ISPP Secondary Technology Support

In Grade 10 IBMYP Digital Design, our students explored the viability of 3D animation as form of communication. We canvased for clients to gather concepts to communicate, and students selected projects based on personal interests. They then used the IBMYP design process to create animations. Students found the unit extremely challenging. We used Blender to create our animations and students were provided with some basic instructions, but for the most part they needed to find learning resources online. Each group needed to troubleshoot their own issues, which were highly varied and complex. For every single student, this was a first attempt at creating a 3D animation. Many had never even considered the possibility of using this medium. While students struggled to balance their expectations of making professional animations and the reality of being beginners, I compared their use of Blender to a kindergartener's use of the hand written alphabet: monkish calligraphy would be unli...

Here's your chance to create a program on an Arduino robot, and make a movie of the robot doing the code! The best movies will be used to promote our upcoming Hour of Code activities in December! Here is our robot running some code. My idea was to make her arms move quickly and her eyes blink out of sync, and then have her arms slow down and her eyes get into sync and blink more and more slowly.  As you can see, my movie needs a lot of work. I need to give credit for the sources I used for my code, give it a title, maybe add music... what else? A voice over? What code would you like to run? What movie would you make? I will put the robot in The Loop, so that students can enter their own code to change the robot's behavior, and then record the robot running the code. To develop your own code, you can download the Arduino software here . You can find tutorials and even learn how to hack the Arduino here . I have also made a Git Repository here where you can share ...

Kid City is holding a STEM Competition this week and invited schools from Phnom Penh to Participate. ISPP was able to send two teams of 5 students: one from Elementary, and one from Secondary. Students had to be 12 years old or younger to participate. So what is STEM ? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. In the past decade there have been many initiatives to boost STEM in education, in large part to increase the availability of skilled workers for rapidly growing STEM fields, and to give our children the skills they will need to meet the challenges of the future. Particular areas of focus are teaching STEM subjects in an integrated manner rather than separately, and reaching out to younger students ,  girls , and minorities . Hour of Code , Khan Academy , Scratch , and Codecademy are some examples of projects that help make STEM accessible to students and teachers. Our teams made outstanding efforts and it was inspiring to watch them share ideas ...

A few years ago in Moscow I had the pleasure of working with Lori Waters, a 3D medical animationist, who worked with teachers and students to help us make a simple 3D animation and make objects to print on our 3D printer. After the experience a few of us continued working with Blender, the program we used to make our designs. We made rings, chess pieces, Minecraft movies, and learned how to add physics to objects we imported into Blender. One student even loaded a 2D image and gave it the physical properties of cloth so that he could lay it on a square block and let it blow in the wind! Here are some rings I designed for our school mission, and a recorder we printed that my son played in the school recorder concert! Why not get started yourself! You can download Blender for FREE here , and check out tutorials here . You can even set up a time to work with me and I can help you get started. You can print your 3D designs at Arc Hub down by the riverside in Phnom Penh. ...