How to Really Build a Community of Practice

I found this article deeply interesting and compelling, and not just because I really enjoy working with the Arduino.

For me, this article was really about how to organically build a community of practice.

How Arduino Is Becoming The World's Social Network For Hackers And Makers ⚙ Co.Labs ⚙ code + community:

'via Blog this'

Arduino Blog » Blog Archive » Turning drawings into a music game

This is a really cool project which uses conductive ink and an Arduino based device to turn children's drawings into musical instruments.
And for me the next step would be making the device itself transferrable and hackable for the children themselves.
Arduino Blog » Blog Archive » Turning drawings into a music game: 'via Blog this'

Experiencing data

Tongue-tingling interface lets you taste data - New Scientist - New Scientist

This could be an amazing way to teach students to "experience" data, instead of just talking about them.

MakeyMakey and Twine Sunday

It's Sunday, and since it's the last Sunday of 2012, I felt it was time to do some playing. Today's toys: Makey Makey and Twine.

Let's start with Twine.

Here is what the folks at Supermechanical say about Twine:

Your experience as a Twine owner begins with the setup (at twinesetup.com), when your device gets connected to your network and, bam, you are ready to go. Twine comes loaded with sensors: temperature, magnetic, and position. It also comes with a breakout board that allows you to add other, external sensors. 

Once you have set up your sensors, you can establish "rules" that allow actions to happen in response to certain criteria.  Here's an example rule I made (after connecting a light sensor). When darkness falls, the Twine sends me an email saying, "Hey, turn on the lights!"

The Twine is monitored via a web page, which provides rapidly refreshing displays of the data collected from your Twine. 

I didn't get very far, but this device is very cool.

Device #2 is the MakeyMakey. The MakeyMakey folks' video says it all:

So far, I have been able to do some typing, some game-playing, and some music making. Sadly, I am out of bananas until the next shopping trip, but look forward to creating my own banana-piano.

The coolest thing about this cool device is that it is Arduino compatible, and thus truly "open." 

I am looking forward to bringing both devices, but especially the MakeyMakey into my classroom.

A new, cool Arduino resource

For the past two years, I have been playing with Arduino boards and kits and shields. In addition to my own personal needing to make and tinker, I have been convinced that they would be very powerful tools for my 7th and 8th grade Life Science students.

Last year, I did some work with my students with these devices, which extended the work I was already doing in Scratch into physical computing. As part of a unit on the human body systems and feedback mechanism in particular, some of my 8th graders built models using Arduino boards. The one in the picture models/demonstrates human thermoregulation using a bendable potentiometer and a three-color LED.  The best part is that the students worked this out pretty much on their own.

This great resource showed up in my email this morning. It is a brief manual for the Arduino which is very nicely done and very clearly written. It was prepared by Dr. Jan  Borchers of RWTH Aachen University in Germany. I am very much looking forward to using this with my students as the school year begins here in New York.

I am in the second year of constructing the classes I teach as sets of self-directed learning experiences. I look forward to seeing how the Arduino work adds to the project.