3D Printer

Unboxing the new Makerbot Replicator 2 printers today was like Christmas all over again.

Unpacked and ready for assembly

Fairly straight forward in putting it together and doing the first print to check that I had levelled the base plate correctly.  Success . . .  today some first prints were a nut and bolt followed by a small comb.  The trickiest thing to do was to put the blue sticky tape onto the base plate (a little like having a 'coverseal' experience)

Nut and Bolt in the foreground and a comb being printed

Plastimake

I am soooo excited about what arrived in the post today. Thanks Brian for the heads up on this product.  Plastimake is so easy to use.  The only risky part of this whole process is that my creativity could go ballistic!  Little plastic beads melt when you pour hot [boiling] water over them.  My white plastic turned clear and once it was cool enough to handle,  I fished it out of the bottom of the mug and away I went . . . moulding the plastic to whatever I wanted.  The 1st object that sprung to mind was a ukulele pick shaped as a cat's head - The final product once cooled was ok but not great so it went back into the hot water to be recycled.  The next products were a series of rings which I discovered keep their shape better if you mould them around your finger and then run cold water from the tap on your hand.

LHS = 1st attempt; RHS warm/hot blob of melted plastic ready for shaping

When the plastic is cooled, it returns to it's original white colour.  I haven't yet added the coloured pallets be so adventurous to venture out of the monochromatic scale!
Tomorrow is another day and another chance to think about my next creation.  I only put a dessert spoonful into the water and discovered it goes a long way particularly when you can remould and recycle the prototypes that don't quite meet the grade.

1 dessert spoon made all these

Very happy with my first day of creation

What did I learn from the GAFE Summit South 2015?

This is the second GAFE Summit I have attended at Burnside High School - another good summit.

This year I was not as floored by all the new information hitting my brain cells.

Suan Yeo started us off and he made us aware of the fact that the "first exposure for kids is a ‘smart’ device - mobile or tablet" so today's digital developers need to bare this in mind.

We should be asking today’s kids . . .

“What problem do you want to solve?” [when you grow up] vs “What do you want to be?” [when you grow up]

“Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions?” Steve Wheeler

What is important? The answer or the journey of getting to the answer. Are teachers, are asking the right questions? Googleable question vs non-googleable question??

Using the "NOUNS" can help us teach the "VERBS".

Our New Zealand Curriculum remains well respected by other countries as we continue to teach to the "VERBS". We must remember that good teachers are hard to replace. Computers always follow rules and even though computers can be taught, the ability to read humans is something that a computer still has difficulty doing. Being connected with your learner and being able to break the rules is what defines us as being great teachers vs a computer.

A few other useful tips I learnt were:

Virtual Reality experience using Google Cardboard or . . .

We could create our own virtual experience by capturing video using a Ricoh Theta camera which can record video 360 degrees. Simply by moving the device up, down or side to side, you can view what is happening around the main subject that is being videoed.

Blogger Junior is a great way for Primary School aged students to contribute to a class blog with ease