Mo Physics Mo Problems

We help out 7th Passion Project Expo this week. We had a lot of interesting projects but there was a first that I thought was pretty cool. For the past 3 years, I have had a few students build VR spaces to present their projects using CoSpaces. This year though, I had a student decide to use Google’s brand new Tour Creator to create VR experience . Now, Tour Creator may have been created initially with the idea of using landscape images to create a “tour”, but Emily Taylor did something a bit different. She used images and text to create an informative experience exploring theories around interdimensional beings. Her experience is embedded below, but what’s even cooler is if you go to the link: https://poly.google.com/view/a3LxyoasCTj You can export it to the Expeditions App and view it in VR on your own or guide a tour. In this tour, the hotspots are not specifically tied to their location on the background. But I could image this being done with great effect on something like an

In August of 2019, Flipgrid launched a bunch of new options to their camera. These include adding text to videos, live drawing, uploading images, editing multiple clips together, camera filters, and whiteboard background. The updates are amazing! If you and the learners in your classroom haven't tried them yet, you need to get on it. Flipgrid has added some updates to the camera since August. So, I've updated my original guide to reflect those changes. Please click here to get access to the guide.  The quick link to the guide is bit.ly/flipgridcamera I have also taken the annotated screenshots and put them into a slide deck if you are interested in training students or staff in how to use the new camera. Please feel free to make a copy of the slide deck and edit to your liking.  I hope you find these resources useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Just today Pear Deck launched a beta integration of Microsoft’s Immersive Reader as a part of student view. This means that students can use the Immersive Reader to increase accessibility to text content present in a Pear Deck Slide. Pear Deck already has the ability for video and audio content playback to be controlled by students when in Student Paced mode. This option allows learners to launch the Immersive Reader regardless of the presentation mode. If you are unfamiliar with Immersive Reader, check out the quick overview video I made below detailing the Immersive Reader Extension for Google Chrome. All of the same features are available in the Pear Deck integration. To launch Immersive Reader from a Pear Deck slide, students simply click on the icon at the bottom right corner of their screen. The Immersive Reader beta integration is currently available for premium accounts. Teachers just need to go to their settings and turn on the integration. I look forward to seeing how teac

Today a wonderful appsmash was launched between Pear Deck and Gimkit . This integration allows the Flashcards students create in Pear Deck’s Flashcard Factory to be exported into Gimkit for gameplay. If you aren’t familiar with Flashcard Factory, it is an app in which students collaborate to build flashcards which have multiple representations of terms and concepts. So, how does it work? The first step is for the teacher to build a list of vocabulary terms or concepts. This is done by going to the Pear Deck Launchpad and selecting Start a Vocabulary List. From here, teachers build a list of terms or concepts. If the teacher wants, the can add a definition on their own or use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Integration to find one.The list autosaves to the creator’s Google Drive. Once the list is done, the creator can launch Flashcard Factory or come back to it later to launch Flashcard Factory. Once Flashcard Factory is launched, the projector will direct students towards joinpd.com

Last year we took a big risk in our physics classroom and decided to take on a huge project in which students fabricated chariots for Spheros. The project incorporates science and engineering standards as a part of the process and the project required students to have a chariot which had a piece that was fabricated using a 3D printer and one piece that was laser cut. Last year students collaborated on their designs with a Project Lead the Way engineering class so they weren’t required to build the 3D digital models that would be printed. This year, we didn’t partner with an engineering class and groups had to do all the work on their own from design through fabrication. Now that this 10 day project is finished, I am able to look back on the successes and challenges of the project in hopes of building on it when I have a new group of physics students in 3 months. Here’s the overall scheduling of the project.  On days 4-6, groups rotated through the print and cut process. Those not pr