Schlagwort: education

Desafío STEM + Arduino Podcast [Español]
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Desafío STEM + Arduino Podcast [Español]

Arduino Team — November 13th, 2017
Con el fin de apoyar a los nuevos participantes del Desafío STEM 2017, Arduino y Telefónica se han unido para crear una serie de tres podcast, abiertos al público en general, conducidos por David Cuartielles.

Desafío STEM es un concurso interescolar que fomenta el desarrollo de competencias tecnológicas, creado por Telefónica Educación Digital para impulsar la implantación de nuevas formas de aprender a través de dinámicas motivadoras y fomentar las vocaciones STEM.

Durante los podcast se abordarán los siguientes temas:
- Primer podcast: 15 de Noviembre
  Cómo crear proyectos creativos usando tecnología digital.
- Segundo podcast: 22 de Noviembre
  Identificación de problemas técnicos en la creación de proyectos.
- Tercer podcast: 5 de Diciembre
  Nuevos usos de tecnología en el aula.
La duración de los podcast será de una hora comenzando a las 19: 00 GMT+1. Podrán seguir la transmisión del podcast en: http://verkstad.cc/urler/desafiostem

David responderá durante el podcast preguntas de la audiencia que se envíen antes de los podcast. Para enviar las preguntas, seguir el link que se presenta a continuación y llenar el formulario: http://verkstad.cc/urler/desafio-preguntas. También se podrá participar en twitter con el hashtag #desafiostempreguntas.

To support the new participants of Desafío STEM 2017, Arduino and Telefónica have come together to create a series of three open podcasts, conducted by David Cuartielles.

Desafío STEM is an interscholastic competition that promotes the development of technological competences, created by Telefónica Educación Digital to promote the implementation of new ways of learning to motivate and inspire students to pursue STEM vocations.

The following topics will be addressed:
- First podcast: November 15
  How to build creative projects using digital technology.
- Second podcast: November 22
  Identification and resolution of technical challenges in the creation of projects.
- Third podcast: December 5th
  New uses of technology in the classroom.
The duration of each podcast will be one hour starting at 19:00 GMT + 1. To follow along, please click on the following link: http://verkstad.cc/urler/desafiostem

David will answer questions from the audience during the podcast, which need to be sent beforehand via this link: http://verkstad.cc/urler/desafio-preguntas. Twitter users can also participate using the hashtag #desafiostempreguntas.

This entry was posted by Arduino Team on Monday, November 13th, 2017 and is filed under Education, Events, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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13/11/2017
Volkswagen Launch The T-Roc Virtual Reality Experience

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To celebrate the world premiere of the T-Roc, Volkswagen prepared something special: A virtual reality exhibition right in the lobby of the Volkswagen Brand Tower. The historic brand tower is the administrative center of the Volkswagen group, and stands on the site of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany.

This VR exhibit is now freely available to all visitors and extremely self-explanatory. The experience is realized with the use of the HTC Vive, functions without the need for any human resources and is designed with an intuitive user interface. Thus, visitors do not require any prior VR experience to know how to interact with the T-Roc exterior and interior configurations.

With the help of Leap Motion hand tracking technology, visitors are able to see their own hands in Virtual Reality. This technique makes it possible to change vehicle configurations through simple hand motions and physical interactions with digital information. In the car’s interior, the visitor can playfully explore the design through our new intuitive 3D operating concept. The sunroof and glove compartment can be opened and closed, the horn can be honked and the radio can be turned on.

For the realization of this huge project,Volkswagen carried out a complex 3D scan from the lobby of the Markenhochhaus. In order to avoid noise pollution through the exhibit, they used new ultrasound speakers. Ultrasound speakers make the sound only hearable for the visitor.

The result is a one-of-a-kind VR experience, which does not require any external help or tutorials to use. Watch it in action below:

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Website: LINK

10/11/2017
Computing in schools: the report card

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Today the Royal Society published After the Reboot, a report card on the state of computing education in UK schools. It’s a serious piece of work, published with lots of accompanying research and data, and well worth a read if you care about these issues (which, if you’re reading this blog, I guess you do).

The headline message is that, while a lot has been achieved, there’s a long way to go before we can say that young people are consistently getting the computing education they need and deserve in UK schools.

If this were a school report card, it would probably say: “good progress when he applies himself, but would benefit from more focus and effort in class” (which is eerily reminiscent of my own school reports).

Good progress

After the Reboot comes five and a half years after the Royal Society’s first review of computing education, Shut down or restart, a report that was published just a few days before the Education Secretary announced in January 2012 that he was scrapping the widely discredited ICT programme of study.

There’s no doubt that a lot has been achieved since 2012, and the Royal Society has done a good job of documenting those successes in this latest report. Computing is now part of the curriculum for all schools. There’s a Computer Science GCSE that is studied by thousands of young people. Organisations like Computing At School have built a grassroots movement of educators who are leading fantastic work in schools up and down the country. Those are big wins.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has been playing its part. With the support of partners like Google, we’ve trained over a thousand UK educators through our Picademy programme. Those educators have gone on to work with hundreds of thousands of students, and many have become leaders in the field. Many thousands more have taken our free online training courses, and through our partnership with BT, CAS and the BCS on the Barefoot programme, we’re supporting thousands of primary school teachers to deliver the computing curriculum. Earlier this year we launched a free magazine for computing educators, Hello World, which has over 14,000 subscribers after just three editions.

More to do

Despite all the progress, the Royal Society study has confirmed what many of us have been saying for some time: we need to do much more to support teachers to develop the skills and confidence to deliver the computing curriculum. More than anything, we need to give them the time to invest in their own professional development. The UK led the way on putting computing in the curriculum. Now we need to follow through on that promise by investing in a huge effort to support professional development across the school system.

This isn’t a problem that any one organisation or sector can solve on its own. It will require a grand coalition of government, industry, non-profits, and educators if we are going to make change at the pace that our young people need and deserve. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be working with our partners to figure out how we make that happen.

The other 75%

While the Royal Society report rightly focuses on what happens in classrooms during the school day, we need to remember that children spend only 25% of their waking hours there. What about the other 75%?

Ask any computer scientist, engineer, or maker, and they’ll tell stories about how much they learned in those precious discretionary hours.

Ask an engineer of a certain age (ahem), and they will tell you about the local computing club where they got hands-on with new technologies, picked up new ideas, and were given help by peers and mentors. They might also tell you how they would spend dozens of hours typing in hundreds of line of code from a magazine to create their own game, and dozens more debugging when it didn’t work.

One of our goals at the Raspberry Pi Foundation is to lead the revival in that culture of informal learning.

The revival of computing clubs

There are now more than 6,000 active Code Clubs in the UK, engaging over 90,000 young people each week. 41% of the kids at Code Club are girls. More than 150 UK CoderDojos take place in universities, science centres, and corporate offices, providing a safe space for over 4,000 young people to learn programming and digital making.

So far this year, there have been 164 Raspberry Jams in the UK, volunteer-led meetups attended by over 10,000 people, who come to learn from volunteers and share their digital making projects.

It’s a movement, and it’s growing fast. One of the most striking facts is that whenever a new Code Club, CoderDojo, or Raspberry Jam is set up, it is immediately oversubscribed.

So while we work on fixing the education system, there’s a tangible way that we can all make a huge difference right now. You can help set up a Code Club, get involved with CoderDojo, or join the Raspberry Jam movement.

Website: LINK

10/11/2017
HTC VIVE Announces VIVE Arts Program

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Today HTC VIVE announced VIVE Arts, a new multi-million dollar global VR program set to change the way the world creates and engages with the arts. Vive recognizes VR’s potential to share and engage with the world’s most valuable treasures in a new and exciting way, and the company’s latest investment will support the content, creators and institutions that embrace this new medium.

Vive has been supporting and investing in the arts and culture space since its launch, creating ground-breaking partnerships with London’s Royal Academy of Arts, Taipei’s National Palace Museum, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History) in Paris, Washington D.C.’s Newseum, and St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum among others. Vive Arts’ next project will be in London for Tate Modern’s major upcoming exhibition, Modigliani, opening on November 23^rd, where Vive will bring a one-of-a-kind integrated VR experience to gallery-goers. A first for both Vive and Tate, it will bring visitors to the exhibition closer into the artist’s world while also being available as an experience at home through VIVEPORT, the leading VR app store.

The Vive Arts program will help cultural institutions fund and develop VR installations that furthers education of the arts across the globe, as well as content that will be made available on Viveport. Vive will work with museums and content developers to bring their works to life in a whole new way.

“With the launch of Vive Arts, we are driving Virtual Reality’s influence in art and providing access to our world’s cultural heritage. We are empowering artists to create, and consumers to experience and interpret, art and culture in new ways,” said Joel Breton, vice president, VIVE Studios. “We are thrilled for the next Vive Arts’ project with Tate Modern, and support their mission to increase the public’s enjoyment and understanding of international modern and contemporary art.”

London’s Tate Modern:

‘We are thrilled to be working with HTC VIVE to bring a new and exciting digital experience to our visitors,” said Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern. “We are always looking to push creative boundaries and we think this will be a fantastic opportunity to give the public a different and in-depth understanding of this much-loved artist through new technology.”

Taipei’s National Palace Museum

National Palace Museum has a priceless collection of artifacts, paintings, rare books, and other treasures. Jasper Jeng-Yi Lin, Director of the Museum, has made them even more accessible to everyone via new technologies like VR. A massive numbers of artifacts have been digitized for appreciation, research, and creative applications. Using virtual reality, the museum has created experiences for calligraphy, paintings, as well as the Tong-an Ships of 19th-century China, so that visitors can appreciate their beauty across time and space. The National Palace Museum invites friends from around the globe to enjoy its ancient treasures via VR.

Washington D.C.’s Newseum:

“At the Newseum, we’ve been working closely with Vive to bring amazing experiences to life in VR. Together, we’re greatly enhancing the educational opportunities in our museum,” said Mitch Gelman, Chief Technology Officer, Newseum. “With our most recent experience, we’re able to transport you to communist East Berlin at the height of the Cold War, and immerse visitors in the moment like never before.”

Paris’ Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History)

The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History), in partnership with Orange, will offer a unique immersive virtual reality experience to explore the tree of the living, iconic species and how they are related to each other. Experience the origin of life on earth as well as how human beings influences our own environment. By the end of the year, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle will open a dedicated area within the “La Grande Galerie de l’Évolution” (Gallery of Evolution) for visitors to experience on site with HTC Vive VR headsets. This content will also be available in home through Viveport by end of November.

London’s Royal Academy of Arts

“We are delighted to be collaborating with HTC VIVE on From Life, an experimental exhibition project that explores everything from artistic process to technological evolution and creative collaboration, said Tim Marlow, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts. “It is an exciting opportunity for leading artists to explore the creative potential of Virtual Reality technology, and for our audiences to experience this technology first-hand, in the gallery and at home via Viveport.”

More than a dozen pieces of Vive Arts content will be available on Viveport starting today. Interested museums and content creators can visit arts.vive.com for more information.

Website: LINK

08/11/2017
VR 101 – A Crash Course In All Things Virtual Reality

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VR, AR, MR – ever wonder what it all means? Don’t fret! These different “realities” can be confusing, so we’re here to explain. Introducing “VR 101”, the next article in our new blog series designed to teach you all you’ve ever wanted to know about virtual reality. From purchasing a VR-ready computer to understanding how room-scale VR works, we’ve got you covered.

What is VR?

Virtual reality calls upon 3D computer-generated environments which you can manipulate and explore all while feeling as if you are actually there. This feeling is called presence, or immersion, and it’s when the simulated environment provides enough clues to trick your unconscious mind to start treating this illusion as if it were real. Did you almost fall when you went to rest your hand on that ping-pong table after an intense match in Virtual Sports? That’s because of presence, you become so immersed in the virtual world you forget that table wasn’t real!

But how is this achieved? To enter the world of virtual reality you must first don an HMD (Head Mounted Display). The headset has two OLED displays, one per eye, at a resolution of 1080 x 1200 pixels each. By showing a slightly different angle of a scene in each eye, you are given the illusion of depth, referred to as stereoscopic display. With the headset on, a life-sized virtual world appears in every direction you cast your gaze. To ensure your level of immersion is preserved, the Vive has a field of view (FOV) of 110 degrees. FOV refers to the angle of degrees in a visual field – the larger the angle, the more immersive your experience.

What is AR?

Now that we’ve covered the basics of VR let’s talk about its AR. Unlike Virtual reality, which creates an entire artificial environment to interact in, augmented reality (AR) overlays digital information onto your physical surroundings. While VR requires you to wear an HMD that completely blocks your view of the real world, AR’s display is transparent, allowing you to still see and interact with your environment. While not as immersive as VR, AR can present you with valuable information to enrich your physical reality and facilitate productivity.

Because of its utility, augmented reality is closely associated with enterprise. Products such as Google Glass have found their way into doctors’ offices and manufacturing plants, increasing productivity and efficiency. While AR is touted as an enterprise solution there are plenty of consumer-focused use cases including Pokémon Go and Snapchat Spectacles.

What is MR?

VR and AR are easy enough to understand, but MR is where the water gets murky and confusion sets in. Mixed Reality (MR) combines aspects of both VR and AR, creating a hybrid of these two realities.

Blending the digital and physical worlds in MR results in an experience where virtual objects are integrated into your physical environment. With these virtual objects anchored to a fixed physical location, you can interact and treat these objects as if they were real. Walk around it or get closer and it will stay secured to its location. To ensure this realism, the MR device first scans and maps your physical surroundings so it can accurately place the virtual objects in your space. For instance, with MR a 3D virtual object can appear directly on the table in front of you, integrating the virtual world onto your physical table.

Examples of mixed reality include Microsoft’s HoloLens and Magic Leap’s MR headset.

Like VR, mixed reality has found a host of use cases in both enterprise and commercial offerings. From games to e-commerce to education, mixed reality is a useful and entertaining tool.

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07/11/2017
How Can We Support A Million Lives On Mars?

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HP Mars Home Planet challenges engineers, architects, designers, artists, and students to design an urban area for a million people on the red planet.

Is there life on Mars? Imagine a future when one million people call the red planet home. Together with NVIDIA, HTC VIVE and other partners, HP has launched HP Mars Home Planet, an exciting call for global collaboration to solve the challenges of urbanization using virtual reality (VR).

Establishing human civilization on Mars, which happens to be about 225 million km away, will be no small feat. And yet NASA has identified it as our best option to support human life on another planet. Designing the buildings, transportation networks, vehicles, and essential infrastructure requires leaps of imagination and ingenuity.

Get ready for HP Mars Home Planet. The challenge will bring together creative thinkers across professional disciplines and elite educational institutions to simulate what life on Mars could be like. Engineers, architects, designers, artists, and students from around the world are invited to participate, either as individuals or in teams, and can design whatever inspires them, from robots to vehicles to skyscrapers to entire city plans.

HP and NVIDIA teamed up with Technicolor, Autodesk, Unreal Engine, Fusion, Launch Forth and HTC VIVE to launch HP Mars Home Planet at this year’s SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest, most influential conference and exhibitions for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Three competitive phases: Concept, Model, Render

During the first phase participants focused on sketching buildings, transportation, and infrastructure concepts for Mawrth Vallis—Welsh for Mars Valley—a potential landing site identified by NASA. The concepts have to reflect the conditions on Mars, such as its weaker gravity, lack of oxygen, and exposure to radiation.

The concept phase wraps up in early November, and winners will receive HP ZBooks and HP Z Workstations. High-powered HP Z Workstations propel high- performance, complex work for game-changing, ground-breaking companies like Nike, Tesla, DreamWorks, and NASA—and like designing a sophisticated civilization on Mars.

In the modeling phase, participants will create a 3D model focusing on any aspect of the future built environment on Mars, with the help of Autodesk software.

In the rendering phase, participants will create a still, animated, real-time, or VR rendering depicting their invention for a smart city or region on Mars that supports life for a million humans.

STEM on Mars

Around the world, schools and universities can join in the challenge, too. HP Mars Home Planet Education League teams will participate to support learning in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

To collaborate, participants will use Launch Forth, a crowd-powered SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform for product design and development. Launch Forth’s community members focus on solving problems, designing products, and learning from experts.

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Stay tuned to the HTC VIVE blog as we continue to update you on this fascinating project. If you would like to learn more, then head over to the Launch Forth platform to get involved.

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03/11/2017
Prank your friends with the WhooPi Cushion

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Learn about using switches and programming GPIO pins while you prank your friends with the Raspberry Pi-powered ~~whoopee~~ WhooPi Cushion!

Whoopee cushion PRANK with a Raspberry Pi: HOW-TO

Explore the world of Raspberry Pi physical computing with our free FutureLearn courses: http://rpf.io/futurelearn Free make your own Whoopi Cushion resource: http://rpf.io/whoopi For more information on Raspberry Pi and the charitable work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, including Code Club and CoderDojo, visit http://rpf.io Our resources are free to use in schools, clubs, at home and at events.

The WhooPi Cushion

You might remember Carrie Anne and me showing off the WhooPi Cushion live on Facebook last year. The project was created as a simple proof of concept during a Pi Towers maker day. However, our viewers responded so enthusastically that we set about putting together a how-to resource for it.

When we made the resource available, it turned out to be so popular that we decided to include the project in one of our first FutureLearn courses and produced a WhooPi Cushion video tutorial to go with it.

Our FutureLearn course attendees love the video, so last week we uploaded it to YouTube! Now everyone can follow along with James Robinson to make their own WhooPi Cushion out of easy-to-gather household items such as tinfoil, paper plates, and spongy material.

Build upon the WhooPi Cushion

Once you’ve completed your prank cushion, you’ll have learnt new skills that you can incorporate into other projects.

For example, you’ll know how to program an action in response to a button press — so how about playing a sound when the button is released instead? Just like that, you’ll have created a simple pressure-based alarm system. Or you could upgrade the functionality of the cushion by including a camera that takes a photo of your unwitting victim’s reaction!

Building upon your skills to increase your knowledge of programming constructs and manufacturing techniques is key to becoming a digital maker. When you use the free Raspberry Pi resources, you’re also working through our digital curriculum, which guides you on this learning journey.

FutureLearn courses for free

Our FutureLearn courses are completely free and cover a variety of topics and skills, including object-oriented programming and teaching physical computing.

Regardless of your location, you can learn with us online to improve your knowledge of teaching digital making as well as your own hands-on digital skill set.

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30/10/2017
Adventure through the world’s most diverse ecosystem in Amazon Odyssey

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Experience the wonder and scale of the Amazon with VR

Spanning twice the size of India, the Amazon River Basin is the single largest tropical rainforest in the world. Ten percent of the world’s known species call this lush ecosystem home, resulting in a diverse community of flora and fauna unlike any other. Now you can and explore this amazing ecosystem right from your home with the launch of Amazon Odyssey for Vive.

Vive Studios and developer Heavy Iron Studios have brought the adventure of the rainforest to VR with the launch of Amazon Odyssey. This new experience on Viveport and Steam, takes you on an interactive and informational eco-tour of the world’s most famous jungle river.

In Amazon Odyssey, you’ll explore four interactive environments while engaging in activities such as paragliding above the tree-tops, navigating a boat down the river and capturing local wildlife on film. By completing tasks throughout the experience, an encyclopedia is filled with interesting and educational facts on the incredible species you encounter. Amazon Odyssey gets you up close to experience and appreciate the biodiversity of one of natures’ most powerful ecosystems.

Amazon Odyssey is available now for Vive on Viveport and Steam for $9.99.

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23/10/2017
More Raspberry Pi labs in West Africa

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Back in May 2013, we heard from Dominique Laloux about an exciting project to bring Raspberry Pi labs to schools in rural West Africa. Until 2012, 75 percent of teachers there had never used a computer. The project has been very successful, and Dominique has been in touch again to bring us the latest news.

Preparing the new Pi labs building in Kuma Tokpli, Togo

Growing the project

Thanks to the continuing efforts of a dedicated team of teachers, parents and other supporters, the Centre Informatique de Kuma, now known as INITIC (from the French ‘INItiation aux TIC’), runs two Raspberry Pi labs in schools in Togo, and plans to open a third in December. The second lab was opened last year in Kpalimé, a town in the Plateaux Region in the west of the country.

Using the new Raspberry Pi labs in Kpalimé, Togo

More than 400 students used the new lab intensively during the last school year. Dominique tells us more:

“The report made in early July by the seven teachers who accompanied the students was nothing short of amazing: the young people covered a very impressive number of concepts and skills, from the GUI and the file system, to a solid introduction to word processing and spreadsheets, and many other skills. The lab worked exactly as expected. Its 21 Raspberry Pis worked flawlessly, with the exception of a couple of SD cards that needed re-cloning, and a couple of old screens that needed to be replaced. All the Raspberry Pis worked without a glitch. They are so reliable!”

The teachers and students have enjoyed access to a range of software and resources, all running on Raspberry Pi 2s and 3s.

“Our current aim is to introduce the students to ICT using the Raspberry Pis, rather than introducing them to programming and electronics (a step that will certainly be considered later). We use Ubuntu Mate along with a large selection of applications, from LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP, Audacity, and Calibre, to special maths, science, and geography applications. There are also special applications such as GnuCash and GanttProject, as well as logic games including PyChess. Since December, students also have access to a local server hosting Kiwix, Wiktionary (a local copy of Wikipedia in four languages), several hundred videos, and several thousand books. They really love it!”

Pi lab upgrade

This summer, INITIC upgraded the equipment in their Pi lab in Kuma Adamé, which has been running since 2014. 21 older model Raspberry Pis were replaced with Pi 2s and 3s, to bring this lab into line with the others, and encourage co-operation between the different locations.

“All 21 first-generation Raspberry Pis worked flawlessly for three years, despite the less-than-ideal conditions in which they were used — tropical conditions, dust, frequent power outages, etc. I brought them all back to Brussels, and they all still work fine. The rationale behind the upgrade was to bring more computing power to the lab, and also to have the same equipment in our two Raspberry Pi labs (and in other planned installations).”

Students and teachers using the upgraded Pi lab in Kuma Adamé

An upgrade of the organisation’s first lab, installed in 2012 in Kuma Tokpli, will be completed in December. This lab currently uses ‘retired’ laptops, which will be replaced with Raspberry Pis and peripherals. INITIC, in partnership with the local community, is also constructing a new building to house the upgraded technology, and the organisation’s third Raspberry Pi lab.

Reliable tech

Dominique has been very impressed with the performance of the Raspberry Pis since 2014.

“Our experience of three years, in two very different contexts, clearly demonstrates that the Raspberry Pi is a very convincing alternative to more ‘conventional’ computers for introducing young students to ICT where resources are scarce. I wish I could convince more communities in the world to invest in such ‘low cost, low consumption, low maintenance’ infrastructure. It really works!”

He goes on to explain that:

“Our goal now is to build at least one new Raspberry Pi lab in another Togolese school each year. That will, of course, depend on how successful we are at gathering the funds necessary for each installation, but we are confident we can convince enough friends to give us the financial support needed for our action.”

Reliable Raspberry Pis in the labs at Kpalimé

Get involved

We are delighted to see the Raspberry Pi being used to bring information technology to new teachers, students, and communities in Togo – it’s wonderful to see this project becoming established and building on its achievements. The mission of the Raspberry Pi Foundation is to put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world. Therefore, projects like this, in which people use our tech to fulfil this mission in places with few resources, are wonderful to us.

More information about INITIC and its projects can be found on its website. If you are interested in helping the organisation to meet its goals, visit the How to help page. And if you are involved with a project like this, bringing ICT, computer science, and coding to new places, please tell us about it in the comments below.

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17/10/2017
Google and 826 Valencia invite you to a “planet ruled by love”Google and 826 Valencia invite you to a “planet ruled by love”

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Keyword: How did everyone get involved in this project?

Lauren: I first walked into 826 Valencia 12 years ago and couldn’t believe what I stumbled upon—it was the perfect wedding of my passions, writing and social justice. I’ve worked there ever since. Technology has changed a lot in the last 12 years, and though 826 will always make books, we’re exploring storytelling mediums that are more technologically relevant for younger generations. So we tapped into Google’s creative brainpower to incorporate technology into our programs and the way our kids tell stories.

Rebecca: The magic of 826 is the simple act of an adult sitting down with a kid to unleash the power of their voice. I wanted to be a part of that magic—and the effort at Google was scrappy from the get-go. I recruited Googlers with different skill sets to get involved and it got mightier and mightier. Our guiding principle was to use Google’s technology to empower students to tell their stories in new ways. And we thought that VR was an exciting way to do that.

Ryan: I wanted to get involved in this project in a way that only Google could, so when Rebecca and team came up with the idea of telling the story using Tilt Brush (a virtual reality app that lets you draw and paint in three-dimensional space), I jumped on it.

How did you come up with the “planet ruled by love” idea?

Lauren: The Google team proposed creating a story in Tilt Brush as a totally new experience for the kids, and our immediate reaction was “what the heck is Tilt Brush?” But the idea had so much energy that it was an emphatic “Yes!” on our end. Leading up to the election in the U.S., we felt a division in the country, in our communities, even on school campuses. Someone suggested that we prompt the kids to write a story about a planet ruled by love, and we immediately went for it. It felt like an antidote to the division and drama around us.

How did the kids write the story?

Rebecca: We wanted to honor what already works at 826—helping kids express themselves through writing—and add a new layer. Students worked with volunteer tutors to develop, write and edit their own stories about the planet ruled by love. So many creative ideas came out of that! And then we worked with 826 staff to pull a line from each of the kids‘ story—homes made of marshmallows, unicorn wolves, and love spread by nice words, to name a few—to make a version that represented all of their visions. From there, we turned the combined story into a 360-degree experience that they could watch in Cardboard.

Ryan, what was it like working in Tilt Brush?

Ryan: Prior to this project, I had been a 3D animator and illustrator working on screens and tablets. With Tilt Brush, you are creating in VR—it’s a cross between drawing and sculpture. When you first do it, you’re like, “OMG this is crazy. I’m inside the drawing.” After the students wrote the story, I drew rough storyboards and thumbnail sketches, then created the color pallet of the planet ruled by love. I wanted viewers to feel like they had one foot in Google world and one foot in another world. Then, I moved into Tilt Brush and created the final scenes.

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25/08/2017
Microsoft Learning Hub – Der Lernraum der Zukunft

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Wie wir unsere Kinder auf die digitale Transformation vorbereiten können

„Wir wissen zwar noch nicht welche Jobs unsere Schülerinnen und Schüler im Jahr 2025 haben werden, aber wir wissen, dass wir sie bereits heute bestmöglich auf die Arbeitswelt der Zukunft vorbereiten müssen. Microsoft ist sich seiner gesellschaftlichen Verantwortung bewusst, deshalb haben wir altersentsprechend verschiedene Programme entwickelt, um die digitale Bildung zu fördern und unseren Nachwuchs fit für die Zukunft zu machen“, so Yuri Goldfuß vom Microsoft Education Team.

Bildungstechnologien von morgen bereits heute erleben „Dafür war es notwendig die Bildung der Zukunft erlebbar zu machen und modernsten Bildungstechnologien einen eigenen Raum zu geben – den Microsoft Learning Hub. Unsere Mission ist es, Lehrerinnen und Lehrer zu ermutigen vermehrt digitale Werkzeuge in ihren Unterricht einzubinden“, ergänzt Alexandra Thonabauer vom Microsoft Education Team.

„Um bestmöglich auf die Arbeitswelt von morgen vorbereitet zu sein ist das selbstbestimmte Navigieren durch die digitale Welt ebenso wichtig wie Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen. Darüber hinaus können Lehrkräfte mittels dem Einsatz digitaler Bildungstechnologien bereits heute wesentlich effektiver arbeiten und so noch stärker auf die individuellen Bedürfnisse der Schülerinnen und Schüler eingehen.“

Das Thema „Laptop-Klassen“ wird in unserer Gesellschaft momentan heiß diskutiert – Kurt Söser, Lehrer an der HAK Steyr, erzählt von seinen ganz persönlichen Erfahrungen seines Berufsalltags: „Im Allgemeinen kann man sagen, dass meine Schüler aus den digitalen Klassen um einiges motivierter in die Schule kommen, als Schüler aus Klassen mit traditionellen Lehr- und Lernmodellen. Außerdem fehlen sie seltener und sind durchschnittlich um einen Notengrad besser.“

Gleichzeitig wirft die Digitalisierung jedoch auch eine bedeutende Frage auf: Ob die Digitalisierung des Klassenzimmers dazu führt, dass Schülerinnen und Schüler künftig immer weniger zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen untereinander aufbauen werden. Kurt Söser verneint diese Frage vehement: „Neue Technologien im Bildungsbereich haben das Potenzial, soziales Lernen beispielsweise im Rahmen von Gruppenarbeiten oder internationalen Schul-Kollaborationsprojekten künftig enorm zu fördern. Die weltweite Zusammenarbeit zwischen einzelnen Schülerinnen und Schülern war noch nie so einfach. Man arbeitet in Echtzeit zusammen und auch die Lehrkörper können wesentlich effektiver und effizienter arbeiten.“

Ein weiteres Beispiel, das zeigt, wie man mittels der richtigen Technologien den Unterricht besonders kreativ gestalten kann, beschreibt Susanna Jilka von der PH Wien: „Alle meine Schülerinnen und Schüler spielen in ihrer Freizeit Minecraft. Warum sollte ich die Minecraft: Education Edition also nicht auch im Rahmen meines Unterrichts einsetzen? So können meine Schülerinnen und Schüler das theoretisch Erlernte ohne Umwege, eigenverantwortlich und völlig selbstständig umsetzen.

So wird das Wissen spielerisch vertieft und maßgeblich gefestigt. Und das hilft nicht nur in der Mathematik: Meine Schülerinnen und Schüler erklären mir ihre Minecraft-Projekte mit einer erzählerischen Freude, wie ich sie in Deutsch Aufsätzen niemals lesen würde.“

Bild Galerie:

Links: https://www.microsoft.com/de-at/unternehmen/das-neue-arbeiten/learning-hub/default.aspx

https://news.microsoft.com/de-at/minecraft-education-edition-wie-game-based-learning-das-bildungswesen-revolutioniert/#sm.001b3sjsj17udeibpxb1roinhvrap

https://www.microsoft.com/de-at/unternehmen/das-neue-arbeiten/learning-hub/erleben-sie-die-bildung-der-zukunft.aspx?CollectionId=6117cc36-a093-4550-b448-d2fc1d584157

07/08/2017
U.S. history takes center stage for high schoolersU.S. history takes center stage for high schoolersManaging Editor

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The Expedition continued through the ratification of the Constitution, the creation of our nation’s economic system and George Washington’s presidency. It ended with a glimpse of Alexander Hamilton’s personal life—his letters dealing with love and grief—and ended at the famous spot where he dueled Aaron Burr. With each step in the Expedition, there were collective “oohs,” “aahs,” “whoas” and the occasional snarky comment: “Sick wig, Hamilton.”

Several students noted that, as visual learners, it was easier to understand this historical era through the Expedition, instead of reading about it in a book. Something clicked when they could visualize where these historical moments took place. Joanne Lin, assistant principal of Aspire Golden State, says that her students relate to Hamilton: “He had to make it on his own in America—that’s the connection for many of our kids.”

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03/05/2017
Bringing Alexander Hamilton’s history to lifeBringing Alexander Hamilton’s history to life

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In November 2009, the White House uploaded a video to YouTube of playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda performing a piece called “The Hamilton Mixtape.” In the video, Miranda proclaims to then President Obama that he would use hip-hop and spoken word to tell the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton. The room erupts in curious laughter. Hip-hop and 18th century history? How could these seemingly different worlds come together?

Nearly eight years later, Lin-Manuel’s Hamilton: An American Musical has blown us all away. The show is a cultural phenomenon, uniting history buffs, musical theater fans, political wonks and beyond. Through its innovative storytelling and deliberately diverse cast, the show remixes American history into a powerful lesson that resonates with society’s current challenges.

Google.org supported the Hamilton Education Program with a $800,000 grant that today will bring 5,000 students from Title I schools in New York, Chicago and the Bay Area to see the musical, as the capstone of a six-week curriculum about the Founding Era. Through a combination of learning from primary source documents like original letters and newspapers, and musical performances, students from every background will be able to make American founding era history their own. Students will also perform their original, history-based works on the Hamilton stage across these three cities. Perhaps one of them might be a future Lin-Manuel!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is also launching new digital content on Google platforms that enables students around the world to engage more deeply with Alexander Hamilton’s story. Six new virtual reality tours will transport students, teachers, and fans to important places in Hamilton’s life, no matter where they live. Using Google Expeditions, students can explore places like Alexander Hamilton’s home in Uptown Manhattan, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and the infamous site of Aaron Burr–Alexander Hamilton duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.

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26/04/2017
The She Word: Jen Holland and her career expeditionThe She Word: Jen Holland and her career expedition

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Tell us about one of your mentors who helped you get to where you are today.

My college accounting professor, Dawn Massey, was not only a fantastic teacher, but also encouraged me to pursue my crazy ideas. When I took my first accounting class in college, I was miserable. I hated accounting. But by spending so much time with her, I got better. I ended up switching my focus and moved into finance—something I’d never considered because I thought I was bad at math. Fast forward, I ended up with an MBA in Finance and accepted a role on Google’s finance team, which eventually led to my dream job—the one I have now.

My second mentor was someone I mentioned already—Bill Campbell. He was a dear friend of my dad’s, and always made time for me. I learned from him that it’s always important to make time for individuals who willing to put in the effort and succeed, whether that be through informal coffee chats, mentorships, reviewing resumes, doing mock interviews, etc. You can always make time to help someone out.

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09/03/2017