Timothy King – Page 39 – Mechanical Sympathy

Yamaha’s FZ-09: the universal bike?

Since having the dream of a stable of bikes mangled thanks to the cruel calculus of insurance companies, I’ve been thinking about putting my eggs all in one basket. In looking over this year’s offerings one really stands out for me as a bike I could develop a long term relationship with.

What I’m looking for is a bike that offers a standard riding position so it’ll take to a variety of riding tasks. I like the look of a naked bike and I’m a fan of efficiency, so light weight is a must. So, an all-round naked bike that’s light on the scales, fits a big guy well and is dependable so I can make some miles on it.

Fortunately Yamaha has come out with the FZ-09, and it checks a lot of boxes. At a light-weight 414lbs and with a strong three cylinder engine, it’s a step up in power from the Ninja without heading into litre-bike territory. It’s standard riding position offers much less lean and deeper pegs for my too-long legs.

While the 650R is a sport-tourer, it sill puts me into
much more of a crouched riding position. I enjoy
the bike, but creak when I get off after a long ride. If
I’m carving up corners, it’s a beast. If I’m trying to
make some miles? Not so much.

An almost 1 inch taller seat, barely any forward lean
(11° less than the Ninja), 4% less bent knees, and
14% less crouch. An all purpose bike that
fits nicely? I hope the FZ feels as good as it should.

That 414 lbs means the FZ-09 comes in 26lbs lighter than the Ninja, and it manages to do it while carrying one more cylinder and an additional 200ccs. The FZ is even 16 lbs lighter than a KLR, which makes me wonder what a scrambler FZ might look like. With some knobbly tires, wire wheels, longer suspension and guard, there aren’t too many places it couldn’t go. RTW on an FZ? Perhaps!

Is there such a thing as a universal bike, maybe the FZ is it…

And it even comes in orange!

There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for an athletic red-head…

Tablets are like high heels

I’ve had an opportunity to use a Motorola Xoom tablet this week and respond to my board about how it might be used in class rooms. I’ve been crushing on the idea of getting a tablet for a while now. After using netbooks in class last semester, I love the idea of a rotatable screen that lets you read without over-scrolling, the super battery life, instant on functionality and the super small form factor.

Last year at ECOO I got to use an ipad for a day, but the wireless was so dodgey (not the ipad’s fault), that I barely got any real sense of how it could work. This time round the tablet was with me at work, at home and everywhere in between.

The Xoom has a higher resolution, wide screen and faster processor than the ipad2, and runs on the Android Honeycomb OS (it’s basically a google device). It gets along natively with any google apps and lets you access the MASSIVE android marketplace so that your six year old can play a lot of Angry Birds. It also plays Flash, so you don’t get the internet-lite ipad experience.

One of the amazing things about touch screens is how quickly and intuitively people take to them. Said six year old was tossing birds at towers in moments, and skipping through the OS to watch youtube or find new software. As a tool for children, or people new to the world of digital content, tablets make a great opening. Tablets offer a great feel of immediacy, you’re actually touching the content. Keyboards start to look like bars on the door to the digital wonderland. Thinking about how poor most people’s typing is, this might be a tablet’s greatest strength.

The android honeycomb OS works well enough, I occasionally experienced bog downs when trying to type (an agonizing process on a touch screen which I thought would be better than what happens on my touch screen android phone, but wasn’t). Its biggest draw back was no Firstclass (school email) android app, so I couldn’t see board email, which makes it somewhat useless as a communication device for me at work (the Firstclass web interface stinks). If our board moves to Google, as it looks like it will, Honeycomb will suddenly look like a smart choice though.

Any kind of data entry is where I fall down on this tablet thing. I’ve seen certain (Barkerish) people touch typing on ipads (curious to know what her wpm are), but this seems like a painful transition. My typing on the Xoom alternated between trying to thumb type while in landscape mode and not being able to reach the middle of the keyboard (and I don’t have small hands), thumb text typing in portrait mode but the weight of the tablet made this uncomfortable, or trying to actually type from the home keys while it’s on my lap or on a table (when it wasn’t trying to re-orientate itself). The lack of tactile feedback if you’re a touch typer means you’re relearning how to assess accuracy (made more difficult when it pauses on you before barfing out a pile of letters). The lack of response and no tactile feed back had me deleting half a line of painfully entered text only to go back and make corrections. Trying to touch the screen and go to the specific error was pretty hit and miss, so I often resorted to the ‘screw it, I’ll start over again’ approach.

I like to make content, especially writing. I can’t imagine using a tablet for that. It was even uncomfortable for tweets and social networking, I just didn’t like trying to enter data into it. I could work at improving typing on the screen, but I don’t think I’ll ever come close to how fast I can type on a good, tactile, nicely spaced keyboard with responsive keys, so why bother?

The other contenty side of things for me are graphics. If I’m working in photoshop, I need processing horsepower to move big files (not a tablet forte), and very fine control (a super high dpi mouse minimum, or a very accurate drawing slate). A finger print covered screen that only senses gross motor commands sets of my OCD (I HATE dirty screens, I even clean my car windshield often), and does very little for me in creating graphic content where I want fine control of the environment.

I get the whole tablet thing, I mean, who wouldn’t want to look this cool? And tablets aren’t without their perks. The battery life is incredible, I ran it all day at school, then it came home and got beaten up on by @banana29 and the mighty Max, often doing very processor heavy tasks – even in that consumptive environment, it took 13+ hours of constant on again off again use before it cried for a recharge.

The instant on functionality is another aspect of that immediacy that must appeal to the old or very young, it removes another barrier to access. All computers should be instant on, no boot time at all, otherwise the web isn’t immediate, and becomes a secondary mental realm instead of enhancing our reality. You don’t get enhanced reality after a 30 second bootup. Win7 does quite well on new laptops with this, open the lid and it’s on, everything should be that instant, or it’s just too far away.

As a web browser, the tablet seems untouchable. I wish they could design a laptop screen that would rotate to vertical for reading and writing, then drop into horizontal mode the odd time you need it like that; auto-rotation rocks. I think I’d keep it in portrait mode most of the time, I don’t watch high def movies on a laptop, I’m not sure why wide screens are now the norm, I’d prefer a tall one.

The size of this tablet is pretty sweet too. The Xoom would disappear into any kind of bag with ease, and is very light and so thin as to be invisible.

What I’ve got here is a device that is only good in a few, specific situations, it fits in a very thin place between my smart phone and my laptop, a space that I suspect is actually too small for me to care about now that I’ve tried it.

I don’t care for super small phones, and I’d be just as happy with a big 5 inch smartphone that has tablety qualities than I would with a book sized tablet that works well as a reader, but I can’t seem to find another use for. If convergence is what we’re aiming for, tablets are an offshoot that will eventually be subsumed by a smartphone evolution (I’d bet on build-in, interactive projectors in phones that make bigger screens moot).

The Xoom and ipad look fantastic, but the touch screen makes me nuts when it gets finger printy, and is sometimes unresponsive (though I must admit having less problems there with the ipad, so maybe that’s an Android issue, or just what you get for not having to run any gadgets or flash). You wouldn’t type anything meaningful on a tablet, you can’t take decent photos or video with it (you’d do far better with a dedicated camera), but it looks fantastic, futuristic and makes the user look very chic.

Like those awesome Tron inspired stilettos, the Xoom is great to think about using, but after 10 minutes, you wouldn’t be getting much done and it would just hurt, though you’d still look fabulous!

Tablets are like high heels PART DEUX! (complete with awesome geeky high heels!)

Finishing Touches

The snow is slowly receeding. This week I was down in the city and saw someone buzz by on a bike and got all revved up. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve put the Ninja back together. It’s about where I want it now in terms of looks. It’s gone from a debranded, flat black angry young man’s bike to a colourful machine that knows what it is.

After it warmed up enough to get the paint sorted I sourced some stickers from The Sportbike Sticker Shop. They arrived the day before they were supposed to in a plain envelope with cardboard backing in perfect shape ready to apply. Since I was going for a blue and orange colour scheme and I could colour customize the Ninja stickers, I did.

I went for black Kawasaki logo writing for the lower fairing and 650r stickers for the front. I picked up a Triumph sticker for the toolbox and the Japanese kanji for shinobi (Ninja). Instead of on the toolbox the kanji ended up on the bike on the ‘interesting’ side (the side with the shock). The metallic silver sticker looks great on the flat black leading into the exhaust port on the fairing.

The stickers went on well and seem to have bonded perfectly. The site says you can clearcoat over them, so I’ll do that as a final step and it’ll be done. I recommend The Sportbike Sticker Shop – you get your order quickly, it’s very competitively priced and the stickers are quality pieces that look great when you get them on, just don’t be surprised if you get what looks like a letter from a relative only to find it full of awesome stickers.

With any luck we’ll have some heavy rain and then a 10+°C day and I’ll be off on the kingfisher coloured Ninja.

What thirty bucks gets you from The Sportsbike Sticker Shop

paper teachers

This is another go at the Tyranny of Paper, with a sprinkling of teacher psychology…

Ecology

Trying to balance photocopy budgets.

I recently got my photocopying costs for the computer department for the first half of the spring semester. Every class we teach in computers has a 1:1 student:computer ratio. You’d think there wouldn’t be any photocopying costs.

The one teacher we have teaching computers full time did $273 in photocopying from February to April this semester. I happen to be teaching an English so I get to see their copying costs too. The most expansive copier in English where they have to kill to get computer access and have to actually teach letters on paper? $217. Most of the others were less than half that.

This made me angry. If you have computers in front of every student, why in heaven’s name wouldn’t you use them to communicate with your students? How would teaching computer programming be easier on paper? With a limited budget that requires very specific (and expensive) hardware and software, why would I want to spend 1/5 of my budget so a single teacher can produce thousands of sheets of paper?

A recent analysis of photocopying costs (one of the single largest costs in our school and I imagine most others), was that a typical student collects an entire tree worth of handouts in their k-12 career…
each…
student…

The ecological costs are staggering. Billions a year and entire forests are consumed so students around the world can get handouts. I’m not convinced the return on investment balances the educational advantages with the ecological costs, but education is a conservative beast, and getting it to change industrial era habits isn’t easy.

Psychology

Teacher preparing for class

The ecological disaster aside, I’ve always been curious about this photocopying habit in teachers. In teacher’s college I asked myself why I was lining up for photocopiers all the time. When you’re new, you are terrified that what you’re doing will not take the whole period, so you structure it on a photocopy to slow students from tearing through the work. It also takes the attention off you and puts it on the desk, so you don’t feel like you’re madly tap dancing for the whole lesson. It also means you’ve done much of the organization for students who seem increasingly incapable of organizing themselves. Lastly, it allows you face the students while giving them information, something a new teacher is conscious of every time they turn their back to write on the board.

After using the photocopier crutch for the first couple of years I put an end to it. I use the board if I need to display visually or help students organize information. I trust in my ears and the relationship I’ve developed with my class (which can often involve a Snape like, direct approach to inappropriate action early in the semester) when it comes to helping them learn with my back turned. Watching some of our senior teachers, I get the sense that they never put the photocopying crutch away, in fact, they’ve developed their entire career around it.

I also had the benefit of not being particularly beholden to 20th Century habits around institutional teaching, and leapt at the opportunity to get into elearning and digitally based education early on, further removing me from the pulp and paper teachers. One of the big cultural divides in our school is between the paper teacher and the digital teacher.

Media Arts Course webpage (NING)

I still occasionally have to make copies, typically for tests and such, but I try and minimize that too. When compared to department averages, I typically produce about 1/10th the copies. When I’m given a computer lab, I typically produce no copies at all. Course webpages, wikis and shared documents are the means of information transmission. In media arts I’ve had students submitting shared docs (google or skydrive) and prezis when they need to show a presentation. The entire course takes place on a private social network (Ning).

The past couple of months we’ve had a Canadian copyright foundation watchdog asking people to write down what they’re copying to ensure fair distribution of copyright funds. How very 20th Century of them, but I guess a modern high school is just the place to monitor people still doing what they were doing twenty years ago.

hiding behind photocopies

paper teacher
copies of a copy

Hack The Future

Between questions of how student data is being used and technology monopolists pushing for standardization in edtech, I’m left with an uneasy feeling. As we reach a tipping point in digital educational technology we simplify and standardize to the point where the people doing the teaching don’t know or care what happens behind the curtain. What is happening behind that curtain is being decided in closed rooms between multi-national corporations and governments. The bait is a ‘free’ digital learning system for education. The payoff is habituated users and data mining on a level unprecedented in history, and we’re happy to sell our students and ourselves into it in order to get the freebies.

If this were all happening in the light of day I’d be a lot happier about it. That it’s happening behind closed doors and shouldn’t be publicized is something that should concern everyone.

If you’re not paying for it you’re the product being sold. Corporations may state that they do no evil but they aren’t after what education is after, they are after profit. That student information is being brokered well beyond the reach of educational institutions by these information merchants should be a cause of concern, but instead I see public educators increasingly branding themselves with corporate logos and shouting their evangelism from the social media rooftops.

Technology is exciting, and digital technology is such an intimate thing because it nestles up to our minds. Our habit of elastically coupling with our technology suggests that digital-tech is going to become an intrinsic part of how we see ourselves. People are already describing unplugging as feeling like an amputism, it’s only going to become more entwined, especially as we begin to wear our digital selves.

I’m reminded of Kenneth Clark‘s unsettling end to what many consider to be the best documentary series ever created, Civilisation…

http://youtu.be/waoEyjE_dtU?t=35m31s

Start at 35:30 if the link doesn’t take you right there.

That one of the most intelligent observers of human society was pondering this in the year I was born lurks in the back of my mind. Machines that make decisions for us, many educators seem thrilled with this idea. You may be all gungho over the latest shiny i-thing or googly-eyed over that app that will revolutionize your teaching, but the true costs of these things are a carefully kept secret. At the very least, when we adopt a single digital ecosystem (no matter how free it is), we’re selling our students (and our own) habitual technology use into a closed environment.

As educators it should be a goal to recognize tools in terms of what they can do rather than how easy they are and how well integrated they come. And we should never be deciding on a tool that inserts itself into the learning process based on how little we’re expected to learn about it. Technology and the internet aren’t Google, and tablets aren’t Apple. Computers aren’t Microsoft. Only by offering students access to all of these things and more are we approaching the teaching of technology in as complete and well rounded a way as possible.

Over the past ten years I’ve watched education stagger into digitization always hesitant to change old ways, and I’ve pushed as hard as I can to encourage that change. Only by catching up to this revolution can we hope to prepare students for the strange world that awaits them. Now that we’re at a tipping point I’m watching what could be a powerful new fluency being boiled down into canned access to technology, always under a single brand. Instead of teaching technology like it’s becoming an intimate part of our lives (which it is), we pass it off with idiotic notions like ‘digital native‘ that allow people who have no interest in learning technology to also off-load the responsibility of teaching our children about technology. Into that ignorance vacuum corporations have crept, offering you an easy solution, and most people are more than happy to take it even if it means being walled in to a monopoly.

I wrote last on the idea of being a tech-ronin, a digital samurai without a master. That works for me but I come from a time before data dictated who I am. I’m worried about my students. In a world where we’ve sold them into digital servitude as data sheep (call them digital natives if that makes you feel better), the only way out is to know the system well enough to circumvent it. Instead of teaching a closed, monopoly limited mindset in technology that serves everyone except my students, I want them to develop a broad understanding of digital tools and how they work. In a broad edtech learning environment my students will develop a meta-cognitive view of both technology and how they are represented by it. In a time where we are increasingly defined by our data the only free people will be the ones who have a sense of themselves beyond their student record in the LMS.

My department logo has ‘learn how to build the future’ on it, but perhaps I need to make a change just to give my students a chance to self-realize beyond whatever data metric they are being sold into.

Rage against the machine

Digital House of Mirrors

The digital house of mirrors we all live in.

It’s early days, ECOO isn’t until next October, and I’m reticent to say what I’m going to present on months ahead of time. The digital learning landscape can change quite significantly in eight months.

My previous ECOO presentations have followed an interesting arc, from philosophy to specific action. My first go with Dancing in the Datasphere talked about fundamental changes happening to us as we transition to a data driven world. The mini-lab followed a year later, the idea there being that we diversify technology in order to develop true digital fluency in students. Last year the final step was to work toward a digital skills continuum. Only by integrating a developing skill set into curriculum will we begin producing students who have the technical skills necessary to survive and thrive in the digital age.

That trajectory, no doubt pushed by my transition to computer studies from English, had me looking at developing greater student familiarity with computing tools because I see a great deal of ignorance in the ‘digital natives‘ I’m teaching every day, but that focus was technically biased.

For those of us who have lived as adults through the last twenty years of technological revolution, we sometimes forget where we’ve come from because we’re so engrossed with where we are. For ECOO this time round I’m thinking about what technology is demanding of us as people. Our selves are being stretched and amplified in ways they never have before. Nick Carr’s The Shallows puts us on a pretty stark trajectory towards idiocy with what is happening to us. The digitization of the self stretches us flat, making continuity of thought impossible and turning us all into distracted, simplistic cogs in a consumerist machine designed to turn us all into the lowest common denominator; none of us any smarter than our smartphones.

With the advent of social media we suddenly find ourselves existing in multiple places at once. Our self is no longer geographically focused. Our influence spreads across the internet. We are able to affect change in people and places formerly unconnected to us. The people we communicate with (albeit in a minimalist way) are far flung and many. The people we spend deep, attentive time with are fewer and diminished.

Our digital selves are perceived in many different ways. The aforementioned digital native tends to not differentiate between online and real world action. They often consider social media as just another conversation they are having, and are then shocked when something said publicly is responded to by the public. The generation of kids (our students) growing up in this ongoing social experiment never look at privacy settings, have little idea of the differences between social networks and tend to broadcast online what is on their minds in much the same way they would while hanging out with friends. The veil between the physical and the digital, between public and private is all but non existent to them.

Digital Footprints & Always On Teacher Faces

A more professional approach to managing the online self is to adopt marketing theory and develop your online brand. Companies and celebrities approach social media in this manner, often using marketing firms to manage and run their social media presence. I can’t help but think that this lack of genuine presence games the system and ultimately fails. It’s exhausting to maintain if you can’t hire marketing monkeys to run it for you, and ultimately, it’s fake. I’d much rather read my favourite author’s tweets from his own fingers than follow what someone trying to sell me something thinks I should be seeing. Many teachers fall into this trap when tentatively stepping into online presences. Spending your weeknights and weekends being mister or missus Teacher is nothing more than working all the time, forever.

The Cult of Done

If there is a positive future to a digitally enhanced self I’d hope it is through a genuine sense of self expression. We should be aware of what the tools are and how they work, and then we should use them to empower our access to information, our ability to mine deeply into details, to collaborate and develop community, to share our own creativity, interests and sense of discovery. The technology should not only allow us to do these things, it should be pushing us to maximize our effectiveness as thinkers and doers. Any technology that produces distracted idiots will doom the people using it. Evolution should still be eliminating the irrelevant, even in the digital realm.

It’s early days in this sea change of how we deal with a digitally enhanced self. In the future the hybrid intelligence of a digitized human will evolve toward a higher order of effectiveness. Those made useless by digital tools will, much like those weakened by an inability to read, become marginalized. Those able to harness information literacy will enjoy those advantages. Those who ignore it will find themselves increasingly unable to compete.

What that effective digital self looks like in students, in teachers, in people in general is where I’m currently thinking about pushing my research this year. How we adapt to these changes now will establish effective habits as the technology rapidly spins out of its infancy and into maturity. There is no better time to consider what a digitally enhanced human being should look like than now, when we’re in the process of inventing the very idea.

The idea of Web3.0, or intelligent/self organizing information suggests that the future of digitized humanity will inherently push toward greater effectiveness. The opportunity to be passive or stupid in a digital context will actually work against what the data wants to do for you; you’ll learn in spite of yourself, you’ll know what you need to know when you need to know it – the data itself will ensure this. It would be interesting to show the evolution of digital humanity over the past three decades, and where it might be going in the next twenty years.

The era of stupid/passive information is ending. The people that it has created will have to adapt to technology that demands more of them, or risk being made irrelevant by it.

Still Waiting…

The teacher PC in our school computer lab, like every other PC in the room, is a free-range machine. The whole lab runs on the newest Windows we can get (beta if it’s out) and are open to allow students to install and test various software in order to stay current with technology. We extensively use Microsoft’s Developer tools to test software and hardware.

On the teacher PC I purchased Windows 7. Then I purchased a Windows 8.1 Pro upgrade key a year later in order to keep up with student machines using Windows 8. The next year I was led into Windows 10 by Microsoft’s persistent upgrade messages. The lab was migrating to Windows 10 beta at that point so it made sense that I’d be seeing the same software as my students.

All was good until yesterday. My old motherboard only had 4 usb ports and couldn’t handle the number of peripherals I was needing plugged in. I installed a new motherboard, everything else stayed the same. The old motherboard got pressed into lab work and no longer had Windows on it.

Suddenly Windows 10 was plastered with activate warnings, so I contacted Microsoft. Here is the transcript.

I’m still waiting, they aren’t going to contact me.

After purchasing Windows 7, and purchasing 8.1 Pro, I’m told that they don’t hand out free Windows 10 keys? I’m not asking for a free key, I’m asking Microsoft to honour the multiple keys I’ve already purchased. I’m not purchasing another one, especially not at nearly $300 Canadian! It feels like extortion.

I’ve updated hardware before. It was a quick matter of the Microsoft admin updating the new hardware to match the old key. Apparently this is no longer possible. Windows 10 (a much needed improvement after getting me to buy the awkward Windows 8), will not let you migrate with hardware updates, something PC users do quite a lot. The PC that had Windows on it has been wiped and is no longer using it, so this isn’t a matter of getting ‘free’ Windows – it’s the same install on the same hard drive. Migration shouldn’t be difficult, but then why do it if you can force people into buying something they’ve already purchased (twice) over again?

If I’d purchased a Microsoft car and then had a new transmission installed, they’d tell me they no longer acknowledge the car and that I have to buy a new one. Were I running the old motherboard on the old hard drive with Windows and demanding a new key for a new machine, I’d agree that they shouldn’t give free licenses, but this isn’t that.

I’m a fan of Microsoft. I’ve been buying Windows since it was single digits and Microsoft OSes since they were DOS, but this whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. I expected better, especially from a company so committed to supporting education.

Unfortunately, this is turning into a teachable moment for the dozens of students I’m teaching I.T. to. That Microsoft’s support thinks the best solution is to simply walk away from a long time customer is pretty baffling too.

Followup: I’ve got Windows 10 reinstalled on that PC. I had to wipe the disk, reinstall Windows 7 (and download several gigs of downloads from Microsoft) before I updated to Windows 8.1 (followed by several more gigs of downloads), followed by the WIndows 10 update.

The Microsoft roadmap is this: we’ll give you Windows 10 ‘for free’, but we won’t let you reinstall it. If you make any hardware changes or need to reinstall, we’ll make it such a pain that we can then force you to re-buy Windows even though you already have.

The problem is that this process requires Microsoft to maintain drivers and support for two stale OSes (Win7, Win8+8.1), and pay for the bandwidth to allow owners of their software to reinstall and update what they own (even though they’ll never use it because they’re heading for 10). It’s like Microsoft is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

Anyone who has updated to Windows 10 should have a Windows 10 key that allows them to reinstall it. Their previous Windows keys should then go stale. Keeping everyone on the most current OS means better security for everyone and less overhead for Microsoft (who can then focus on making Windows 10 as bullet proof as possible).

I’m not sure which MBA wizard convinced them that their current approach is the best one. I can tell you that the engineers who have to make it happen wouldn’t be thrilled with it.

Wanderlust: A Travel Motorcycle Production Company

I’m at it again. Wanderlust, but with my trusty production crew this time.

North and West and then back again with the least amount of same roads:

I must have some kind of strange OCD, but I really enjoyed putting this together:

With scheduled production crew meetups and travelling together from Prince Rupert to Vancouver Island and back to Vancouver, it turns into a 41 day ride schedule with a 36 day production schedule. The production team (Max & Alanna) have 8 flights spread over the 36 days they are on the road.

This would be an opportunity to collect video and develop a cross Canada story from a lot of different angles. The production team would collect stock footage of the various regions we’re in and save footage and data off the bike at meetups. They’ll then backup all data including footage and keep it safe. I also hope they’d maybe develop their own stories in the process.

The goal of the production will to use the latest in digital tools to record the trip, eventually producing a variety of media out of it. My goal would be a written story of a long distance, cross Canada, endurance motorcycle ride with photography to support a book. I’d also then look to turn the ride into an episodic travel TV show.

Tools We’d be using

A 360° camera for experiential video.

I used a Ricoh Theta 360° camera a few weeks ago and was impressed with the results. I’m not sure how we’d integrate this video into a media piece, but it would open the door to exploring virtual reality, which feels like the next big thing. The lack of a single point of view makes for challenging post production, as does the huge amount of data it collects. ThetaS: $450 The 360fly could be another choice.

A Contour action camera on the bike.

I used this last fall and found its small profile ideal for collecting video from a motorcycle. The upper scale model allows memory and battery swap-outs, making it ideal for shooting on long days. I’d have one wired in to the bike so it could keep shooting for footage we could use in high speed video. When things get really rough up north, this will keep collecting footage when others fail. Conour+2: $430
The Olympus Tough TG-Tracker might be an interesting alternative.

I’m partial to Olympus Cameras. In addition to the video camera on the bike, I’d also carry an Olympus OM-D E-M1 DSLR for photography. It’s weatherproof and tough, takes a wide variety of lenses (I’d carry a tele-zoom, 2x teleconverter and super wide angle with me).

Backup batteries and memory cards mean it’ll keep going all day.

Olympus OM-D E-M1: body & lenses $2800

The production team would carry a pro-quality DSLR camera for shooting highest quality video. The Canon EOS 70D is generally considered the top DSLR for video. With proper video LED lighting, tripod and on camera and interview mics this kit would collect top quality video and sound. Multiple battery and memory cards mean it can keep shooting on long days.

Multiple microphones (on camera and clip on interview), a teleconverter and a wide angle lens along with the 18-135mm lens would cover pretty much every eventuality.

Canon EOS 70D with accessories: $1700

Another leading edge tool for this trip would be an aerial drone to take fantastic establishing shots. The DJI Phantom 4 is a Canadian made aerial camera platform that produces astonishing video footage. Its 28 minute flight time mean it could be used on multiple flights and recharged in the camera truck between flights.
Phantom4 with spare batteries & case: $2300

$30k seems like a good price for generating a wide variety of footage that could eventually be made into multiple cross country stories of epic proportions!

Now to find a producer and some corporate support. My logo-ed dream team would be:

ECOO 2014

ECOO 2014 approaches this week. Once again I get to step away from the classroom for a couple of days and see the forest for the trees. Instead of day to day/trying to make things work, I get a couple of days of strategic space to consider how things might be.

The ECOO conference is all about possibilities for me. I know a lot of people go there to learn how technology works, and that’s great, but for me it has always been about possibilities.

In school we’re all in the trenches trying to make things work. For tech-savvy teachers this can be a very frustrating experience. We’re not only battling the complications of getting complex information technology to function in the rough and tumble world of the classroom, we’re also battling the negativity of colleagues who aren’t buying in to the possibilities offered by this technology.

ECOO is a chance to get away from all that static and consider possibilities in a positive light. The trick for me has always been not to get mired down in how-to sessions. I like the big thinking/strategic talks. The keynotes usually do this well, but it isn’t always possible to find that kind of opportunity in the breakout sessions because a big part of ECOO is assisting new edtech aficionados into the fold. When I can’t find an edtech-philosophy or future-tech session I’m just as happy to bump into someone and have an unscripted chat. You won’t find a greater edtech braintrust anywhere than you will at ECOO.

What will I get out of ECOO this week? Inspiration, I hope, and some idea of what’s coming, so I can be ready for it before it gets here.

ECOO15 1: Making Frustrations

Back from ECOO15 and, as usually, my head is full. After a rough year of politics around Ontario Education it’s nice to attend a conference made by teachers for teachers about… teaching! Not a politician in sight, though attendance was wounded at this volunteer run conference by them.

ECOO may have been the site
of the first ever 3d photobomb!

I spent Wednesday with my robotics teacher showing people how to make 3d models using a Structure Sensor – a 3d laser scanner that is cheaper than the ipad it connects to. It’s one of those game changing bits of engineering that suddenly opens up the complex world of 3d modelling to pretty much anyone.

We put the scanner into hundreds of hands and Katy was on there to show them how our 3d printers took those models and made them tangible. For many who have heard of the maker movement, 3d modelling and printing but had never seen it in action, it was a seminal moment. I’m hoping it also means people start considering how we can move toward a maker mentality, because it’s about as far removed from what we do in formal education as you can get.

Buddha Tim by tking on Sketchfab – @banana29‘s first 3d model, nicely done!

The next day, the opening keynote by Silvia Martinez was an overview of makerspaces and how they create a genuine learning environment. Unfortunately, and like so many other educational books capitalizing on a trend, the keynote sold the concept of Making based on the fantastic contraptions shown at world class Maker Faires. This is akin to saying everyone should play soccer like this, and then showing them the World Cup.

Education teaches students to expect success if they do what
they’re told. Engineering demands mastery, creativity and
resilience; reality is a demanding teacher.

As I said in the conference, making involves frustration and failure. More often than not it results in a prototype that doesn’t work. I find that the grade nine students I am introducing this process to are greatly aggravated by the inflexible demands of reality. They are quick to blame and even quicker to give up. The most common comment is, “just tell me how to do it.” The sub-text is, ‘I’ve learned to do what I’m told in order to show I’m learning. Why aren’t you doing that?’

Students are used to the education system jigging things to ensure success. The process of invention doesn’t do this and reality has no interest in modifying how it works so that students can feel good about their effort. I don’t teach ‘I tried real hard’ or ‘guaranteed success’. What I do teach is how computers and electronics work, and I expect students to develop skills sufficient to be able to work this these inflexible devices. Once the mastery is managed, play can begin. Shakespeare wasn’t writing plays while he was still learning to write.

This was posted by Bre Pettis way back in 2009.
This kind of radical engagement isn’t the managed
and directed engagement teachers are looking for.

If you want to build with electronics and digital technology (which are what are empowering much of the maker movement), you need to have something more than boundless enthusiasm. Using digital technology isn’t effortless despite the marketing. There is mastery learning required before you are cranking out 3d prints of gears and building your own robot out of garbage. Many of the people creating the things you see at a maker faire are trained engineers. I’ll bet that the kids shown at these Maker Faires are relying on some engineering expertise at home as well. It’s nice to see their creativity, but it isn’t the only thing, or even the main thing, that is enabling these builds. It’s like watching the child of a scientist presenting a surprisingly fantastic science fair project.

My concern is that Ontario Education will rush into this exciting and trendy fad, buying stacks of Arduinos, Raspberry Pis and 3d printers which will then gather dust when teachers realize that this equipment isn’t Lego, it doesn’t build itself with enthusiasm. Your code has to be flawless and your wiring exact for even basic things to happen, and even when you’ve done everything right it might not work anyway because the LED you used happens to be defective. You can’t simply lower expectations and then see results. These are complex systems being created.

I struggle each year to get high school students to develop resiliency and master skills in electronics and digital technology so I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see the maker movement and its attendant philosophies infect Ontario’s classrooms. The kids are more than capable of developing this resiliency and expertise, but I suspect that the vast majority of educators (many of which I help to plug in their desktops each day) aren’t.

The maker movement pushes back against vapid consumerism. I’m a big fan of intimately knowing the machines I use. The motorcycle I ride I restored after finding it in a field, the computers I use I build from scratch, but it took me years to build my mechanical and digital skills to this level. Most people aren’t that patient, or curious. Most people want immediate satisfaction, which is why they drive their cookie cutter SUVs to shopping malls.

Most teachers are no different. If it isn’t their curriculum, it’s of no interest. Trying to push maker tools into that kind of classroom is a disaster waiting to happen. If you’ve never used Linux, let alone installed an OS onto an SD card, what makes you think you will make magical use of Raspberry Pis?