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Front page news through Google Glass

5/22/2014

The power of Twitter continues to astound me. Last month, I saw a tweet from RIchmond's local newspaper, the TImes-Dispatch. The tweet asked if anyone in the Richmond area was using Google Glass. I responded that we were a K-8 school using Google Glass, and they followed up and asked if they could interview us for a story.

My principal and I spoke with the reporter on the phone, then he came in with a photographer to capture Google Glass being used in class. Our art teacher was doing a lesson where her students were creating tutorials for next year's group as she explored the flipped classroom model of instruction. The reporter asked some more questions, then thanked us for our time.

The next thing we knew, the article was on the front page of Monday's paper! You can't pay for publicity like that.

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Military Simulations at School

4/24/2014

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A few months ago, I received an email from a parent at our school named Matt. He said he had been noticing all the great uses we've had with technology and wanted to add to that. As it turns out, he works at Fort Lee as an instructor. His mission is to the turn pen and paper military to an interactive, visual, 3D model, simulated environment that soldiers can experience before they are sent out to Afghanistan or other areas.

Matt invited me out to the base where I could see how they use XBox and other common platforms to train soldiers. They strip down the maps in Halo, then build their own simulations into the device, allowing for soldiers to practice their team building and communication procedures. Since everything is recorded, instructors can pull up videos from the simulations to show troops what went right and what needs to change.
We talked about how we could help educate and inspire students at our school with this technology. He offered to come visit our school and setup stations so students could navigate and explore the technologies.

The first station used an Occulus Rift to let the students feel like they were inside a Italian villa. Students could move their head and look around with the device on them, totally immersing them into another world. They explored the house and yard area in the demo, and we discussed how this would have practical implications for folks like soldiers or home buyers as they learn about a new space without previously visiting it.

Our second station used Leap Motion to allow students to throw balls or other objects only using their hands. Leap recognizes your hands and lets you move objects on the computer. By controlling the computer with gestures, users could interact in a more natural way with physical movements instead of relying on a mouse or other form of input device.
Finally, the third station was Novint Falcon. Novint's device lets the user feel different textures and weights with an ordinary object. Matt uses this in training to have soldiers feel the weights of different objects to pick them up and complete a task (to actually feel what the specific screwdriver weighs as you disassemble an IED).

Matt and his team combine all of these technologies to immerse soldiers into their combat zone to simulate the environment as much as possible to prepare them for their missions. We were grateful for their time and interest in educating our students!

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A day at school through a student's eyes

4/7/2014

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How do students see their school? Use Google Glass!

I've been working on a video project for the last two months called A Day at St. Bridget School. My goal was to give teachers, parents and our school community the ability to see our school from the perspective of students.

At different points of the day, I would stop a student from the activity and ask them if they could wear Glass as they continued their work or play. The videos would automatically sync with Google+, then I would be able to download them and import them into iMovie.

One of the aha moments I had was after a scene with a kindergartener. His clip involved him walking from the car into school. However, after I viewed it, I quickly realized we couldn't use the footage. Since the student was the height of an average 5-year-old, the recording was of the teacher's waistline! It helped me realize that signs posted above a few feet high wouldn't be very visible to young children.

After securing the licensing for the background soundtrack, we were able to publish the video to YouTube on Thursday. Here's the finished product:

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Funeral fiasco

3/25/2014

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Last week, we had a tragedy strike our school. One of our recent graduates passed away after finishing a half marathon. She has two younger sisters and quite a few cousins who currently attend St. Bridget School. The unexpected and sudden loss of life shocked the school community. In a week where St. Patrick's Day, a 2-hr delay, and March Madness were supposed to dominate the discussion, a somber mood blanketed all interactions.

Her parents attend our parish, so we hosted the funeral mass. The girl had attended two area high schools, and both of them had classmates come pay their respects. One hour before the service started, the sanctuary was already packed with a standing room only crowd. People flowed into the commons area adjacent to the sanctuary, and folks were directed into our gym to watch it online.

Expecting a large crowd, one of the church staff prepared a laptop with webcam and sound hooked directly into the sound system to stream the service live on YouTube. It was quite the setup; MacGyver would have been proud! Unfortunately, the church wifi didn't reach into the balcony, so the feed had to be sent through parishioner's mobile hotspot. Despite the hurdles of time and available technology, the feed was live and running 40 minutes before the service began.

The problem occurred when we were working on the sound, which wasn't coming through properly. While the staff member was playing around with the cables right before the service began, one of the cables disconnected from the laptop...which happened to be providing the power. The staff member had to go participate in the service (which I didn't know until he left; I had assumed he would be up there the whole time) and nobody knew the password to the computer! I scrambled between the church and gym to figure out the problem and get another computer. 30 minutes into the service, the gentlemen who owned the computer texted the password to us just as I arrived with a new machine for the feed.

Once we had the feed running again, the audio took another minute to get straight. But even with a quality connection, we were limited by the bandwidth the cell phone could provide through its 3G network, so the signal quality for the audio was inconsistent. Unfortunately, the folks in our gym had a very different experience than those in the church and missed the homily. On the bright side, folks prayed the rosary together, were able to sing along with a few hymns, pass the peace, take communion, and recess with the parishioners.

Looking back, there are many things I would do differently (use a school-owned device, have the person who setup the system remain there during the ceremony, or add a wireless access point for the balcony). Yet, it humbled me and served as a reminder that both human life and technology can fail without warning.

Why am I sharing this story on my blog? Because I promised I would share my experiences and ideas--good, bad, and revolutionary. I hope you can either learn a lesson from what I did/did not do or empathize with my technology fiasco. Everyone's gotta have one sooner or later!

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Google Glass flips art class

3/19/2014

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Our school art teacher Megan is awesome. Here are a few reasons why:

She's always trying new projects.
University of Montana is her alma mater.
Student art is displayed and frequently refreshed all around the school.
Her materials are usually recycled (or up-cycled).
Nothing phases her.

One of the new projects she's trying this year is some digital art with some photoshop-like elements. The apps she used were Sketchbook X (free) and SuperImpose ($0.99). She was willing to try using Google Glass to flip her multi-step lesson for the students (more information about flipped learning here). Here are the steps we took to create her directions:

Record/narrate each step of the process as a separate video on Glass.
Upload videos to YouTube (Megan tweaked a few with the YouTube editor to tighten up the time).
Label videos with the step number and title.
Add all the videos into a playlist.
Create a QR code from the playlist link.
Display QR code during lesson.

When the 4th graders arrived, Megan modeled all 12 steps of the process live for them. She put a QR code up on her SMARTboard for students to use if they needed a refresher for one of the steps. Students started working on their projects and scanned the QR code to get a list of all the steps required.

Google Glass was awesome because it allowed Megan to use both her hands for the artwork. Without it, I would have had to make the recording next to her. This way, the students could see the project's progress from a first-person perspective.

As students were working, Megan was freed up to walk around the room and assist with troubleshooting instead of going over the directions. Her comment to me was, "This is great! I don't have to repeat myself all the time!"

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No more yearbook deadlines through augmented reality

3/18/2014

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Anyone who has ever been in charge of the school yearbook knows how stressful the last few weeks can be. Deadlines, misspelled names, layout tweaks, and missing pictures can all contribute to a frenzied finish. And that's assuming all the orders have been processed!

I've published four yearbooks now: three in Philadelphia and one (almost two!) in Richmond. Each one has been a labor of love. Despite their troubles, I find them fulfilling. It's all worth it when I see the eagerness in kids' faces when they ask if the yearbooks have arrived, listen to them squeal when they see their crazy teacher, or take their pen when they ask me to sign theirs for them.

99% of the yearbook editor's job ends when s/he submits the yearbook to the publishing company. All that's left is for them to be distributed! However, this means that none of the school events from the final few months of school can be captured. UNTIL NOW.

Augmented reality works by a user setting a "trigger image" that causes an app to display other content when activated. By setting each page in the yearbook as a trigger image, each page can come to life with additional pictures, slideshows, and videos. These elements can be changed at anytime online via the Aurasma Studio interface.

This added element means my yearbook team can continue documenting the school year after we submit the book. This year, we're going to be able to include our official class pictures, which weren't possible before (they are taken in late April, well past our submission deadline). We'll also do some interviews with students about the school year and maybe include a message from the teachers.

I'll have to post a follow-up after our book is finished, but here's a preview of what it might look like:

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Front page news through Google Glass

Military Simulations at School

A day at school through a student's eyes

Funeral fiasco

Google Glass flips art class

No more yearbook deadlines through augmented reality

Eric De Boer

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