Screen shots from 3 minute movie...

Alice...

This week we are learning how to program using Alice software.

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience. You can read more about Alice and download the free software at: http://www.alice.org/

One of our projects for this week is to create a three minute animation set to music. The software is extremely easy to use, friendly and fun. In addition, Calvin, our grad assistant/teacher for the week, is an outstanding facilitator and teacher.

Brainstorming ideas for the classroom...

Yesterday I received my Lego Robot! I took it home and the 13 year old boy in me sat on the floor for two hours constructing the robot. As I sat there piecing together the little monster, ideas were rushing through the space between my ears as to how I could write a unit for my algebra classroom.

Coming from a business background, my mind was churning with ways to inventory the parts of the kit, assigning costs to each piece of the inventory, creating a project that included business application such as inventory control, purchasing, budgeting and auditing. In addition, parts of the unit could focus on the manufacturing of the unit, quality control, and testing. Once the production of the unit is complete, experiments could be run to discover certain physical phenomenon. The experiments would include posing a question, data collection, data analysis, and presentation of the data with interpretation of the data.

The task for this summer is to develop a 4 to 5 day unit. I see potential for much, much more with this idea. This is a very exciting start of my fellowship.

What I'm doing this summer...

This blog is my personal journal that will document my experiences as a fellow in the Math and Science Teacher Fellows Project at Arizona State University.

The goal of the Math and Science Teacher Fellows Project is to begin building for Arizona a cadre of teachers who demonstrate a deepened understanding of the nature of science, a stronger grasp of the content they teach, and improved pedagogical knowledge and skills based on data emerging from STEM education research.

I will be participating in the area of Advanced Computing Systems & Information Technologies. Specifically I will be working in the Software Research Laboratory: Co-directed by Dr. W. T. Tsai and Dr. Yinong Chen. The lab performs research in software engineering, service-oriented architecture, service-oriented computing (SOC), model-driven development, verification and validation, robotics, and gaming. The lab is actively engaged with high schools—teaching an SOC class at Coronado High School, serving as mentors to high school robotic clubs, and teaching modern robotics and game programming at summer camps.

My activities will include working alongside lab researchers studying applications of service-oriented architecture and computing, and as part of that process will design a 3-D game or movie and a robot.

This is an exciting venture for me, as every summer I try to throw myself out of my comfort zone in an attempt to become a better educator. This program promises to offer a peak into real world applications of research and design, and an opportunity to develop and write curriculum that will be able to be implemented into my classroom.