iiE Profiles introduce interesting people in the Institute for Innovation in Education community. The first batch were based on interviews done by students in the University of Michigan – Flint Ed Tech Professional Seminar.
I am deeply honored to have been featured in an iiE Profile. Check it out below:
I’m delighted to announce that I will be leading a pre-conference workshop at the 2015 MACUL conference in Detroit, Michigan. My workshop, on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, is focused on documenting and sharing project-based learning.
http://maculconference.org/preconference-workshops/
8:30 AM – 12:00 PM – Cobo Center
Bill VanLoo, Teacher, Ann Arbor STEAM at Northside, Ann Arbor Public Schools
Come make and document hands-on projects from the STEAM content areas! A special focus will be learning tools and techniques for documenting your work; options for mobile devices (Android and iOS), Web tools, and cameras will be explored in detail. Finally, you’ll discover methods for efficiently sharing your work online. Bring your favorite tool for capturing photos and videos.
I’ve got a new build video up on YouTube! I’m showing the Printrbot Simple Maker’s Edition, a 3D printer kit my son and I put together.
With all the cold weather here, I needed an indoor project, so here’s a look at my current camera bag of choice and my everyday carry. You can watch my review of the Amazon Basics DSLR Backpack on YouTube.
I spent some time this evening watching the Photographic Processes Series by the George Eastman House. This is a free series on YouTube that the George Eastman House, the educational arm of Eastman Kodak, has made available. Really fascinating stuff. The image in this post is a cyanotype by Anna Atkins, a British biologist in the 1800s.
Last night, I launched an updated version of this site. You can see what it looks like in a mobile browser above.
I used the excellent Radcliffe theme for WordPress, with very few tweaks. I’ll be adding more in the upcoming weeks. Enjoy!
I spent a little time tonight running audio tests with my new Audio-Technica wired lavalier mic plugged into my camera. I’m using a Canon T3i with the ATR3350 lavalier mic.
After listening to the recordings of the AT lav mic and testing iMovie’s noise reduction, it doesn’t bode that well for the little, inexpensive lav (it’s about $25, so no harm done).
While the lav mic sounds more full, it’s got a really high noise floor (lots of background hiss). Since I don’t care much for how iMovie handles its “reduce background noise” feature (it introduces a lot of weird artifacts; full of pumping audio, garbled sounds, and generally underwater-sounding audio), that’s not good. I may do a more full set of audio tests in the future; I’m not sure if this little mic is going to make the cut for my audio/video production needs.
It is with greatly mixed emotions that I’m posting this today.
I have accepted a new position with Ann Arbor Public Schools, as the Ed Tech lead teacher for the new STEAM program at Northside. As such, I have resigned from my position at Honey Creek.
STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) is an integrative approach that I have been working toward for a number of years at Honey Creek, and the opportunity to build a new program based on this vision is tremendously exciting. I met with the new staff today, and it’s a really wonderful group of people, and we’re planning on doing some great things.
I look forward to continuing to be part of the Honey Creek community as a parent and supporter. Many thanks to all of you who have helped make the last 7 years of my life so special, and onward to the new adventure!
Reflection on my teaching and the tools I use has long been a part of my teaching practice, and I have a few new videos to share.
The first is from a project I did at the end of winter break, when we got lucky with an extra snow day. This gave me an opportunity to play with the Adafruit GEMMA, a small microcontroller designed for wearables. Here’s the video:
Also, I’ve been teaching a new afterschool Scratch workshop this winter, and I got a new tool for the Raspberry Pi that is perfect for introducing physical computing and interaction. It’s called the PiFace Digital, and the video below gives a quick tour of this exciting new add-on.