Minnis Journals

2019 (1 )February 2019

What I did on my summer vacation
Have you ever gone onto eBay and just randomly bought a heap of electronics components because they might one day be useful? And have you then had the conversation with your (non-teacher) spouse that goes:
“You really don’t need this. It doesn’t spark joy.” (Marie Kondo has a lot to answer for)
“Oh no, I am absolutely going to use this!”
“When?”
“Ah, er… Now?” Read more

Editorial – Burnt out
So much to do, so little time. It is a trite phrase, but when I found myself as the only DigiTech teacher in the school, it suddenly gained a lot more meaning.
We understand that every teacher has to work miracles to get their job done. We have to differentiate for the students at the bottom and extend the students at the top. We need to provide regular feedback to students, parents and the education system. We need to read all of the literature on each student and respond to them according to their individual needs. Read more

Twits: Roland Gesthuizen
I still don’t know what to call a Twitter regular, and now the name has stuck. This issue, we look at the phenomenon that is Roland Gesthuizen.
Just a bit of background. I see Roland at every DLTV conference. He is a prolific tweeter and very entertaining. He runs a broadcast during the conference and has his finger very much on the pulse of technology in education.
Read more

Google’s mad playground
The good thing about being one of the most successful companies of all time is that it gives you the opportunity to play around a bit and Google has done a lot of that.
The games and experiments in the Experiments with Google archive are many in number and hugely varied but are linked by their use of AI, algorithmic coding and machine learning so by association the user is touching the technologies that are defining our trajectory in technology.
Read more

Collaborative gamers are smarter
So, the kid is a gun at League of Legends, not quite the same as school dux is it? Well that mightn’t be entirely true; it looks like being good at Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs) is a strong indication of high intelligence.
MOBAs like League of Legends and Defence of the Ancients require a few things for success, you need to be strategic in your thinking and you need to be able to solve problems and think on your feet, which makes playing them a lot like what you are asked to do in an intelligence test or when playing chess. Read more

Vocational school reiterated
There’s not a lot to distinguish Brooklyn STEAM Center from a start up, people brain storm, use high end computers and are situated at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once the heart of heavy industry and now a hub of tech in New York City.
It’s just that the assembled people are of school age, students at one of the few schools in the world situated in a work place.
The school was developed with industry leaders to teach real-life job skills that would generate the next wave of tech workers in the city. Read more

What’s on in STEAM?
Plenty on in the STEAM world in the next couple of months, look out for conferences like DigiCon and The Australian Council for Computers in Education conference, and terminators.
In some news, the first ever landing on the dark side of the moon happened. For such a momentous event, there was remarkably little coverage. The Chinese space agency (whose logo is incredibly similar to the Starfleet insignia) was an achievement in Mathematics and Engineering.
ACCE 2020
The ACCE Conference will be hosted by DLTV in April next year in Melbourne. This is one of the biggest events in Digital Technology education. Read more

How to keep students in maths
How do you get people to want to do maths? It’s a question that definitely needs answering and two clever chaps from Melbourne have worked out a method that seems to work.
Fundamentally, their model is about a growth mindset, changing attitudes towards maths from fearfulness to positivity, they operate under the name Maths Pathway. Read more

Stuff we want
Nintendo’s Labo project kits use their hugely popular Switch handheld gaming device and leverage them into building and engineering and design.
There are several kits – foldable cardboard and controllers – available which allow all manner of devices to be constructed and then interacted with.
New features have been added to YSoft be3D eDee, a 3D print management solution designed to warn users if their filament levels aren’t sufficient for a given job.
Read more