Maneki Neko prototypes at #DesignDoDiscover @Chadwick_Int! #d3CI #cihosts #MakerEd #elemaker #STEAM

​I’m having an awesome time collaborating with teachers here at Design Do Discover’s Songdo edition at Chadwick International School. The FABulous team of coaches includes: Jaymes Dec (FabLab Coordinator at The Marymount School), Sarah Barnum (Science Teacher/Bourn Fellow at The Castilleja School), Gary Donahue (Department Chair of Technology, Making, and Design at Chadwick International School), and Andrew Carle (Village School Maker and Atelierista at Chadwick International School).
Here are some links about the program:
Design Do Discover Chadwick School: https://sites.google.com/view/ddd-ci
Design Do Discover year-round: https://making.marymountnyc.org/page/events/design-do-discover
GoogleGroup of FabLab and Maker educators: http://bit.ly/fabmakegroup

My partners today were Alice Cha of Seoul International School and Landy Hwang & Ivy Choi of Yew Chung International School in Beijing, China. We decided to create interactive Maneki Neko sculptures — these could be powered using different platforms depending on what hardware or software you have at your disposal:

• Hummingbird programmed in Scratch
• Arduino programmed in Ardublocks or Snap for Arduino or mBlock
• LEGO WeDo programmed in Scratch or Mindstorms
• EV3 programmed in Scratch or Mindstorms
• MakeBlock programmed in Scratch or mBlock
• littleBits

Here are some photos of the process:​

Here are our notes about the project:

Here are photos from the intro session with the whole group (pay attention to my new favorite caffeinated peppermint gum):

Working with @LINEglobal to organize @edcampmumbai (India’s first #edcamp!) taking place in October 2013!

Rekha Puri is the Director of Admissions at The School at Columbia University. She is also the founder of LINEglobal (@LINEglobal). As per their website’s mission page, LINEglobal “aims to create a global support system for educators to enrich their work and to create the greater cross-cultural awareness needed for the world to meet its shared goal of ensuring that every child has a quality education.”

On Thursday, during one of the final faculty meetings of the year, we split up unconference-style to brainstorm possible committees and goals for next year’s theme: The Year of Collaboration. Rekha invited people to her table to discuss global education opportunities. I plopped down in time to hear her say she will be traveling to India in October with a few independent school Heads, including our own Amani Reed, to encourage global collaboration.

I mentioned that my edcampnyc committee had just been discussing possibly holding our 5th event in October and that it would be so cool if there were any edcamps in India to network with. When we looked at the map of edcamps, there weren’t any pins at all in India. I immediately started plotting with Rekha to organize edcampmumbai. Within minutes, we reserved a Gmail address, Twitter handle, and WordPress blog. Within a day, we had a domain name, a logo, a blank session board, a few Twitter followers/retweets, and a registration page ready to go. Rekha will be using her connections in India to partner with a willing school and possible sponsors.

I love making things happen and building community. It would be truly amazing to travel to India for the primary purpose of gathering teachers together to share, network, learn, and inspire. Next, I’m going to peer pressure Tabitha Johnson (@tabletj) and Akio Iida (@dorakio) to organize edcampseoul! They’re moving there this summer to work at Seoul International School, and it would be an awesome way to meet other teachers and form relationships…

Sharing the wonders of @Vocaroo with @dorakio and @kinderbanks for a 3rd grade podcast project.

Akio Iida (@dorakio) and Harry Banks (@kinderbanks) co-teach a 3rd grade class at The School at Columbia University. It will be a major loss to me and The School when these two move on to other adventures next year; Akio will be at Seoul International School and Harry will be at The Ideal School of Manhattan.

I love to pop in on their classes and see how both Akio and Harry integrate technology seamlessly to innovate teaching and learning. Their students use a variety of hardware and software without focusing on the tool so much as the process.

Today, I saw they were reviewing podcasting examples with their students in preparation for an upcoming project. They set up a Google Site for this and had attached audio files. I suggested they try uploading these files to Vocaroo and gathering the embed code so the audio would simply play within the same page without opening a separate window and without having to download the audio file to a local machine.

Vocaroo is pretty amazing. Because there is no need to sign up for the service or enter any personal information, using it with younger kids seems safe. While I’m no lawyer, I teach others to use technology academically, respectfully, and responsibly. Fingers crossed Vocaroo abides by COPPA laws and users make wise choices about the content of their audio posts.

With Vocaroo, you can either record directly on the website or upload an existing file. They you are offered you a URL, embed code, and multiple sharing options (email, Facebook, Twitter, QR code, etc…) Plus, you can even download your Vocaroo audio file as an MP3, Ogg, FLAC, or WAV. If you want to delete your message from their server, you have that option as well at the bottom of the page.