Category: design
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We Are The Revolutionaries
These are my notes from a presentation titled “We Are The Revolutionaries” on February 2, 2008, at the Oklahoma 2008 State Superintendent’s Social Studies and Fine Arts Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is, “Revolutionary Matters.” This presentation by Beth Howard and her students from Mark Twain Elementary School in Tulsa Public Schools has…
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Astronaut courage and NASA ingenuity shown again
Think the ability to think fast and solve problems with the materials on hand was just something NASA astronauts and design engineers needed back in the early days of the U.S. space program in the 1960s and 1970s? Think again. According to Wednesday’s CNN article, “Discovery lands after challenging mission:” Even before the mission began…
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Turning to YouTube for an Origami Tutorial
My 4th grade son is working on a homemade boat project this weekend, as he’ll be racing his model tomorrow at school in recognition of Columbus Day and Christopher Columbus. The specifications require the boat be made of homemade materials, include no motors, and have a width no greater than 2 1/2 inches. Students must…
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Notes from Gary Stager’s Learning 2.0 Session: 10 things to do with a laptop
I AM CURRENTLY ON THE FLIGHT FROM SHANGHAI TO TOKYO. THESE ARE MY NOTES FROM THE PODCAST OF GARY STAGER’S FINAL SESSION AT THE LEARNING 2.0 CONFERENCE IN SHANGHAI LAST WEEKEND. (TYPHOON WIPHA SLOWED DOWN AS IT APPROACHED THE COAST OF CHINA, AND WE WERE ABLE TO TAKE OFF IN SLIGHTLY ELEVATED WINDS BUT OTHERWISE…
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Understanding Internet architecture, a need for smarter networks, TCP and UDP differences
Before starting this post, which promises to be rather lengthy, it is likely worth noting the disclaimer which appears in the upper left corner of my blog website but does not appear within my RSS feed for posts: “Wesley Fryer is the author of Moving at the Speed of Creativity. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein…
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Interaction is insufficient, creation and construction are key
I was (at last) able to listen to Dr. Mitchel Resnick’s keynote address from BLC 2007, thanks to Bob Sprankle’s podcast recording. (Original link broken: Here’s an Internet Archive Wayback Machine version, which includes the original mp3 podcast!) I’ve heard Bob, Queyen Arana, and a few others mention what a fantastic message Mitch shared in the…
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Update on “Invent the Future” After School Club / Scratch Programming
I was able to visit with our school principal today, as well as one of our PTO presidents, about the idea of having an “every other week” after-school computer club, most likely for just 4th and 5th graders. (I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in the post “Digital Playground of Dreams.” Our…
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1st Scratch Lesson with Alexander
Alexander (my 9 year old) gave me my first lesson on how to program in Scratch today – WOW! I am so amazed. Our first lesson lasted 45 minutes long. Alexander is the “expert” on Scratch in our house because he’s spent a total of 4-5 hours playing with the program so far. I had…