, I’ve heard educational leaders talk of reform. There was new math, schools without walls, stations, core curriculum, carpet curriculum—you name it. We talked about reform with the emergence of desktop computers in the classroom, and then with interactive whiteboards, and now with mobile digital devices. The educational potential of mobile devices and the trend for young people to attach themselves to them (although not always for what we might call educational endeavors), appears to offer a greater opportunity for us to finally make some changes. We can’t, however, see iPads and other devices as the answer unless we consider why we adhere to methods, curricula, assessments, and classroom and school organizations, which don’t work for all of our students.

Glenn Kleiman, Executive Director for Educational Innovation and Professor, NC State University College of Education offers some excellent ideas about what we need to consider in order to meet the needs of our students. His eight Essential Elements close with the reminder: “No matter how powerful our technologies become, they will never resolve the difficult, classical issues of education. . . .”

Serif—WebPlus Website of 2012

Serif invites you to its new blog, which is filled with helpful guides, great articles, and competitions in Web design and photography. This is a software company that provides easy ways for you and your students to create using Windows computers. On the site, you’ll learn how to develop your own Web site, cut out pictures for your designs, make your own business cards, restore photos, put together panoramas, get busy with scrapbooking, and much more. Link to the blog from the site, or for more information,  take advantage of the free downloads of software and resources so that you can test the products.

My Robot Nation

My Robot Nation is a fun place for kids and adults. On the site, simple robots can be designed, decorated, and checked out by rotating them on the computer screen.  These are not robots that receive commands from computer programs, but instead are like small (2”-6”) statues. Creating and observing the robots is free, but once finished, the robots can be purchased and sent to your address. You can also send a robot gift to someone, who will be given the challenge of creating his or her own robot. These personal robots are brought to life off-screen using a 3D printing process and “environmentally-friendly additive manufacturing”. They emerge from the process in colored high-performance composite resin.  The robots would be too expensive (starting at $17.99 for a 2” robot) for a school project, but art teachers may want to consider using the free design function of My Robot Nation and then having their students try to recreate their design using materials available at school.