afternoons measured with coffeespoons...
Happy New Year.
My January was full of enjoying space and time. The first was in attending the performances of two bands. The second was from the cleaning up of my home office of home renovation dust, which had accumulated from back in November 2017.
The STEAM projects at the John Harris and SciTech Campuses were in transition because of Keystone Testing and the change of the 2nd Marking period. Not a whole lot to report for each school.
There are some highlights...
I met with teachers to develop two new Project Scopes. One for a Library Makerspace at John Harris, and another for the Senior Yearbook Project.
As a Senior Fellow in Technology, I've been mapping out the pathways between the 11 K-12 schools in the Districts.
I helped get the Fluval pump of a Trout in the Classroom fish tank back online.
Reconnected back to my musical routes via two concerts and midi controllers.
I hope that you enjoy the update.
STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ARTS, MATHEMATICS:
Library Makerspace (Mrs. Brown)
Before the Holiday Break, I discovered a new initiative at the John Harris Campus. There was a flyer for the Library Makerspace in the Main Office and I took a photo of it. I did this to record a reminder to follow up in January to see how the Foundry might be able to support the effort. I am grateful that I did. I was able to connect with the Librarian. Mrs. Deborah Brown, who had heard about Makerspaces and wanted to do after school hands on activities and life skills training. An idea was to use the virtual scavenger hunt app - Goosechase to have students become more familiar with all the Career Attributes posters all around the high school. The idea originate from Mr. Burns, who was using this to help students develop their public speaking skills.
I met with her the second week of January and learned that she wanted to start it for the 3rd Marking Period on Monday, January 14th. I took note of all the ideas that she had and took the rest of the week to pull together some resources. It was good to hear that her ideas were focused more on low-tech - Scrapbooking, Sewing, Crochet, and other Arts and Crafts related items. I explained that this was well within the realm of any type of making. I also suggested that as this developed it could be connected back to the CLS Smart Lab and the AV Studio to build on existing ROAR Academy Curriculum. There was also a reference made to how the ThinkHub might be utilized.
Here are some resources that I referenced:
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS:
STEM Lab (Mr. Gigac)
Due to the Second Marking Period shift, the long-term substitute, Mr. Britton has moved to another part of the building. There is a new long-term substitute, who I have met and I hope to put together some 3D Printing, CNC and LEGO Mindstorms Robotics projects. She was interested in these as well as becoming trained on the other equipment in the CLS Smart Lab.
ARTS:
A/V Studio Lab (Mr. Williams & Mr. Burns)
The second week of January Mr. Williams, Mr. Burns and I had a great discussion about how to develop the class into a "mini production studio." Both teachers wanted students to develop their skills to be more mobile so that they could record internal productions at the school. This plan was propelled from the popular "Don't Quit" video (from the Harrisburg School District's FB page), which was aired at the December (181217M) School Board Meeting.
The goal is to create 2-3 more productions. Students have the ability to work within the CLS Tricaster Studio, or be mobile using a portable green screen and iPads. It has been amazing to see the capacity building happening from students that I worked with back in 2017-2018 with Mr. Cooper. The students have really progressed in both their personal communication and technical skills. This will really set things up nicely for a potential 2019 Cougar's Got Talent Event.
STEAM Making @ John Harris Campus High School
TECHNOLOGY:
SciBots (Mrs. Worful, Mr. Group, Mr. Green)
The 2018-2019 FIRST Tech Challenge is almost wrapping up. Here is the link to the entire schedule. Unfortunately, due to both teams not having complete Robots, we didn't have any students competing this year. A team would have competed in a Scrimmage and then to a Qualifier. There are still 4 qualifiers through February, which I encouraged the students to attend so that they can see what they are like. It is always impressive to see teams working together in the Pit. We're working to wrap this up through the 3rd Marking Period.
A proposed goal is to have the teams build two complete drivable bots. This would be helpful for any PR and Marketing through the end of the year. We hope that this might provide some motivation to take things more slowly in building and programming. We've realized that the team had lost some base knowledge because the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 cohorts have moved on after graduating. This is one aspect that needs to be connected in the Technology Pathway, which I oversee. At the Middle School Level - Camp Curtin Academy, Marshall / Marshall Math & Science Academy and Rowland - a strong 5-8 cohort needs to be developed. In those grades students should have some base knowledge in Computer Science (www.scratch.mit.edu) as well as some basics in Electronics / Engineering.
ARTS:
Community Podcasts (Mr. Elo)
Starting in February, Mr. Elo is planning to get back into the recording and editing of Podcasting. Much in the same way that Mr. Johntrae Williams is building a "Film Production Crew," Mr. Elo is building a group of students who can go through the entire process of producing a Podcast - (1) Plan, (2) Produce, (3) Mix, (4) Publish, (5) Evaluate - Classroom Tech.
Last December, they recorded 4 SciTech teachers and are planning to edit that soon. They are also working to get the mobile recording studio setup with the mics and laptop so they can capture interviews around the building. They are still looking at the NPR Student Podcast Challenge.
ARTS:
Senior Yearbook Project (Mr. Elo)
Besides the Library Makerspace Project that I spoke up at John Harris, I am helping Mr. Elo pull together the effort of the Senior Yearbook. He is the Advisor for this effort and really doesn't need help because his students do a good job pulling it together each year. Students in Computer Graphics, Digital Media Design, and Publication Production learn the process of online communication and collaboration between the SciTech Campus and the John Harris Campus.
What is needed is a strengthening of the process to help model the 4Cs in the project. There are ways to help develop student story telling to help each graduating group memorialize their last year. This is happening now until the books go to press later in the spring.
So I close this blog post with reflections about music and making. I love the realm of computer music, ever since my Commodore 64 SID (Sound Interface Device) - and Dr. T's Music Software. For any history of all of this, check out I Dream of Wires: The Modular Synthesizer documentary. This is one of my main interests where I created LifeThruTech with the LifeInPA and LifeThruMusic folks.
These reflections are marked by 3 events in January and I'll work backwards from the most recent...
#1 - Crash Test Dummies @ HMAC
On Sunday, January 20th, my brother and I attended the 25th Anniversary Tour of God Shuffled His Feet release by the Crash Test Dummies on October 23rd, 1993. I had turned 20 years old that year. While I didn't get the album immediately, I knew the band from the Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm song. I knew the original, but I really enjoyed the Weird Al parody, Headline News. Looking back, it is amazing to see all of the 3 stories connecting to the 24/7 news cycle. The three stories that Weird Al follows are:
10/1993 - The six stroke canning of Michael Fay in Singapore for Theft & Vandalism (amazingly he and I share the same birthday, but I am two years older.
1/6/1994 - The attack on Nancy Kerrigan orchestrated by the husband of rival Tonya Harding.
6/23/1993 - The incident of John Wayne Bobbitt and Lorena Bobbitt.
The band sounded amazing. While I forgot my CD to sign, I purchased two CDs of songs that I didn't know, but enjoyed during the concert. One of the reasons that I had a gap in songs is when I was introduced to the band's music, it was when my wife and I moved to East Meadow, Long Island. A college classmate had recently picked up God Shuffled His Feet and said "you have to hear this, it is music that you and your parents would like." He was right. The lyrics were poetic and the band had some great interplay. I picked up the album at a used music store (remember them?)
So as the show closed, I picked up two new CDs and had the band sign them. I talked to them briefly about the Harrisburg Comprehensive Plan because they had traveled around a bit to sightsee. A funny side story was from the guy I sat next to during the show. He had said that during the Meet and Greet that Brad Roberts had just woken up. They had been traveling from Pittsburgh and Buffalo before that show. Everyone was concerned about the snow storm that hit over the weekend.
One of my favorite songs, actually lines are in this month's blog image. I also enjoyed this lyric because of the connection to the snowstorm.
"If not for all this snow and black ice
I’d leave this room and go out walking
I would be happy"
- Black Ice by Crash Test Dummies
#2 - Kevin Shoaff on Sound @ The Cliffs
The second music influence in January happened when Jaminson Rotz, co-working colleague at StartupHbg was playing at The Cliffs Underground.
Earlier that week I told my brother about going to see Jaminson and Kev said, "yeah, I'll be there running sound."
A group from StartupHbg decided to go hear Jamison play. We had a great evening. I got to reminisce about music and the complexities of mixing live with 8 mics and 2 keys and 2 guitars.
I really appreciated the work that my brother does running sound. It is not an easy job, but he is amazing to watching in this environment.
#3 - Electronic Music
I saved up some of my Christmas money to purchase a gift that I've been looking at for some time. It started out as a plan to purchase a Novation Launchpad to work with Abelton Live. Lightshows popped up and I always see these as something that are very accessible to students who are not exactly focused to instrumentation.
Due to some difficulties getting a new unit (the local Guitar Center and one in Delaware let me down selling me two used units) I decided to switch to a Machine Jam. Ultimately this has been a better purchase because I am now learning a totally different software. The Jam is much easier to jump into and I've been gradually helping my daughters understand the basics of STEP SEQUENCING and finger drumming. Don't laugh, it takes some impressive skills.
So that leaves me with some discussion into my ongoing interest in music and technology. I know that I haven't mentioned much of it before and that is during my time working with the Foundry, those interests took a back burner. I was doing a lot of work with music and recording with students at the Neighborhood Center in planning out a podcast and working with LifeThruMusic / and LifeThruTech teaching how music and technology merge.
I hope that some folks at StartupHbg might join up for a jam session.
REF:
2004 - Macworld SF - Garageband Introduction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2jq4iRyULg - It has been almost 25 years since the software was released.
2011 - Moby's Drum Machine & Synth College - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9q48UlfD1w - The mix of TECHNOLOGY & MUSIC