By michael hengeveld on June 8, 2018
For mobile technology, I wanted to put a plug here for the rise of the online DIY community and its growing role in education. In the last month of school, all the students in our STEM program do passion projects–it is glorious mayhem. Because they are all doing different things, there is a large degree of independent research required. The month of May is buzzing with Youtube videos, Instructables, and all manner of electronics and tech forums as students wrestle with the reality of designing and building their dream project, much of it done on mobiles.
My favourite example this year is a couple of girls from STEM 9 who made a working prototype of a glove that converts sign language into text for a non-verbal student in our lifeskills program (https://youtu.be/3AjgmBE5JhM). They followed this guideline (http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Flex-Sensor-Glove/), and many other online tutorials to learn how to code arduino, solder, design flex sensors, and read ASL. I was on hand to help them out of crunches, but they largely used the online mobile DIY community contributions to get it working. This is one of about 20 examples we have on the go and it has changed my world as a teacher.
The instantaneous access to information is something that most (if not all) people are depending on increasingly. The example projects Michael has shared in his post is just a sample of the endless possibilities that lie ahead in the field of education. The important point for us as educators is to teach our students how to identify credible sources and how to use appropriate keywords for searches; critical media literacy should form part of all classrooms now.
Hello Binal,
I really appreciate the online DIY community. There is so much information and so much we can learn from each other. Even when I try to do something new, I search from different sources, watch different videos, and then decide which one is the best one that I can use. There is so much information out there that we no longer know that is credible and what is not. As for my DIY project, in my case sometimes is trial and error. By this I mean I try what one proposed and if it does not work then I would redo the project using another source.
Thanks, Silvia. The decision making behind trying to find which one is the best method to go with, and the trial and error that goes with such experimentation can build some great problem solving and critical thinking and thinking-on-your-feet skills! Nothing wrong with trial-and-error, in fact sometimes, it’s probably for the best I think 🙂