Finds from #FETC 17
May only be practical to me! - Sue Levine @staffdevjnkie
Throwable Mic Ball - QBall (@goPEEQ)
Anywhere Cart 16 slot Charging Cabinet
In this scenario, you place this cabinet on top of a rolling cart--it is not perfect because it is not on a cart already but it does hold everything from a tablet to 17 inch laptop! You could get a few of these and make smaller groups of devices for classes like 10 on each which is what I find many teachers want, although this may not be your experience.
VisitU Sign in/Badge System
This sign in system got great reviews from a school leader I met. He reviewed many systems and found this to be the most useful and most simple to use. A demonstration of this shows fantastic stats and info for the visitors in the building and much more. It will also keep track of volunteer hours. You can use it with or without the badge maker. This is a robust system but at the time of this writing I was trying to squeeze a lot into a short time!
http://visitu.co/Exterity for Digital Display Systems
I was looking at an IPTV system in order to run a highlights without a wired connection. There is a small box where you can insert a USB drive in order to run a large video locally (since bandwidth may be an issue trying to stream a video)...But now that I think about it, I think I was told that the box mounts on the back of the TV which would mean the TV could not be as high as I had planned so I will need to circle back on this one to clarify. The software is intuitive and seems easy to create a fantastic digital display.
Tiggly
Buncee
Buncee has come a long way since its inception. This tool enables the user to create vibrant, multimedia presentations. All of the assets are housed inside the Buncee site so you do not need to leave to search for things--You can search within Buncee. This company reports that if you are a customer (I think meaning a paid customer versus free but I am not sure), they will add images that your students will be needing if the ones they need are not there. This is a fun, flexible tool that only gets better and better. At this point, I think I will give it a go and see what I can do with it but I 100% believe that students will take off with this. I think this is a great way to level the playing field and find out what the strengths of each student are. There is enough scaffolding via the built in assets and features for every student to show what they know successfully! https://www.edu.buncee.com/gallery
Newseum
This is a fantastic resource for teaching about primary sources, specific thematic units, media literacy, and much more. This is one of those sites you need to look at for yourself. Today we sorted for videos but I am not seeing that right now. This site seems to have many links and can seem a bit overwhelming so I am providing this link which goes with the screenshot I took.
The Epilog Laser Cutter
I love this laser cutter company! The reason is... when I was in training for a laser cutter we have at my job (different company), I asked about models that could be downloaded (think Thingaverse) and the trainer did not know of any but I found THIS Epilog site which is chock full of models. Ours accepts .cdr files (Corel Draw) and LOOK! Here are such files: https://www.epiloglaser.com/resources/sample-club.htm. They also have them in .ai, .pdf, and .eps formats. I hope to get one from Epilog someday.
After being trained on the laser cutter, I feel it is far superior to the 3D printer. Models can be created quickly, in many materials, and assembled by the students if necessary. The versatility and quick build time is addictive!!! The high price points of these machines can be off-putting but if the funds are available, investigate one of these!
Tetrix Robotics
It was really fun learning how the Tetrix controllers work--Tis is what's used for the serious robotics competitions!! While I do not currently do robotics, I am interested in learning more about it so I can support our robotics instructor.
Primo Cubetto
At first sight this cute thing does not look very serious and does not look very much at all, in terms of challenging coding. However, there is a lot to this cute simple wooden robot coding game. The students interacts with pieces that create a path for the wooden robot to move from one place to another.
The tricky part is that it will not move in a direction more than a few times so the student quickly has to learn how to use a function block (or whatever it's being called) to create the equivalent of repeater blocks, loops etc-- The video on this link below shows very young children. That's fine, but in reality, I think it would be great if the child could tell someone where they intend on moving the wooden robot on the mat and then make the attempts using the manipulative but that's just me.
There is nothing wrong with the child figuring this whole thing out simply by exploring and seeing how things work! This is the sort of item that you can buy and it will not fail. It's interesting and requires little expertise on the part of the teacher. Even if the teacher is not comfortable with this item, rest assured the students will be!
One person suggested buying several of these mats and putting them together to create a bigger area for the robot to travel on. The facilitator said that even HS or college students can use this and examples were given.
https://www.primotoys.com/GoBoxEd
I think the missions will be programmed in Scratch but I cannot remember which things are also available in Python and Java. One thing to keep in mind is that the SD card that houses the proprietary software is mounted on the unit which then needs to be plugged into a computer to operate. However it can be used with a chromebook which would at least by smaller/lighter than a laptop. This will run locally and not rely on an internet connection. https://www.dexterindustries.com/dextered/gobox-ed/
MackinMaker
Ok, this is a mixed review. I was going to say that the lovely company, Mackin has organized MakerSpace materials so that it's easy to do one stop shopping if you are a Teacher-Librarian. However, when I followed the link at the bottom of this post, I got some nice information and blogs. I was ok with that and clicked through a couple of times more, thinking I was going to see the maker product line up.
Instead it said something like "see what we recommend for you." At that point it forced me to log in (which was no big deal because the log in was saved to my computer). Next, it dumped two pages worth of stuff into a working booklist!! This is not cool. I wanted to view the products to evaluate them and see what Mackin has organized and how they have organized it. I was disappointed on how it tried to take control of me. I need more autonomy than this.
http://www.mackinmakerspace.com/Juke 24
I had a lot of fun learning about this cute little machine. Teachers of children who are trying to learn independence might enjoy this little system. First of all, I am told it holds 48 hours of audio. There are 24 buttons. This is how it works:
1. You plug in your device such as your IPOD which may be holding a story, music, a prompt that you recorded etc.
2. You decide which buttons you want to program. For instance, you may want five long stories on five different buttons and you may even want to label those buttons somehow. OR you may want five short stories on one button. It just depends what your goal is.
https://www.hamiltonbuhl.com/Juke24-Red3. To program the button the procedure is kind of shocking to hear but it's forgivable. You turn on the song you want and then you push the red "RECORD" button and then you click the button you want that audio to go on. It is then copied to internal memory and is associated with that button. This MUST be done in real time, meaning, if it is a 20 minute story, you have to wait the full 20 mins and stop the recording when it's over! This sounds very archaic and time consuming but still it's well worth it to give kiddos and also the elderly some independence. This prevents the student from handling your IPOD. I love this thing so much! It has a microphone and you can put it into Karaoke mode and sing along! On the other hand, I have had no trouble teaching kids how to move through the controls of an IPOD to find what they are looking for. Nevertheless, this is cute, charming and perhaps worth a look! You can get it wherever you get your AV stuff from. https://www.hamiltonbuhl.com/Juke24-Red
IPEVO NOTEBOOK
Kajeet for Education
I was one of the lucky people that won a Kindle Fire today, courtesy of Kajeet! Thank you!!!
Ernie Morris Enterprises
I enjoyed meeting Jeff Strickland, who is representing Ernie Morris. He showed me the huge catalog and samples of table configurations and colors. They have nesting (folding) tables with markerboard tops which is pretty cool. It's nice the choices for school furnishings are getting better and better!
FormLabs
Zspace
The content on Zspace has grown exponentially to the point that I cannot really summarize all that it has to offer. If you are not familiar with it, you can request a demo.
I have heard people say that somewhere within Zspace, students can design and upload their own designs and then view in 3D as well! The glasses seem pretty durable and the stylus has been improved so that the attached cord functions more reliably. I think this is worth a look to supplement a STEM program in any grade level in any part of a school.
http://zspace.com/