Tag Archives: Dylan Ryder

November 24, 2015 · 11:02 am

Fractals in 6th Math with @kkleinNYC, Geometer’s #Sketchpad, @Scratch, and pencils. @The_School #mathchat

I’ve had a deep love and respect for Geometer’s Sketchpad since I was first introduced to it in 1994 as an undergraduate Math major (and aspiring math teacher) at Bryn Mawr College.

Later, I used Geometer’s Sketchpad during my student teaching stint at Strath Haven High School and again as a pre-Algebra/pre-Geometry teacher at The Dalton School.

Today in 6th grade Math at The School at Columbia University, Katie Klein (@KKleinNYC) and her associate teacher, Jazmin Sherwood, facilitated a great lesson on Fractals blending direct instruction, video, and self-paced sketching with and without technology.

1. Homework from the previous night was to watch the first 20 minutes of Fractals, Exploring the Hidden Dimension.

2. Here’s a link to beautiful photos of fractals found in nature: http://io9.com/incredible-photographs-of-fractals-found-in-the-natural-480626285

3. Here are instructions for drawing Sierpinski Triangles with paper and pencil:

4. Here are instructions for drawing Sierpinksi Triangles using Geometer’s Sketchpad on their laptops:
http://referencecenter.dynamicgeometry.com/gsp-reference-center/index.html?howto_sierpinski.htm

5. Here’s another resource for making other fractals with Geometer’s Sketchpad: http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/PhoenixHS/math/GSP-website/17_Fractals(51-61).pdf

6. With additional time, students could explore fractals with Scratch or Snap (both are web-based block-based programming environments). Here are some links I gathered:

Karen Blumberg’s hamburger fractal tree in Snap!
Koch Curve in Scratch
Koch Snowflake in Scratch
Dylan Ryder’s Sierpinski Fractal in Scratch
Scratch Fractal Gallery #1
Scratch Fractal Gallery #2
Scratch Fractal Collection

My contribution to @The_School’s celebration of Poetry Month: “If We All Were Robots” by Jaymie Gerard

Our current duo of librarians at The School at Columbia University are Nadine Renazile and Talia Neffson.

As per previous years, The School celebrates National Poetry Month by having students and faculty read poems every morning over the intercom system. Shel Silverstein is a popular choice.

Nadine poked her head around the door (her space shares a wall with the Educational Technology Department’s office) and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem with a technology theme. I searched for poems about robots, and after reading a bunch aloud to Dylan Ryder, we settled on If We All Were Robots by Jaymie Gerard.

If we all were robots
Instead of girls and boys
Maybe we’d have humans
To play with as our toys

We’d keep them in our closets

And take them out for games

We’d dress them up in little clothes

And give them funny names

We’d take them to the marketplace
We’d take them to the pool
We’d listen to them singing songs
And send them off to school

We’d see them getting taller

We’d help them as they grow

We’d wish that they’d get smaller

But they don’t do that, you know

They’d grow up to be astronauts
And presidents and kings
We’d pretend that we were humans
So we could do human-like things

So we might as well be humans

If we ever get the choice

‘Cause who’d want to be robots

When we could be girls or boys?

Dylan and I simultaneously had the idea to have the computer read the poem aloud using the voice of Alex, the most human of the text-to-speech accessibility options in the Mac OS. I had to add inauthentic punctuation to change Alex’s cadence, but here’s the finished product (just close your eyes)…

Video of the Snap Together Robohand I made with @dylanmryder:

Here is a 61-page PDF of instructions from @Makerbot for the Snap Together Robohand :

http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/30/48/5d/92/b1/Snap_Togeather_Robohand_Instructions.pdf

And here are the downloadable files from the Thingiverse for the pieces of the Snap Together Robohand:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92937/#files

Here is my previous post about it: https://karenblumberg.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/3d-printed-prosthetic-hands-social-justice-and-other-4th-grade-achievements-with-dylanmryder/

3D-printed prosthetic hands, social justice, and other 4th grade achievements with @DylanMRyder:

A little while ago, I shared the above video with the faculty. I wanted them to know we were much nearer the time when the 3D-printer would be a plug-and-play technology that didn’t require constant maintenance and attention. I also hoped to reinforce the awesome possibilities of 3D-printing and it’s impact on the world. (Remember how President Obama included a plug 3D printing in this year’s State of the Union address?)

Dylan Ryder and I were (at the time) trying to get our Makerbot Replicator2 to successfully and consistently work. I was antsy to finally print out some 6th grade math models, while Dylan and his students in the Maker Club were excited to build and assemble a robot hand. Dylan had been hoping to also initiate a prosthetic limb unit in 4th grade and bring the hand as an incentive. After watching the video I sent, Kate Berten, a 4th grade teacher here at The School at Columbia University, contacted Dylan about prototyping a social justice-inspired unit in the Spring about assistive technologies. As it turned out, the hand Dylan’s students were waiting to print was the same prosthetic hand that the kid in the video was wearing!

The installation of our new updated spring-loaded motor block has allowed us to finally build a Snap Together Robohand. Now, I just have to buy elastic string this afternoon in order to complete the working model…