Tim – Page 12 – Mechanical Sympathy

Face Your Fear! Maths Trauma & Inequity in STEM Education

In January the president of the Ontario Association for Mathematics Educators (OAME) sent me an email after seeing our online activity around game development and coding and asked if I might present at their conference in May. If you’d have told high school me that I’d one day present at a maths conference I would have thought you’re having me on. For me, maths and science were the hammers that the education system used to teach me that I wasn’t good enough, but I’m rethinking that egotistical framing.

One of my co-presenters also didn’t have a positive maths experience in high school and we were both worried that it would be like being back in class again. That’s where the teacher would single you out and make sure everyone in the room knew that you didn’t know what you were doing, then they’d fail you, usually with a caustic remark about how ‘this isn’t for you’. I’d internalized the idea that maths (and science) went out of their way to make me feel stupid, but after doing our presentation (everyone was lovely, of course), I’m reconsidering my failures in maths and science from another angle.

We immigrated to Canada when I was eight years old. A lack of research had us moving to Montreal right after Bill 101 came in, which wasn’t great for a little kid from rural England. By 1980 we’d moved to Streetsville on the edge of Mississauga and that’s where I grew up. Various calamities happened both financially and emotionally while I was in high school. I didn’t play school sports because I worked every day after school from the age of 12 on. School sports, like maths and science, are for those privileged children of leisure who have the time and money to participate – that’s why we shape entire school cultures around them.

In senior high school my dad was in a near fatal car accident that had him hospitalized for months. During that time I was working as well as doing all the home things that he usually did. This meant that the hours of homework meted out by maths and science teachers didn’t get the attention it demanded. The tedious and repetitive/rote nature of S&M homework didn’t help either. Before grade 11 science I was daydreaming of becoming an astronomer. After I failed it, not so much. High school accommodated my lack of socio-economic clout by guidancing me to go find a job that Canadians don’t like doing – like a good immigrant should.

I dropped out of grade 13, worked as a night security guard (full time) while trying to attend Sheridan College for visual arts. I dropped out of Sheridan when I couldn’t get to class after not sleeping every night before class. Eventually I found my way into a millwright apprenticeship which offered me the economic stability I needed to finish high school, which I did at the age of 22. I eventually left millwrighting and went to university, finally settling on English and philosophy degrees, but even there my maths trauma haunted me.

A requirement for my philosophy degree was to take the symbolic logic course. My first time through it was run by a computer science prof who didn’t like how big the class was so he used every rotten maths trick in the book (surprise tests, undifferentiated instruction, sudden changes in direction, etc) to shake out the ‘arts’ students who needed it for their degree. That course could also be used as an ‘arts’ credit for the STEM types who took it as a bird course. That prof succeeded in chasing out all the philosophy students from that philosophy course. The next semester I tried again, this time with a philosophy prof. I told her of my fear of maths and she went out of her way to differentiate both instruction and assessment. I ended up getting an ‘A’ on the mandatory course I thought I’d never finish. I can do maths and complex logic, just not when it’s weaponized against me.

As a millwright I never had a problem tackling applied maths when I needed it. When I transitioned into information technology, again no issues using applied maths as I needed it to do my job. It appeared that I wasn’t as bad as maths as the education system had repeatedly told me I was, though I still carried that luggage with me.

My anxiety was high as I got ready for this presentation. Alanna made a comment that resonated though. If you work in a secondary classroom you’ve probably heard teens talking about how this or that teacher ‘hates’ them. Alanna reminded me that this is a great example of everything-is-about-me teenage egotism. My maths and science teachers didn’t hate me and weren’t vindictively attacking me for my failures; no student matters that much. Having done this teaching thing for over two decades now, I can assure you that ‘hate’ isn’t something most teachers feel. To be honest, when we’re not at work even the most difficult students aren’t on our minds. For the teachers who do feel hate for students, you need to find another career.

Looking past the teen-egoism of my own mathematical inferiority complex, I got along with my STEM teachers pretty well. I certainly wasn’t a classroom management headache. In retrospect, what happened to me in class wasn’t vindictive on their part, it was a result of my lowly socio-economic status. Had I been a stable, well off, multi-generational settler whose ancestors were given whole swarths of Canada for free, I’m sure we’d have gotten along just fine. Were I not in the middle of family trauma, perhaps I would have stuck it out. Had I been a student of a less creative nature who thrived in structure and repetition, I imagine I’d have found a place in STEM even without the financial means – I did eventually embrace my technical skills despite the system’s best efforts to alienate me from myself.

Last week one of our maths teachers emailed the entire building asking how she could punish students who are skipping tests in order to give themselves more time to prepare for them. Our principal emailed all reminding everyone of Growing Success, but this didn’t stop a science teacher from jumping in with our written-in-the-1950s student handbook which still contains escalating penalties (including handing out zeroes) for late or missing work, even if that is directly contrary to Ministry direction.

In my last round of IT testing for my grade 10s I left each chapter test available for three tries, and students could take it open book if they wished. When you finished the test it would even review it for you and tell you what the correct answers were and why, if you could be bothered to do that. Ample class time was provided to review the material both on screen and hands-on. You could not design a more equitable and differentiated approach to learning computer technology. Our class average on these three tries/open book tests/wildly-differentiated and in-class supported tests? 11.07/20 – that’s a 55% class average. Even when you differentiate and build in equity to support assessment in COVID-world classes, many students won’t bother doing any of it anyway, and this is in an optional subject they chose to take! I turned down the weight of those results, not because I think my subject doesn’t matter, but because the COVID malaise on students is real (it’s real on staff too, not that anyone cares) and holding them to pre-pandemic standards is neither compassionate nor pedagogically correct.

If someone wants to skip a period to get more study time in, let ’em. What would be even better is having open and honest communications with your students to the point where they can simply ask for extra time rather than feeling like they have to skip because they know you won’t give give it to them They probably won’t use their extra time anyway and the result will be what it is. Clinging to schedules and testing that only examines rote memorization (another issue in STEM that produces A+ students who don’t know how to apply what they know), is the kind of undifferentiated and tedious ‘learning’ that made me despise maths and science in high school.

After COVID swept through our family recently, my son returned to class only to get no lunches for days on end (while still recovering from the virus) as he took test after missed maths test. When he didn’t do well on them we had to intervene and ask for some compassion. Why do S&M subject teachers believe that curriculum comes before differentiation based on circumstances (especially IEPs!), or even basic wellness? We’re all in exceptional circumstances. I suspect these teachers believe that this ‘rigour’ makes them a credible and serious discipline of study. I’m not sure how you change that rigid culture founded on privilege, conformity and exclusion.

My maths trauma in high school sent me on a crooked path before I was finally able to come to terms with my intelligence and abilities; it made me doubt myself and misaim my expectations. I’d hope public education would do the opposite of that, but it still doesn’t. We’ve got too many classes still predicating success on hours of homework using undifferentiated and repetitive rote learning under the assumption that everyone has the time and inclination to find success in that. It’s even worse now two years into a pandemic. During quadmesters it was particularly acute with students in S&M heavy quads telling me they were expected to do 4+ hours of homework EVERY DAY – even as the working ones were forced to take on extra hours as ‘heroic’ front line workers.

In my classroom I aim to find every students’ talents and help them find digital pathways that will support them in our technology driven economy. My senior classes are supposed to be ‘M’ level post-secondary bound students (which is why they cap me at 31 like an academic calculus class), but in actuality the majority of my students do not attend university and good percentage go straight into the workplace. We also frequently have essential level and special needs students finding their way in our program because we differentiate even when the system holds us all back with an inequitable distribution of resources. My stuffed classes serving all pathways help make grade 12 academic physics classes with a dozen students in them happen because those very special kids need that credit for university.

In order to find student strengths I focus on foundational skills like practicing an effective engineering design process, which is more about organization and self-direction than it is about technical details. I could drill them on tests about technical specifics and fail the ones who skip rote memorizing reams of facts for a variety of reasons (they can’t afford the time, their IEP doesn’t allow them learn like that, etc), but then I’d be doing exactly what was done to me in high school. That’d be a jerk move.

“You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy!”

When we grew up and went to school

There were certain teachers who would

Hurt the children any way they could

By pouring their derision

Upon anything we did

And exposing every weakness

However carefully hidden by the kids”

We don’t need no education, but we all need direction to help find our strengths… especially in STEM.

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Variations in On-Motorcycle 360 Photography

The other day I tried a variation on the on-bike 360° photography I’ve previously done. Rather than mount the camera on a flexible tripod on the front of the bike, I attached a carbon monopod to the rear top-box rack, extended it and put the camera on top.

The bottom part of the monopod had a screw in point. With that removed I could bolt this very light weight, carbon fibre monopod to the rear luggage rack (which itself is attached to the frame) very securely. In almost an hour of riding on typically lousy rural Ontario roads both the camera and monopod were very secure and the photos showed no evidence of wobble or blur.

These are the parts used:

Neewer carbon fibre monopod from Amazon (about fifty bucks)
Ricoh Theta 360SC camera from Amazon (under $250CAN)

With the camera over a metre above and behind my head, the three-sixty degree pinched perspective makes the bike and I look quite far away:

After doing a round at full extension (the monopod extends to just over five feet or 160cms), I reduced the bottom leg. I couldn’t see the results of the shots until I got back and I was worried that the full extended monopod would produce wobble and blur or be structurally stressed (it didn’t and it wasn’t). The monopod only weighs a couple of hundred grams and can hold 10 kilos or 22 pounds of gear – the Theta weighs less than a hundred grams.

With the camera reset closer to four feet above the back deck of the bike I did some more miles, including riding over some very rough roads. Even in those circumstances the rig was solid, unmoving and took sharp photos, even in the relatively poor light (it had been heavily overcast, foggy and raining on and off all day).

The pavement leading up to the West Montrose Covered Bridge is particularly rough, but even then the photos were clear and sharp.

Good horizons on such a tall camera mount, and this is at the lower setting.

With the camera set so much higher, corners don’t seem as dramatic. When the camera is mounted on the rear view mirror it turns with the handlebars, amplifying the lean effect.

Perhaps the best example of the camera’s lack of wobble was the shot from inside the covered bridge. On an overcast, dim day in a poorly lit environment with the bike bouncing over rough pavement, the sharpness is still surprisingly good. This was so dim that I had to raise the sun visor in the helmet:

This is a photo uploaded to the Theta 360 site and modified with the little planet geometry tool.

I’d call this a successful test. Setting up this kind of monopod on a Givi tail mount for a top box works really well. The monopod base fits snuggly in the tail mount, which is a very solid, over engineering piece of kit designed to carry potentially heavy luggage. The monopod takes a big quarter inch bolt. I used a big washer on the bottom and a smaller one that fit perfectly inside the lattice on the top of the rack. With the monopod tightened down with a ratchet it was extremely secure.

The camera didn’t wobble on full extension, but with the monopod retracted one level (the shortest, narrowest one at the bottom) the monopod rubber met the top of the luggage lattice and it was even stronger. With the camera on the shortened tripod, the photos still offered a surprisingly distant perspective:

With the monopod shortened one level it’s still well above six feet off the deck (I’m 6’3″).

It’s another unique perspective to pursue with 360° on-motorcycle photography, but I have to say, I think it feels a bit alienating because everything is so distant and you can’t see the rider’s face. Short of flying a drone perilously close to a rider, there is no other way you could get this perspective though…

One of the few sunny moments on the ride – you can see the monopod’s shadow on the road.

Something like this might look really cool on a bike doing a wheelie, or someone knee down in a canyon. It also does a nice job of capturing the surroundings, but unless I’m looking for shots that are more about the scenery than the ride, I doubt I’ll be doing it again. I prefer the more intimate and exciting angles you get from mounting the camera closer and in front of the rider:

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A Letter to Candidates: Is Anyone Interested In Changing Public Education For Student Needs?

I’ve been assisting with the Ontario Literacy test this week at school. Watching students have to put phones away in a system that allows full access all the time is like watching a long distance runner getting a foot amputated before having to run a marathon. Students didn’t understand the instructions and many ignored them and had to be individually assisted in unplugging themselves from their devices. They then looked disorientated and confused, and then we hit ’em with a high stakes literacy test!

The threats and fear generated by the test are also part of this wonderful experience. “You can’t graduate without this” is the most common refrain. I’ve been wondering why it’s all stick and no carrot with the literacy test, and then I got one of those ‘support education’ emails that’ll send the email an organization wrote in your name to your members of parliament.

We have a provincial election approaching and the stakes are high. My problem is that no one has any vision for Ontario’s public education system that would actually improve it or make it sustainable into an uncertain future. Liberals are entirely invested in keeping things as they are (they’re also the main reason why things are the way they are), and the conservatives aren’t interested in improving it at all as they collect supporters intent on privatizing it.

Rather than send off someone else’s words to my representatives, I sent a suggestion for a leaner, diversity-of-pathways honouring system that might also be greener, but no one in Ontario politics has a vision for public education beyond either keeping it as it is or selling it of to their donors. Ontario students deserve better…

***

Dear Candidates,

I’m going to cut out the form letter and speak frankly. After years of Liberal stewardship, the public education system in Ontario wasn’t in the best shape and needed an overhaul.

As a teacher in the system, I believe the entrenched political entities (councils, unions, colleges etc) have become more fixated on their own continued status quo than they have in an education system focused on student needs.

I had hoped that the current government would go about the serious business of fixing it, but they seem entirely focused on dismantling it for private benefit, which isn’t going to help anyone.

Ontario’s education system was broken by the 2006 learning to 18 amendment to the education act. There are many pathways and learning should be a lifelong commitment; schools do not own the concept of learning. Forcing students to stay in public schools until 18 has done irreparable harm to students and the system itself, though none of the many groups with a vested interest in a bloated public system will want you to address this.

A lean and individually responsive education system (that is also more fiscally responsible) could be achieved if we shelved this legislation and opened up pathways by allowing students who have demonstrated sufficient literacy and numeracy skills to move on if they wish. In this way our high-stakes and expensive OSSLT would offer an opportunity rather than being a purely punitive experience. If students were able to graduate at the end of grade 10 with a basic Ontario diploma which would allow them to pursue pathways directly into the workplace or into alternate learning situations like apprenticeships, our senior classrooms would no long be daycare centres for students who don’t want to be there. The students in senior high school would be there with intent and the system would be able to align their limited resources to serve students who are learning with the intent to continue on into post-secondary.

This change would drastically reduce our overages on building maintenance by reducing the number of buildings needed. It might also offer an opportunity where schools can amalgamate beyond the rigid elementary/secondary system we run now, offering hyper local schooling that drastically reduces busing costs. In a world where fuel prices are skyrocketing and supply chains are stretched to breaking, this seems like an inevitability. Moving towards a digitally enhanced, hyper-local future now would mean it doesn’t come as a violent upheaval later.

With strong digital/remote skills and effective leverage of emerging technologies, we could create a leaner, greener and more individually responsive public school system in Ontario. Academic teaching in classrooms works for students who understand that they need what’s being taught in order to prepare for post-secondary, but for many Ontario students who aren’t on that pathway, these final years are torture for them and for front line education staff trying to deal with them with ever shrinking resources.

No one will consider options like this because there are far too many organizations committed to the way things are for their own benefit. Conservatives won’t do it because their private school friends won’t like them taking away customers. The Liberals are so entwined with unions and other educational groups that they too won’t touch this. I hope someone can see the light here and make moves to create a more student responsive, less bloated and more environmentally responsible education system. In such an Ontario, redundancies like multiple education systems serving the same region would also end, but no political party will touch that either for fear of upsetting status quo religious privilege.

Our public education system wasn’t in great shape before the last four years beat it to a pulp. If Doug doesn’t win again this June, whoever does will give us half of what was stripped away back and we’ll be told by the various colleges/unions/councils they’re aligned with that we should thank them for it. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were, I want them to respect the many pathways students choose and honour those choices by not forcing students to remain in classrooms that aren’t aligned with their learning needs until they are eighteen. Does anyone in Ontario politics have anything like this kind of vision?

Sincerely,

Tim King
Classroom Teacher
Elora, ON.

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My First Motorcycling Accident: ATGATT Saves The Day!

… and it wasn’t so bad thanks to all the (quality) gear, all the time. This weekend we had family friends coming over so I took their son and mine up to S.M.A.R.T. Adventures for an afternoon dirt biking. My boy did a day on bikes last year so he was stepping up to intermediate level, the other boy had never ridden before.

It was a glorious day. We had snow last week but it was 15°C and sunny on Saturday, and we weren’t gettting on a bike until it had already reached that lofty high.

They kit you up good at SMART!

We got kitted up and out to the bikes. Ethan went with another new rider and did the how-bike-controls-work introductory lesson. Max hadn’t been on a bike in 10 months and had only had a day when he last did, but he remembered all the basics so off we went.

We had Joe instructing us who I’ve had a couple of times before. He has psychic trail reading skills and is a joy to follow in the woods. He’s also big on the basics (elbows up, sit at the front of the saddle right above the pegs and most of all, clutch control!). Max had the basics down, but his work on the clutch dramatically improved his ability to ride off road this time around, it was time well spent!

We did the ride-over-a-log thing and after a tentative start Max got a handle on that too! All in all it was a very satisfying afternoon of riding.

To end the day we joined the new riders and did some of the easier trails. Earlier we’d been talking to the instructor who had been looking after the new riders and he said you can never underestimate how tired the newbies are. The physical and mental demands on learning to ride from scratch are heavy. We all lined up as a group and headed out into the woods for one last ride together.

We were coming down a washout with rocks and loose dirt when the instructor eased up at the bottom, perhaps deciding which way to turn. I was up on the pegs behind him and was able to stop, but Max was behind me and couldn’t. Ethan was behind him and said Max hit the back brake hard enough to lock up, but with the loose surface and incline he slid right into me, trapping my ankle between his front fork and my bike. When he came off, his bike surged forward as it stalled, driving into my ankle even more.

It was trapped so tight I was thinking it was already broken, but SMART doesn’t mess around with the kit. Those SIDI off road boots are the balls. Having been caught between the two bikes (which were now locked together), there was an incredible amount of pressure on my ankle, but the boots were taking the brunt. I couldn’t move and was frustrated that I hadn’t avoided the situation entirely, but it was a series of events I couldn’t see behind me and the accident was no one’s fault. Max was feeling terrible about it, but once the tail end instructor had run down the hill and seperated the bikes, I got up and tested the ankle and was stunned to find I could stand on it without any real pain. Even now, a day later, it’s only mildly bruised and I’m able to walk on it without any pain. If I hadn’t been in good off road boots I’d have dust for an ankle.

We got the bikes sorted out (one of the plastic panels had popped out on my Honda 250cc, but was popped back in – it wasn’t even cracked!) and continued the ride. At the end of the day we got back to the SMART office and all was good.

As I told Max, “this was about as ideal an accident as you could have!” He learned about
leaving space, keeping his eyes up and experienced target fixation for the first time (which might one day save his life if he’s learned to look where he wants to go). It also underlined my belief in ATGATT. I tell you what, thanks to SMART I’m going to be looking for some SIDI dirt boots when I finally get my own kit. They aren’t cheap, but then neither is a broken ankle. Wear the right kit and even if you have an accident, you walk away!

I’m still hoping to get Max and I sorted out with a couple of tidy 250cc bikes to go trail riding together. It’s great exercise, a wonderful way to get deep into the woods and sure, it could be dangerous, but with the right kit and a sensible approach to riding it’s a manageable risk that can also have minimum environmental impact. A knowledgeable trail rider leaves no trace while exploring wilderness in a way that few other activities allow, often enjoying over 70mpg.

I know a lot of people think of motorcycling as a pointless risk that is destined for injury, but that isn’t the point at all. When done well, as we did it yesterday, riding is the best kind of exercise for your mind and body, and something I’m always willing to mitigate risk on in order to enjoy. I’ve heard of many people who have an accident and never ride again, but that isn’t my way.

We’re aiming to do a full day SMART later this year. Funds permitting, we’ll get ourselves independently riding off road eventually, but in the meantime, SMART provides the kit and the bikes along with some vital mentorship. We’ll both be better riders by the time we’re soloing on the trails in our own gear on our own bikes.

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Making Miles on the Concours

We had a break in the Canadian winter (in April) and I finally got a chance to exercise the Concours. This jaunt took me over 250kms from where I live in the tedious industrial farming desert of South Western Ontario, an hour up to the road to the edge of the Niagara Escarpment where I have a small chance of finding a corner to ride around. It usually gets colder by the lake, but contrary to physics, it went from 12°C when I left up to 27° by the lake. It only dropped down into the low 20s again once I found some altitude on Blue Mountain (a hill anywhere but in Ontario).

https://goo.gl/maps/6DWBjfGv1WgbX6Ws5

It is actually nuclear powered! I feel like I really bonded with the Connie on this ride – we sailed for miles and we had many more in us when we stopped for the day. If you’re light on the throttle it gets reasonable mileage, but it’s a wonderful thing when you wake up that motor. Kawasaki has a special touch with engines.

I had the 360 camera along for the ride and put together a montage using an incredibly complicated process that involves batch processing the 360 panaramas into ‘tiny planet’ images and then clipping them all together in video editing. It isn’t for the faint of heart, but it sure looks unique. This is the how-to if you’re feeling brave.

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2022 Imaging Kit Wishlist

What I’d upgrade equipment-wise if I had my druthers:

360 Cameras

Ricoh Theta Z1: most 360 cameras are built for action video and make photography an afterthought. The Z1 is a photography first tool with the largest sensor, raw image file options and a quality of image quality rather than quantitity. It’s expensive, but if you’re into 360 photography and especially exploring the edges of it, the Z1 is the tool.

Cost: $1350

GoPro Max 360 Camera: I’ve chewed up a few Thetas doing action photography. The GoPro Max is pretty much everything proof and produces quality 360 images, though it is (like most 360 cameras) video focused.

At 16.6 mega-pixels the Max produces nice images, and the time lapse photography option would work well for on-bike photography.

It’d be nice to have an on-bike camera that I could just leave filming when the rains come. I currently have to get the dainty Theta out of the way whenever the weather sets in.

Cost: $730

Aerial/Drone Photography

DJI Mini 2 : I’ve got a Phantom 2 and it’s a fine thing, but it’s big and increasing restrictions on drone flight make it more and more difficult to fly. You can get around most of that by flying a micro drone (under 250 grams), which don’t require the same restrictions.

There are super cheap options with poor cameras and disposable air-frames, but the Mini-2 borrows the best tech from its big brothers in a small, foldable package that travels well.

Cost: $520

Digital SLR Camera Updates

Canon 6D Mk2 SLR camera body: I’m still enjoying my Canon Rebel T6i and I’d want an more advanced camera body that would still let me use the lenses I’m familiar with. The 6D is the next step on from the entry level Rebel cameras with improved features and range. Stepping up doesn’t come cheap though, though it would still be able to use my current lenses.

They describe my Rebel as a ‘beginner’ camera, though I’ve won competitions against ‘pros’ with ‘pro’ cameras, but the marketing does mess with my pride.

Body Cost: $1800

CANON EF 100MM F2.8 L MACRO IS USM LENS

I love macro photography and use the Canon basic macro lens on the Rebel. This is the stop up full-frame lens for the 6D.

It would have to be next level because this lens alone costs more than my current camera body with a tele, prime and macro lens.

$1700

SIGMA 24-70MM F2.8 DG OS HSM CANON (ART)

Described as a bright standard lens that makes use of the 6D’s full frame sensor.

Another lens that by itself costs more than all the lenses I currently have. DSLR shooting out of the ‘beginner’ cameras is for the privileged.

$1600

CANON EF 70-200MM F2.8L IS III USM LENS

If you think the others are dear, here’s your telephoto, and only up to 200mm, for less than most of my motorcycles have cost.

$2700

I’d like more reach with a full frame camera but pro-really long telephotos start to get into same-price-as-a-car money. I’ve explored Olympus’s DSLR alternatives and enjoyed owning super-zoom all-in-one cameras too. Super zooms have come a long way in recent years. Sony’s DSC-RX10MIV has a massive 1 inch CMOS sensor promising good low light photography while also offering an astounding 24-600mm reach on a built in lens. Rather than chuck thousands at lenses and DSLR bodies (and then have to lug it all around), maybe a next-gen all-in-one super zoom should be next, though if this is a wish list then the money wouldn’t matter.

Rather than flash “pro” kit around, I’m looking for ways to innovate my photography. A full-frame DSLR would be nice, but for a fraction of the cash I could get myself a current micro-drone, a powerful super-zoom and the latest in 360 camera technology, which even with all my experience with, I still feel like I’m only just scratching the surface.

In a variation on photography, I’ve also previously explore 3d scanning with the first gen Structure Sensor. Their current PRO model is $695 (US) and comes out this summer. That’d also be on my short-list of ‘imaging tools’.

If I avoided the DSLR money-pit, I’d be into five and half grand in the latest imaging tools (360 cameras, drone, big sensor all-in-one super-zoom and 3d scanner). That’s 1/3 the price of a single ‘pro’ level telephoto lens. Wish list or not, I think I can do more interesting things with digital imaging with a more diverse set of tools.

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BYOD: yet another edtech failure

Four years ago I was advocating for BYOD.

I was a big fan of the bring your own device (BYOD) approach to educational technology. I’d hoped that it would diversify the technology we were using in class that looked like it was evolving toward a Google owned Chromebook driven internet and would allow the students who wanted to differentiate their digital access to do so. It should also have left more money free to ensure that all students have some kind of digital access, therefore addressing equity of access worries. It turns out that offering free data to students means there isn’t a lot of money left for anything and has been detrimental to teaching digital fluency.

Our school board went in early and built out wireless infrastructure and developed a BYOD network that was open to anyone entering one of our schools. In the years since this happened the number of students bringing in their own devices hasn’t changed (most do), but the type of device they bring and fill up the network with also hasn’t changed. Laptops and other more creation focused devices are a non-entity on our BYOD network – it is packed full of smartphones focused on personal use. You can make an argument for these devices as creation tools, but their function is built around consumerism and the data collection that monetizes the modern internet. The vast majority of smartphone users are consumers by design, not creators in anything other than a selfie sense.

The vast majority of those smartphones are not used for school work and are often directly opposed to it. Our administration is now trying to manage cyberbullying that is happening in class across the entire school on networks students shouldn’t even have access to. The problems caused aren’t just lack of student focus in class, these devices cause systemic problems as well.

If a smartphone is used for anything class related it is a minuscule percent of its daily use. Many of our teachers have issues with managing off task smartphone use in class. Earnest #edtech types (usually with corporate backing) tell us this is because we’re not doing it right and we should buy into their system. As someone who was doing it right before your Google/Apple/Whatever certification existed, I’m here to tell you that this is nonsense. Smartphones aren’t creative tools, they aren’t designed to be, they’re designed by data collection companies to collect data. Trying to build your classroom around a device like that is like trying to set up a roofless tent in a rainstorm to stay dry.

Our school board has made numerous attempts to focus network data use on learning, but students are willing to open themselves up to phishing and other hacks by installing policy banned VPN networks to bypass website filters. Even in our carefully moderated network environment we’ve got students sharing their data through unknown off shore servers just so they can Snapchat while in class. They do all this without a clue about what they’ve done to their data integrity.

I’m not sure at what point school boards in Ontario decided that they should be providing free internet to students, but it isn’t cheap. Our board has struggled to stay ahead of the data tsunami caused by all these vampire smartphones clamping on to our BYOD network each day. Apps that constantly update and stream data are the new normal and the current round of digital natives expect to be able to drink from the tap all the time in whatever manner they see fit. This is costing tens of thousands of dollars a month at a time when department budgets are tightening up and I’m not even given enough to cover the basic costs of consumables like wiring and electrical components in my technology classroom.

I would love to see BYOD being used for its intended purpose, but instead of valuing the network they’ve been given, students see it as an expectation, like running water or electricity. They make minimal efforts to moderate their use of it and become incensed if it’s adjusted to try and focus them on using it for school related work while in the classroom. If it was taken away at this point I think there would be much gnashing of teeth and agonized screaming by students who think that free internet access is some kind of constitutional right. In the meantime we’re all paying millions of dollars a month across the province to provide these students with bandwidth that feeds their habitual technology use and is more often a detriment to learning.

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but simply offering internet for everything doesn’t seem to be working. Once again, I come back to the lack of a digital fluency continuum of learning in Ontario. If students aren’t shown how to use technology effectively, offering them unbridled access to it isn’t going get us anywhere.

Our implicit enabling of habitual technology use makes for whole generations of digital narcissists.

It’s been five years now and Ontario still has no mandatory digital skills continuum even though digital technology is pretty much everywhere now. We expect students to learn foundational skills in other aspects that are curriculum wide (literacy, numeracy), but we magically expect them to understand and make effective use of digital technology. The BYOD failure is just another symptom of this disease.

All we have to do to do it, is do it:

I don’t care whose skills development process we use, but can we start teaching technology if we’re going to use it in everything? Digital technology is prompting systemic change in how we share information, create media and collaborate on learning. Can we start to treat it like the fundamental skill it is? Please?!?

I roughed out an idea a few years ago – in it I suggested limiting access to technology to fluency and slowly opening up that access as technical skills improved. BYOD is a great idea for digitally fluent students who know what it is and how to use it effectively.

In literacy terms this would be like slowly increasing reading difficulty as vocabulary and reading fluency improves. What we do with digital technology is nothing at all until a student brings in their own copy of War and Peace, which they then use to prop open doors and doodle in it.

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KDF: Kingfisher Digital Foundry

In my day job I’m a high school computer engineering teacher. The subject is still relatively new and covers a ridiculous range of differing technologies, all lumped under ‘computer technology’ because they all have some vague connection to it. While teaching it in class can be demanding, the upside is that in the decade I’ve been working away at it I’ve become familiar with technology well beyond my background in IT. From electronics engineering to 3d modelling and 3d printing, I’ve had a front row seat to the evolution of digital technology as it rapidly expands and evolves in the 21st Century.

The other benefit of this front row seat is that I’ve gotten to work with some skilled teachers with diverse technical backgrounds. From Jeff who was working in CAD and 3d industrial design when most people didn’t have a computer to Katy the engineer who was one of the only people in our school board who could get the first generation of 3d printers dependable enough to actually use in class, I know some very technically adept adults.

Then there are my graduates, who have gone off to work in fields ranging from robotics and industrial engineering to electronics, IT and computer science; I know years of very technically advanced young adults who bring a staggering array of expertise and intelligence to the table.

On this cold and rainy March Break Tuesday in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic, I’m wondering how we could leverage all that expertise and create a niche product that could serve a number of different markets.

I recently found myself frustrated by a lack of parts for the late ’90s Honda Fireblade I was restoring. Knowing that Katy has been using 3d printing to create prototypes in her class, including printing in flexible materials, I was wondering why no one has filled this gap as business proposition. To replace one perished airbox rubber tube I would have had to pay to get four them shipped from a place in the UK at over €100; no one in North America had one. I suspect Jeff could have made an accurate model in an hour and then Katy could have printed it in about 30 minutes. We’d then have that model on hand if it was ever ordered again and could be filling individual orders for them in thirty minutes. At $20 plus shipping for the part we’d be offering rare parts that meet specific needs for way less than the market is willing or able to at the moment. For ten bucks more we could put initials or a symbol on a printed piece to satisfy the customizers. Beyond the capital costs of getting the 3d printer needed, printing a part we had a model for is a quick and easy process and would only require maybe $5 in parts and power.

There are other angles to this besides micro-manufacturing old, out of production parts. We could also create small batch bespoke parts for companies building prototypes. By rapidly producing accurate, high tolerance parts, we’d also be creating a library of digital 3d model files that could also be part of the service. Those models could then go on be used in production.

Beyond the out-of-production parts market and assisting companies in with their prototyping needs, there is also the opportunity to pursue bespoke custom parts. Within five minutes of the first time I saw 3d printed additive manufacturing technology, I started thinking about custom motorcycle fairings. The default at the moment is to stamp out cheap copies of fairings, but it wouldn’t cost much more to digitally redesign unique 3d variants of fairings and sell those, it would just need a large format printer. Variations in ducting for people wanting to fit a turbocharger? No problem. Want to get really crazy? A dragon scale fairing for a Game of Thrones fan? This is a 3d printed fairing with scales that have depth and texture. It would take custom motorcycle design to the next level, especially with a sympathetic paint job on top.

As far as the technology needed to create our digital foundry, I’m partial to the Formlabs 3d printers because they look like something out of Terminator. They also produce very high resolution models. Their new 3L large format printer comes close to being able to make detailed, high resolution models almost up to a cubic foot in size.

The process of additive manufacturing (3d printing) is surging forward. It isn’t quite ready for the range of parts I have in mind, which would include being able to print 3d flexible parts that are fuel resistant, but this is more a chemical engineering bottleneck than anything else, and chemistry these days is rocketing ahead.

I’m hoping that just as I’m ready to retire from teaching, micro-manufacturing will have caught up and I can retire right into another profession making locally developed and manufactured bespoke components in a micro-manufacturing facility of my own, Big Hero 6 style.

Front right is a holographic desktop and keyboard – not quite there yet, but I’ve got physical hardware that does the same job now. The blue thing in the back right corner is a large format 3d printer – in the film he prints everything from carbon fibre armour to metal mechanical parts. This kind of localized production will be the norm rather than the exception in the next couple of decades. You can watch Big Hero 6 on Disney – I highly recommend it.

***

This isn’t the first time I’ve kicked around the idea of applying emerging digital technologies to mechanics and manufacturing:

https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2016/04/on-verge-of-future.html

https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2015/11/iihtm-digital-workshop.html

Yesterday I was out in the garage using a Structure Sensor to 3d model my motorcycles, there are so many things we could do digitally with mechanical engineering and manufacturing:

1997 Honda Fireblade CBR900RR

by timking17

on Sketchfab

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1971 Triumph Bonneville T120 Sensible Bodywork Bolt Replacements

I’m in the process or stripping the last bits of hardware from the frame and bodywork in order to clean up and paint the frame and bodywork on the 51 year old Bonneville project bike. The bolts holding the licence plate holder onto the rear fender were 4 different sizes with the longest ones protruding so far toward the wheel that they’d be a safety hazzard on a big bump (the tire would make contact with them on full suspension compression, especially with me on it).

I was talking to a friend online who made a career out of flying helicopters for the military and he said he’s found wrong sized hardware in controls that have actually jeopardized flight safety. One of the rhings I enjoy about motorcycle mechanics is that it feels closer to aviation than four wheel appliance repair where an error like this might cause you inconvenience as you roll to a stop on the side of the road. If you’re up in the air or out on a bike and you have a catasrophic mechanical failure, it’s a very different consequence.

Another pilot friend (the perils of being an air cadet), when we were going up for a flight in a Cessna, brought it back around and landed when the engine didn’t feel right. Everyone was impatient at the delay, but he said something that is simply true that many people don’t consider when their flight is delayed: “it’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than being up there wishing you were down here.” It’s a shame more people who work on bikes don’t think the same way. I’ve seen even professional work that was half assed to save time/money. Incompetence like that puts a rider’s life at risk needlessly. It can end up costing you far more than you saved.

Pretty sure that last one isn’t a stock Triumph bolt. These’ll all get replaced with metric bolts because they’re easier to find, but they’ll be the right length, matching and be staineless steel.

The 14-0101 bolts used to fasten the fenders on the ’71 Bonneville are 1/4″ X 1/2″ X 28 UNF, which are a bugger to try and find a match for. The longest bolt on the bike was an inch and a half – way too long for where it was. Working with SAE/imperial sizes on this bike makes it a real pain to match hardware out of what I have on hand, but stuffing a bolt that long onto a bike where it can interfere with the wheel isn’t sensible.

SAE Wrench Size	Bolt Size (SI)	Metric Wrench Size
5/16″	1/8″	8 mm
3/8″	3/16″	10 mm
7/16″	1/4″	11 mm
1/2″	5/16″	13 mm
9/16″	3/8″	14 mm
5/8″	7/16″	16 mm
3/4″	1/2″	19 mm
13/16″	9/16″	21 mm
7/8″	9/16″	22 mm
15/16″	5/8″	24 mm

1/4″ bolts can be replaced with an 11mm metric option and finding stainless steel versions of these are easy. I can also get four matching that are the correct length for the job at hand rather than bunging whatever I have in the toolbox onto the bike. Compared to other costs in this restoration, hardware costs are trivial (for under $40CAD I can get a 900+ piece kit). When I’m dropping $600+ on a new head, spending a bit on properly sized bolts seems like a no-brainer.

Of course, body panel fasteners are a different proposition to what you put into a motor or transimssion – in those cases I’d always use stock pieces to manage the heat and pressures involved as decided by the engineers to designed the thing, but for bodywork there is a bit more latitude, you just don’t want to be a pratt about it.

While sorting the
frame I’ve cleaned
up the oil in frame
drain system.

The Amazon bolt set arrived in less than 24 hours. It is (of course) snowing today in mid-April in Canada, so moving the other bikes out of the garage to paint things isn’t likely, and I can’t paint outside if it’s snowing. You need 10°-30°C temperatures, no direcf sunlight and good ventilation. If I can get the other bikes out of the garage, open the door a foot and run the fan, I might be able to retain enough heat to do it, but Canada’s ‘spring time’ isn’t helping things along.

If had a wee outdoor shed I’d use it as a paint booth, heating it to the required temperature and then having a fan to move the overspray out. This DIY paintbooth would be a thing if I had a larger workshop, but a shed outside is a real possibility. It could provide storage, freeing up space in the garage, but with some crafty ventilation it’d also be a paintbooth. If I don’t get to painting today, I can at least finish prepping the frame and body panels and hope for warmer temperatures later in the week.

New tires and innertubes are on hand. The frame is being prepped.
I’ve still got some other body panels to clean and prep for painting.

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Motorcycle Gear as a Pre-Game Ritual

Long before I got into riding motorcycles I discovered ice hockey as a new immigrant to Canada. I played whenever I could from backyard rinks to 5am practices to driving miles for games on evenings and weekends. The smell of a hockey rink is a happy one for me, as is the process of getting ready for a game. For many years I played net, which involved putting on over 70lbs of gear each time (this was back in the day when it was made with leather and bricks rather than the fancy space-aged stuff they have now).

I enjoyed getting to a game early and made putting on the gear a pre-game ritual. It gave me meditative time to get into the zone before I had to peak-perform. Perhaps this is why, when I saw this question on Facebook, it took me by surprise:

My ride starts when I go out into the garage and start putting the kit on. This isn’t tedious, it’s a chance to echo all those hours spent in cold arenas getting ready to lay it all out there on the ice; it’s an opportunity to put on my game face. I never end up on the bike out on the road half paying attention or thinking about something else because putting on the kit is a integral part of getting ready to ride for me.

I don’t know about a different person, but I am a focused person. Here’s the MotoGP video.

Getting my gear on builds a sense of anticipation, so the idea that this might be tedious feels very foreign. How can you be bored when you’re preparing to do something awesome? Robert Heinlein gives a good description of the feeling in Starship Troopers:

I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can’t really be afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t anything important—it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate.

Perhaps riding a bike for you is a flipflops, t-shirt and loud radio half-paying-attention kinda thing, but I take my riding a bit more seriously. Every time I’m able to get out onto a bike it’s worthy of my full attention, every time. Making sure I’ve got the right gear is an integral part of that, but so is the opportunity it provides to cultivate a strong mental riding game.

Back in 2015 we rode down to the Indy MotoGP round. Helmets are optional down that way and we went out once to pick up dinner just up the road without helmets, and it just felt wrong. The right kit means you can ride longer without getting wind or sunburned and can even make you more comfortable than free bagging it. Once you’ve got that approach, trying it the other way just feels wrong.

The gear makes the rider angle also means you don’t buy the cheapest junk you can find to check a box. I’ve spent years honing my gear so that when I put it on it fits, feels right and does what I want it to do. I started off cheap but soon found that if you spend a bit more you get the kind of quality that makes the extra outlay worth it. You can sometimes save money getting quality things second hand or on sale, but it’s false economy to get cheap gear and then expect it to work. If you get quality ventilated kit for the summer, it can keep you cool while keeping the sun and wind off you. If you get properly insulated gear for cold weather riding, you can sail for hours in temperatures approaching freezing. Good gear makes you superhuman.

Helmets are especially important. I’m partial to Roof Helmets because they’re of high quality and are an advanced, modular design that lets you change from a fully safetied full face helmet (lots of flip ups are only safetied as open-face helmets) to an open face ‘jet’ style helmet with a quick flip. They’re aerodynamic, quiet and ventilate well. I’ve tried many different lids, including a dalliance with that beaked adventure nonsense, but (for me) a helmet that lets me feel wind on my face quickly and easily (I can flip it up when passing through a town then be back to full face comfort again in seconds without stopping) was what worked. Getting into kit that feels this right and is well made is all part of the pre-ride ritual and is no hardship.

I frequently see people out on bikes that are wildly unequipped. They’re usually the cruiser-Captain Jack Sparrow types who are into riding for style rather than, um, riding. The bikes they tend to ride aren’t really into going around corners (or much else) and their riding gear follows suit. If that’s your kind of motorcycling then you’re probably not reading this anyway.

If you’re curious about sports psychology and how it might serve your bikecraft (assuming you see riding as a sport that demands practice and focus to improve your performance), there are a lot of links below on getting in the zone, peak performance and pre-game rituals. Pre-ride rituals work the same way, giving you a chance to clear away the clutter and get your head on straight.

If you watch any motor racing you’ll be aware of pre-race rituals that many riders adopt. Valentino Rossi was famous for his pre-race contortions, and those are only the visible ones! Doing this sort of thing looks eccentric, but you do what works for you in order to get yourself into a peak performance mindset. The amazing things you see athletes do don’t happen without mental preparation. Riding your bike well won’t happen without it either. Don’t get frustrated at putting your gear on, use that time to get yourself into the zone for your ride.

LINKS

Take advantage of pre-game routines:

Athletes stand a much better chance for getting in the zone when they make it a point to engage in a pre-game routine that allows them to think about the upcoming game, elevate their mood state, and lower their negative anxiety.

https://www.peaksports.com/sports-psychology-blog/how-a-pregame-routine-helps-athletes-succeed/

https://thevarsity.ca/2019/01/15/the-power-of-pregame-rituals/