Learn By Doing

A Lifelong Learner Shares Thoughts About Education

  • Device to silence incessant talkers created by Japanese scientists was published in The Telegraph and is recounted in full here as it is simply too much fun to contemplate what uses this could be put to.  Staff Meetings?  Overcrowded classrooms?  Conversations with a Spouse?  In a Car?  In a Bar?  (nod to Dr. Seuss anniversary this week).

    What is it?  A device that silences incessant talkers or mutes people who talk too loudly that has been created by Japanese scientists.

    SpeechJammer; Japanese Researchers have created a handheld gun that can literally stop you from talking

    Dubbed the SpeechJammer, the prototype device takes advantage of psychologists’ discovery that it is virtually impossible to speak when your own words are being played back to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.

    The gadget has been devised by Kazutaka Kurihara, a researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada, a professor at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, and is remarkably simple.

    The hand-held device consists of a microphone that is pointed at the speaker and records that person’s voice. It then transfers the sounds to a speaker and replays them back in the same direction with a delay of about 0.2 seconds.

    The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun.

    "The system can disturb remote people’s speech without any physical comfort," the scientists said in a paper reported in the MIT Technology Review.

    Their tests also uncovered some unexpected findings, such as that the gun is more effective when the delay varies in time. It also works better when the speaker is reading aloud rather than giving a spontaneous monologue.

    Their research also revealed that it has no effect on meaningless sound sequences, such as "aaaargh."

    Kurihara and Tsukada have not spelled out the commercial potential for their invention, but did list some possible applications.

    They said it could be used to maintain silence in public libraries and to "facilitate discussion" in group meetings.

    "We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking," they said. "There are still many cases in which the negative aspects of speech become a barrier to the peaceful resolution of conflicts."

  • I finally found the Google App Inventor Blog for MIT.  I am catching up to using App Inventor again in class after pausing while MIT took it over.  From the Blog:

    Google and MIT are pleased to announce the initial free and open-source release from Google of the App Inventor source code at http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/.

    There’s little supporting documentation yet, and we’re not accepting contributions to the code now. That will happen later, after the MIT Center of Mobile Learning opens their App Inventor server to the public. We hope to nurture a robust and active open-source project eventually, but for now we don’t want to distract the MIT developers from their efforts to complete and deploy the large-scale public server. In the meantime, we’ll update the code periodically to match what’s running at the latest MIT experimental system. We’ve also created a Google Group here for people working with the code to relate their experiences with the code, ask questions, help each other, etc.

    People who create modifications from this code base are free to use the term “App Inventor” and the puzzle-piece Android logo in their work. MIT will be releasing its own versions under the name “MIT App Inventor”, which is reserved for the systems actually coming from MIT.

    Enjoy the code, and Happy Inventing!

  • The Raspberry Pi Foundation

    Before we get into the nitty gritty of hardware, software and what will be possible once the Raspberry Pi (RasPi for short) is finally released it’s important to take a look at the project’s roots. RasPi was initially devised by Eben Upton in 2006 who saw a decline in computer science skills amongst applicants for Cambridge University while he was lecturing and working in admissions.

    As a product of the British education system I can confirm that programming was not on the menu. Instead, we were taught basic word processing, spreadsheets and web design (using FrontPage Express, no less). Eben noticed that past applicants who had started programming on their Commodore 64s, Amigas and BBC Micro Computers of years gone by were much better versed in computer science than the Windows generation who were taught basic computer literacy and not pushed to learn to code. Huge drops in the numbers of applicants supported his theory that schools were not doing enough to encourage programming.

    Hardware, Software & Design

    At the heart of every Raspberry Pi unit is the Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip (SoC) . It contains an ARM11 processor running at 700MHz with a powerful Videocore 4 GPU (which uses OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries to deliver its impressive 3D performance). This provides roughly the equivalent to the original Xbox console’s grunt in graphical processing power (in real-world terms it’s closer to a Pentium II at 300MHz with considerably better graphics). Video-out is delivered via HDMI or composite (no VGA) and the unit is able to decode 1080p H.264 Blu-ray quality video at 30fps with sound over HDMI to boot.

    There will be two versions of the RasPi – Model A ($25) comes with 128MB of RAM, a single USB 2.0 port and no Ethernet; Model B ($35) has 256MB of RAM, two USB 2.0 ports and a 100/10Mb Ethernet port. Due to the fact that the unit runs on ARM architecture (as opposed to x86 or x64 commonly found in PCs) it should be able to run all manner of software written for the platform provided the system requirements add up.

    The initial batch of RasPi units will not ship with a case, power supply or SD card (the main storage medium your OS will reside on) in order to keep the cost down. A 5v micro USB power supply, cables and such will be available to ship at launch for an additional fee, and it’s great to be given the option as many of us have too many cables lying around already. According to the project website the unit will also comfortably run off 4xAA batteries for true portability.

  • Reading Miguel Guhlin’s recent post on Around the Corner-MGuhlin I came across a quote he referenced that resonated with my concern over curriculum, that the answer to the question why not might simply be the same as the movie The Matrix: “What is the Matrix?” Control.  While this may be a less relevant tie in, I admit to watching part of the Matrix recently.

    In addressing the need for Computer Science, whether as an AP Computer Science or IB ITGS curriculum add, can current curriculum be understood in a perception that disadvantaged students are not capable of more, or that we should not provide more? 

    "Economically disadvantaged students, who often use the computer for remediation and basic skills, learn to do what the computer tells them, while more affluent students, who use it to learn programming and tool applications, learn to tell the computer what to do. Those who cannot claim computers as their own tool for exploring the world never grasp the power of technology…They are controlled by technology as adults–just as drill-and-practice routines controlled them as students."Source: Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education

    In a current Advanced class on Web Design and Development, I am attempting to work combining technology and writing as “tools of empowerment and learning” (M. Guhlin) having students blog what they are learning to share with a global audience.  My intent is to develop not only improved ability for students to claim their right to grasp the power of technology, but also to work on developing a powerful mechanism for literacy embedded in the structure of the program.

    "Powerful literacy involves creativity and reason — the ability to evaluate, analyze and synthesize what is read…it is also the ability to write one’s ideas so that another person can understand them."
    (Source: Patrick Finn, Literacy with an Attitude)

  • http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/

    Smarthistory.org is a free, not-for-profit, multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker began smARThistory in 2005 by creating a blog featuring free audio guides in the form of podcasts for use in The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Soon after, we embedded the audio files in our online survey courses. The response from our students was so positive that we decided to create a multi-media survey of art history web-book. We created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.

    We are interested in delivering the narratives of art history using the read-write web’s interactivity and capacity for authoring and remixing. Publishers are adding multimedia to their textbooks, but unfortunately they are doing so in proprietary, password-protected adjunct websites. These are weak because they maintain an old model of closed and protected content, eliminating Web 2.0 possibilities for the open collaboration and open communities that our students now use and expect.

    In Smarthistory, we have aimed for reliable content and a delivery model that is entertaining and occasionally even playful. Our podcasts and screen-casts are spontaneous conversations about works of art where we are not afraid to disagree with each other or art history orthodoxy. We have found that the unpredictable nature of discussion is far more compelling to students, museum visitors and other informal learners than a monologue. When students listen to shifts of meaning as we seek to understand each other, we model the experience we want our visitors to have—a willingness to encounter the unfamiliar and transform it in ways that make it meaningful to them. We believe that Smarthistory is broadly applicable to our discipline and is a first step toward understanding how art history can fit into the new collaborative culture created by web 2.0 technologies.