Document camera reflectors

One of our primary classes has a small set of Osmo toys that they enjoy. It's basically a mirror that hands over your iPad that reflects the front camera down so the app can "see" what's on the tabletop. This concept really took off in the spring when most classes went virtual; a simple setup to let students and teachers show paperwork without having to move their webcam or computer.

This was a project that tinkerers and makers really ran with. My favourite was using CDs as the reflective surface and a taped pencil as the stand:

Other projects had small mirrors being held in place by 3D-printed plastic, laser-cut cardboard, or even cardstock. Each had their place in supporting whatever scenario you found yourself in. You may want a disposable solution, or an easy-to-reproduce product. Perhaps a flat-packable product to slip inside a book or a robust, hardy model to prevent breakage.

Some had adjustable hinges to fit different thicknesses of monitors and laptops. Careful measuring of thickness would allow makers to create different models for distribution.

For my school, I opted to make one universal-fit model. We are a BYOD school so there are dozens of computer types and thicknesses. I also needed it cheap and quick and easy to produce since I wanted students to take them home in case they need them should we go virtual.

Ours ended up being about 2 grams of 3D-printed PLA plastic (2 cents), a 1" square mirror sourced from Amazon (13 cents), and a clothespin (7 cents). For about $66 I've been able to produce enough for 300 students and teachers!

For more info and suggestions take a look here.

3D printed hub rings

Last year I purchased steel tire wheels for winter tires but they didn't fit my car exactly. Wheels have a center hole that fits over the hub of the car. Typically, this hole fits perfectly and allows you to quickly fit the wheel over the studs. This kind of wheel is called hubcentric and makes for a foolproof install.

Lugcentric wheels have the same holes for the wheel studs but the center hole is larger. Manufacturers can make a smaller number of varieties since one wheel design can fit a larger variety of cars. However, since the center hole is larger, it is trickier to line up the wheel studs in the direct center of the lug holes. A wheel that is not perfectly centered can cause vibration leading to steering instability and, potentially, loosening of the lug bolts.

Hub rings are spacers that you can use to fit over the hub that line up the center wheel hole so the lug studs fit in the exact center. They are typically made of plastic since they do not offer any structural integrity; they are merely used as placement spacers. This makes them ideal for 3D printing from home. Thingiverse offers many user designs:

When I getting ready to swap my wheels this year I had forgotten the measurements of my wheels and, of course, hadn't written them down anywhere. So I took some rough measurements of the center hole and modified a design from Thingiverse. 10 minutes later I had a prototype that was a little loose, so I tweaked the numbers and printed another draft prototype. Once everything lined up I upped the quality settings, set the infill to 100% for stability, and I was on my way.

I thought this was a nice injection of the iterative design process and definitely saved me a trip to the car parts store or weeks in delivery time. 

Learning by cheating and breaking things

 I've been hit with a wave of nostalgia recently. Does this theme song bring you back any memories?

3-2-1 Contact was one of many astonishingly brilliant educational shows that had a huge impact on my childhood. It came out right when I was an impressionable kid that was interested in a bunch of different things. It normalized the excitement of science and technology and made for fun viewing because it included dramatic elements like The Bloodhound Gang.

In addition to television, 3-2-1 Contact had a printed magazine that included a section at the end for BASIC programming. I would borrow the magazine from my school library and either type in every single line with the one Commodore 64 or take it home and try it on my 286 (complete with TURBO button!).

It would take multiple compiles and dozens of syntax errors before I could get it working right. And that's when I learned I could cheat by understanding what I was rote copying. If I could manipulate a number here, a command there, I could change my score or entire elements of the game.

Today I put that concept into practice and built an escape/puzzle room in CoSpaces for my Grade 5-7s. I used simple CoBlocks to make responsive doors and moving platforms and bridges that blocked the user's path. I challenged them to complete the room, and if needed, to re-code it and break anything they wanted. I was hoping that by remixing and cheating they would learn how they could manipulate the set of coblocks I used. It worked well and everyone had a great introduction to VR.

I remembered these experiences after reading Greg Baugues' same experiences with his daughter and marvelled at the similar nature of our circumstances. I wonder if watched The Edison Twins too?

iOS Device Enrolment in Meraki

Apple's Device Enrolment Program is a slick and foolproof way to enrol and configure devices. It covers iPad and iPhone devices, Mac computers, and Apple TV. Each of these devices requires activation by phoning home to Apple on every reset. Bypassing this activation removes the devices from security and OS updates and access to other official Apple ecosystem products, such as the App Store.

DEP devices enrolled in an MDM, like Meraki at our school, makes a simple hands-off reset procedure. The reset procedure is initiated online without the need for the device in hand. Once the device is online it resets and upon a successful activation will automatically download the Meraki profile associated with the device. This allows customization of apps, wallpaper, restrictions, wifi and email settings, etc.

For legacy devices that were not purchased with DEP enabled or older devices that are not compatible with DEP your best option to register the device via Apple School Manager or via Apple directly into DEP. Failing that, you can still use Configurator to manually supervise and push a Meraki profile on the devices -- but this requires the device on hand. We have a few dozen of these iPads and it requires a lot of plugging and unplugging but it's fairly straightforward.

The only profile you're really pushing via Configurator is the Meraki MDM enrolment URL so the iPad can download it in the setup screens, and a wifi profile so you are not manually typing in SSID passwords. There are a few other quirks: sometimes there are conflicts with wallpapers and lock screen messages, but most are cosmetically minor.

eLearning stats

Here are our stats for our eLearning period from April 1 to June 12:

50 teaching days.
1,484,152 minutes in Zoom (JS).
495 hours in Zoom per day (JS).
56,036 Seesaw posts from students and teachers (JK-4).
27,6681 Seesaw comments (JK-4).
4652 Google Classroom posts (5-7).

We had four days of pro-d from March 26 to March 31 but I tried not to include those. For the 50 teaching days I just used an online calculator to take away the weekends and holidays. The last 10 of those days were actually a combination of our Home Learning and On-Campus Blended Learning.

The Zoom stats are very misleading. The raw stats outputted from the Zoom dashboard seem to multiply the number of meeting minutes. We don't require (or suggest) students to create Zoom accounts but faculty must have a registered account so it's easy to just pull out faculty stats and filter for just the Junior School (JK-Grade 7). However, Zoom seems to include participants into meeting minute totals but it's quite inconsistent. So a teacher hosting a meeting for 10 minutes with two participants may end up with a meeting total of 30 minutes!

I'm a little surprised that Chromebooks are not represented higher in the OS breakdown. This might be because this chart comes from client information so only tracks participants using the packaged Zoom app. I still strongly recommend Chromebooks in our BYOD years and we have maybe 25% representation in the school so I would have expected a greater percentage here.

The Seesaw stats were pulled from the admin dashboard and needed a bit of calculation. Total posts were found by subtracting our June 12 total from the April 1 total. Seesaw also provides a "weekly item" analytic but it's confusing. It would imply that each week thousands of posts were being added which would greatly skew our "total posts" analytic. I suspect this "weekly item" total also includes comments and attachments:

Google Classroom stats were pulled from the GSuite Admin dashboard. There are ways to pull this data out using the GSuite API or tools like GAM or littleSIS and I'd like to dig a little deeper into this in the fall. One such use of this data is to pull post titles or rubric info out of assignments so teachers have an easy way of tracking assessable student content. 

Running apps and tech

I finished my first virtual marathon last week and have been riding a runner's high since. I thought I would compile some tech I use to track my runs and some of the options runners can use to track their metrics because, well, data good!

I've been using the Nike Run Club app for about a year. I typically run pretty minimalist since I don't like wearing a running belt or pack, so just have the pockets in my shorts. I use an old tiny Android phone that's quite light and small so I can slip it into a pocket. Nike runs just fine on it, though it can take a few minutes to get a GPS lock -- I feel this is an app issue rather than a phone issue because Runkeeper locks very quickly.

I manually download MP3s on it, a mix of songs and podcasts. Up until recently I was able to use the FM radio since I use wired headphones. I now use a cheap Bluetooth pair which work great, but lose the FM antenna. The advantage of FM radio was battery savings: using the FM radio barely registered any battery usage compared to the stock Music app. To create playlists, I use Playlist Creator since it allows import of folders and individual MP3 files no matter where they are stored. These playlists then get picked up the stock Music app.

Nike Run Club is great for it's content. It has podcasts that are synced to your run, either in distance or time so it's nice to hear encouragement and training tips offered at the right times. I always need reminding to start slow and finish strong! There are great guest speakers from Olympic athletes to celebrities to amateurs. The variety is nice to stave off boredom. The guided runs also have lots of choice in their distance or time or focus. There are short runs, long ones, "easy win" runs and stress reliever runs.

The biggest reason I went with Nike was the training programs. I has customizable plans for the typical runs, like 10K, half and full marathons. You input your weight, age, time commitment and how many weeks until your event and it spits out a unique plan. Or so I thought, it seems the plans are minor tweaks to the publicly available Nike plans. Similar to other runners, I didn't notice that much of a difference or changes to the plan according to my results or the "baseline" run. I will say that the plan was very doable, so maybe the tweaks were there and enabled my completion!

There are a few disadvantages to the Nike app. First is the GPS issues; I've constantly had issues with GPS lock and wildly incorrect waypoint logging. Distances also tend to be inaccurate which leads to either incredible records or dismal failure. I had the crash maybe three or four times when saving a run which forces you to manually enter the stats (if you can remember them).

Perhaps the biggest issue of the Nike app is it's walled garden. It's painfully difficult to export or import stats. You need to rely on third-party hacks since Nike has shut down it's API. I use Rungap to export activities and highly recommend it. It's very smooth and simple and offers quite a lot in its free tier, even backing up to Dropbox. It converts the Nike info into a proprietary JSON format but since it's all text readable there are a handful of converters available. I opted to just purchase an upgrade for a few dollars and let Rungap convert all my activities to GPX format, the universal standard for activity tracking. It can also concert to FIT and TCX if you need those filetypes.

Another big reason to upgrade Rungap was to simply import these activities into another fitness tracker. I've decided to switch to Runkeeper, an app I used before Nike, just to see if the GPS tracking was better. Rungap handled importing all my activities (about 130 of them) flawlessly and in just a few minutes.

A few more links to using running metrics: there are a number of GPX viewers that let you visualize runs and pull more information out, depending on your waypoint and fitness tracker. I like GPS Visualizer, an online viewer, since it has a number of output options and can pull elevation data (since my phone doesn't have an altimeter). GPSMaster also works well as an offline viewer.

Broadcasting OBS through Zoom webinar field notes

I experimented with a different setup for our final virtual assembly. I knew the final output would be compressed and distorted by the Zoom webinar codecs anyway but it was a good dry run on possible setups for September.

I ran two different camera inputs: one from the front camera off an iPad Pro using NDI HX. It sent a wireless IPcam signal to my Macbook about 20 feet away. It had great quality video up to 4K, or the limits of your iPad camera, a good amount of HUD-enabled settings like exposure and focus lock, zooming and zero noticeable delay. It has an audio function as well, but we did not use it. Battery power was great, about a 10% drop per hour. This camera was set as the main, or 'A', camera as it had a locked-off shot containing all our stage talent.

The other camera was from a Canon 80D DSLR running Canon's new webcam software. This was hardwired to my Macbook using mini-USB. We had a long lens on this camera for close-ups and it ran as a backup 'B' camera. Unfortunately, it had a noticeable delay and would be visibly out of sync with our audio so I couldn't use it. I wasn't too troubled with this and didn't bother troubleshooting but in a test environment it ran lag-free and had great video quality. It could run for about 90 minutes straight on one battery charge.

Our audio was run by our new AV tech. She ran the stage mics to a mixer than routed the output through an M-Track 2x2 that outputted to USB. My Macbook recognized it as another mic input so I didn't have to adjust any settings, thought I did have iShowU installed and setup on my Macbook just in case.

Everything was routed into OBS except audio. Since we were broadcasting in Zoom webinar I just used the M-Track input as the mic input in Zoom. We were also using screen share so made sure to select the "share computer audio" option so our prerecorded videos could output sound to Zoom as well.

We used screen share instead of using OBS as a camera input in Zoom because I found the video quality to a be a bit better. I assume this is because I selected "optimize for video" when screen sharing which convinced Zoom to ease up on the compression compared to a camera input, even with "HD quality" and "original ratio" selected. Because I was screen sharing, I needed to send the OBS output using the "windowed projector" option. I could capture this projected window using the Zoom screen share.

This posed a few problems with Powerpoint. I usually drop all our slides and recorded video and audio into Powerpoint because it runs locally with no lag, allows for preview of previous and future slides, virtually unlimited transition and animation options, and very easy slide control. I setup the slideshow as "browsed by an individual" so it could present the show in a window. I then captured this window in OBS. Unfortunately, this window had to be the active window anytime an animation or video was playing, or else it would pause. That meant I couldn't click anything in OBS while a video was playing which was annoying, but worked with our presentation. I could imagine times this would be difficult in a live setting.

This kind of setup required a second monitor. I ran the Powerpoint and OBS preview windows, and the Zoom meeting controls on one monitor with OBS on the second for the mixing controls. Everything ran well, though since I had to "hack" OBS and run an unsigned Zoom it was a bit anxious at times waiting for something to crash -- which happened many times in test environments. For example, OBS would crash if I tried to resize the projection window too slowly!

We also experienced heavy compression and lag through Zoom. I'm still not 100% sure why since I was outputting 10,000kps bitrate at 1080 from OBS on a wired gigabit-upload ethernet. My test environment at home has significantly slower upload and image quality was much clearer. I'm thinking we'll have to switch to Youtube or Facebook for fall streaming if we can't fix this.  I also did not configure audio output from OBS which we might need if we had background music or cued audio/video files from OBS. However, most of this can be embedded into Powerpoint. Recording in OBS was also slow and unreliable, though I didn't really check the settings. I suspect I had them on maximum which might have eaten up CPU cycles and hard drive space.

Creating quick compilations in Premiere

Sports Day was a couple of weeks ago and as part of the festivities I like to edit a compilation video. Due to eLearning, I couldn't get footage of the events as in past years. However, one of the virtual events that our PE team created was a dance party.

Students were invited to submit a video of them dancing in their House colours. The soundtrack didn't matter, as long as they were having fun and submitted a video they were marked as participating. We ended up with 173 videos from JK-Grade 6!

Editing down that many videos can be a logistical and laborious nightmare but here are two tricks that make it a little bit easier in Premiere.

The first is editing to music by setting markers on cut points. Drop your soundtrack into your sequence and lock it by clicking the padlock:

Now play from the beginning and press the 'M' key to set a marker on the timeline wherever you want to cut to a new clip. You can set markers on bass beats, transitions, or pretty much anywhere you think would make a good edit point. With 173 videos in 4 minutes of music I had to set quite a few, and also employ some splitscreens to fit them all in:

Once all your makers are set, drop your clips into a new bin and set the In/Out points to highlight a particularly exciting or interesting few seconds. Hotkeys: 'I' and 'O."

Once you In/Outs are set, select your bin (or a selection of clips) and click Clip > Automate to Sequence: 

Some productive tips: the ordering can be set to "Sort Order" which respects the order in your Project panel. So you can group certain clips together or have some sort of linear progression, like time. The Placement should be "At Unnumbered Markers" to automagically trim your videos to fit your markers!

The second workflow tip is using the Multicam features in Premiere to edit live, almost like a live mixer situation. This is an ideal setup for group collaboration videos, similar to Brady Bunch style music videos, where there are multiple tracks synced to an audio track.

Select the clips you want to edit between -- I've successfully used up to 11 on my not-so-speedy Macbook. Right-click and select "Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence":

then syncronize all your clips by selecting "Audio":

This will line up all your clips according to what Premiere thinks is synced to audio on Track Channel 1. Adjust according to what audio track you think is best. Once you hit okay you'll have a stack of clips in your timeline. Create a new sequence from those clips and you'll have access to the Multicam icon:

With this toggled, Premiere now functions like a video mixer. Press play, and click on each source you want to switch to. Premiere will remember the cuts and when done will show splice points in your new sequence leaving your original clips intact on the timeline!

Getting back to Twitter

This past weekend I spent an hour separating my work and personal Twitter accounts. I hardly use either, but I felt it was about time I got my work Twitter at least current. I unfollowed or re-followed a number of people that I know and we'll see where it goes from there. I'm trying really hard to not post anything personal.

In the past I've found Twitter quite a lot of work to maintain good relationships. It's a wonderful PLN but I find most of my conversations happen outside of Twitter. It works well as a status check, or getting myself out of the echo chamber that can happen when you fraternize only with like-minded people. Conversely, hanging out with people that are like me is pretty comforting.

Stages of eLearning

At 3pm today the provincial government will announcing the first phase of their "re-opening" plan. The self-isolation and physical distancing seems to have had a positive impact on limiting the spread of COVID-19 so the province is keen to get the economy (and society) going again.

I am anticipating some degree of reopening for schools. Most likely it will be special education and a widening of criteria for school-based childcare. I also suspect a gradual re-entry of primary grades with severe restrictions. Examples from New Zealand and Europe and China indicate smaller class numbers, rotating attendance schedules, and a commitment to some form of virtual learning for students still at home.

Discussions about what might happen invariably get me thinking about this model from Jennifer Chang Wathall:

As we cycle through blending learning with the increase in synchronous teaching I’m aware we’ll need more teacher training. Rather than “advanced” tech training it’s more incisive; ie how giving students more interactivity can encourage displays of understanding. This encourages authentic assessment but also gets us thinking about how to end this year to properly set us up for the start of the next year.

Use OBS with Zoom on a Mac

We've been running weekly assemblies in the Junior School using Zoom Webinars. Attendance is high, about 500 participants per assembly. We're using Zoom Webinars since it doesn't involve any extra tech (software or hardware) and there's little training needed since the camera and audio feeds switch automatically. We just need to be careful on our scripting and intros and outros to avoid talking over one another.

The lack of switching control makes it difficult for us to control what the participants see, and all graphics or chyrons must be pre-installed on every participant's computer. We use Zoom's screen share to show videos or graphics and while it serves its purpose I wanted a bit more control over everything.

The first thing to do was to setup the OBS output as a virtual camera. Easy enough on Windows since there's a popular plugin for it, but the Mac plugin is a bit trickier. It's straightforward enough to clone it from Github and install it using Homebrew. You must install OBS first since the following script clones it and packages it with the plugin. Note that Zoom has now pushed out version 5 which may break the virtual camera detection. You may need to unsign Zoom to get it to recognize the virtualcam:

codesign --remove-signature /Applications/zoom.us.app/

We need to have OBS recognize the audio input from Zoom and mix it with input from OBSHost's microphone so an audio mixer like iShowU would work. Thankfully there are quite a few streamers on Youtube that have walked through the process they use to be pro streamers. Apple has also a support document to combine multiple audio interfaces (called an Aggregate Device).

Once you have the cloned OBS running you can start the virtual camera in OBS and use it as a camera source in your meeting software. We use Zoom and Google Meet and both work well. However, only Zoom has a "mirror camera" setting so you'll need to horizontally flip the output if you're using Google Meet.

I didn't want to drop into Terminal everytime I wanted to run OBS so I wrote a shell script that launched it. Unfortunately, you can't add scripts to the dockbar in MacOS so you can use Applescript to package it as an app:

tell application "Terminal"
  if not (exists window 1) then reopen
  do script "cd /Users/USER/obs-studio/build/rundir/RelWithDebInfo/bin/" in window 1
  do script "./obs" in window 1
end tell

Add your favourite icon file and drop it into your dock!

So now that you have full creative control in OBS you'll need to get your workflow straight. Everyone joins the Zoom Webinar as a panelist, including the OBSHost. The Webinar settings are set so the OBSHost is pinned in speaker view as the only speaker. OBSHost is using the OBS output so all attendees only see the mixed video output complete with chyrons. OBSHost has already set multiple scenes and pre-loaded video or graphic clips to cut to on the fly. OBSHost has also imported every panelist and cropped out extraneous information. OBSHost now has complete editing and mixer control!

An alternative would be to have OBSHost as the only panelist in the Zoom Webinar. This guarantees the view will only be the OBS output with no automatic switching. All panelists would need to connect to OBSHost using another meeting program, like Google Meet, because Zoom only allows participation in one meeting at a time.

The Week 3 reflection period

The BC government suspended all in-class instruction for K-12 on Tuesday, March 17. This was the second day of spring break for my school and only four days after we held a special staff pro-d. The pro-d was focussed around the COVID-19 pandemic and how it might impact our school, community and families. It was an emotionally charged day where professional and personal interests collided.

Professionally, I focussed my energy on preparing teachers for the three scenarios that could happen. There was a lot of unpredictability at that time with schools in Washington state, Ontario and many other jurisdictions already closed. We were preparing ourselves for BC to follow suit for probably three weeks leading up to March 17. This uncertainty greatly contributed to a dispersion of training and attention to a wider spectrum than I would have preferred.

The first scenario involved no suspension of instruction and schools remaining open. Note that our current suspension only involves in-class instruction and schools are still technically open. This Level 1 scenario could look like:

• School is open, no restrictions on physical gathering or interaction
• Few students or teachers away for prolonged absences due to self-isolation, quarantine, sickness, etc.
• Somewhat predictable dates of returns and departures

This scenario could lead to either greater suspension orders or relaxation. I suggested that if Level 1 were to come into effect that we should treat it as a precautionary exercise in training and practice since the global effect of COVID-19 was increasingly negative. So the educational priority would be:

With unpredictable absences how do teachers keep on top of tracking and monitoring, and avoiding repeating missed instruction, and support returning students?

To address this, we would focus on increasing our digital presence on our learning management systems, specifically Seesaw and Google Classroom. We use Blackbaud K-12 as our SIS and while it does have LMS features, the Junior School sees much more viability out of Seesaw and GClassroom due our constituent's ages.

The Level 2 scenario was the one I did not want to see happen because it would involve a trickier uptake period:

• School is open, some restrictions on physical gathering or interaction
• Increased absences
• Many students or teachers away for prolonged absences due to self-isolation, quarantine, sickness, etc.
• Unpredictable or variable returns and departures

Keep in mind that these scenarios would have bearing on teachers as well as our student families. So teachers that see perhaps half of their class staying at home due to sickness or purposeful distancing would probably be experiencing that in their personal life as well. This would make training and consistency very difficult for myself and administration. The educational priority would look like:

Ensuring continuity of learning with larger numbers of active, but physically away, students

Continuity would come from a consistent distribution of learning materials. The simplest solution would be to record in-class instruction and provide it online for at-home students. This could be a camera recording the entirety of the lesson, or a screen recording of instructional slides and audio, or posting of learning materials. In any of these processes teachers would need to feel comfortable recording their teaching in some format. They would be creating mixed-learning environments where virtual and physical students are together simultaneously.

Level 3 was the most severe closure scenario and the one that we find ourselves in now:

• School is closed, restrictions on physical gathering or interaction (ie no off-site campus alternative)
• No physical attendance
• 100% distance learning

For my role, the educational priority was to support teachers in a transition to a fully virtual environment and establish processes to maintain community well-being. It's this last portion that proved to be the trickiest since we would have to remain flexible in the first few days to make adjustments. All stakeholders would be understandably stressed and anxious and we didn't want to make drastic changes in response to knee-jerk reactions. Communication was the key and making as many decisions as transparent as possible.

The education technology side remained steadily consistent. We focussed on delivering fully digital lessons using technology tools that were already in use or extremely simple for our community to use. I created a minisite that listed all the technology tools along with a length embedded GDoc of step-by-step tutorials. This minisite was key since it was our main point of information and made our tools and strategy clear for any teachers to see.

For online meetings I made all teachers use Google Meet for their first student contacts. The reasoning was two-fold: GSuite was embedded in our environment and would be instantly familiar, and our alternative of Zoom was facing severe privacy and security concerns. I did not want to address Zoom issues this early in our transition except to say that Zoom "satisfied our school's and the BC Ministry of Education's data privacy and security policies." The Ministry vetting came via Minister Fleming where he announced licenses had been acquired for all public and independent schools in BC, a shocking proclamation so early in the closures.

Our LMS use was dependent on age: Junior Kindergarten to Grade 4 would use Seesaw and Grades 5-7 would use Google Classroom. This was consistent with the rest of the school year but further illustrated the divide in adoption for Seesaw. This year was supposed to be the first year of mandatory use of Seesaw in Grades 5-7, however to accomplish that with the transition to distance learning would not work. It would simply be too much for teachers and families to pivot to something they hardly used. GClassroom also provided the necessary GSuite integration and communication tools we needed for intermediate grades.

I also knew that teachers would rely heavily on video instruction. It would be too difficult and time-consuming to create PDFs or GSlides for everything. In addition, pastoral care would be critical since students would want to see their teacher. To serve this I emphasized selfie videos and screen recording. More recently, we added interactive whiteboard and document camera recordings. I greatly enjoy Loom but Screencastify has also been offered as an alternative.

The Week 3 period was suggested by schools in Asia that had been closed for many more weeks as a reflection period. By this point, we would have worked out most issues and our community would have settled into a predictably pattern. So far that remains true but with (likely) many more weeks to go I am hoping we are able to hold the front, both physically and mentally.

Rapid transition to distance learning

It's March 2020 and our school has been busy talking, thinking, discussing potential disruptions due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) attention. It's all very interesting but there are a lot of unanswerable questions out there. For prudence, I've crafted a plan for our Junior School that outlines varying degrees of closure scenarios and how we can adapt using distance learning principles. It's quite lengthy, mostly because there are so many potential scenarios.

What if school closes temporarily while it is being disinfected? Will it be considered similar as a snow day, where classes are suspended and no teaching is expected?

What if half the student population and a quarter of the staff population turn up at school one day? Do you run hybrid virtual-physical classes where students connect virtually to physical classes, or schedule asynchronous plans?

What if it's a full closure? Are neighbourhood and infrastructures affected? What are the legal and Ministry requirements for teaching load?

One of the more important things I want teachers to keep in mind is that in the Junior School, any plan must address the importance of pastoral and community care for our students. Academics is only maybe half of the thought process. Checking in virtually with our Junior students gives them an opportunity to see routine, their teacher and friends in something outside their home.

For technology we are relying on tools that we currently use as much as possible. One of the recurring themes I'm hearing from international school and schools that have been experienced closures is that this is not the time to try new things. Also, it is difficult to maintain appropriate levels of work since we are all so inexperienced at running distance learning. Typically teachers will tend to overload students with work.

For us, we are relying on Seesaw for primary grades and Google Classroom as our main student communication and learning management systems. Email and our SIS will maintain communication links to parents and between faculty. The Junior School has not used virtual meeting software at all, but the ease and simplicity of Google Meets is an obvious choice. We also have a site license for Citrix Webex but I find it overly complication to just host a meeting. Mandatory passwords? Email signins? Ugh.

The Junior School plan is quite lengthy also because it includes tips on how to run a virtual meeting and connect users. These tips are as simple as how to mute participants, to showing the possibilities of screen sharing. I am hesitant to share it here right now because it's work in progress, and I don't know how much of it will turn into an "official" plan.

Custom docks on iMacs using profiles

So there's lots of ways to lock down iMacs so clueless (or malicious) young students don't mess up too many settings. I found the easiest way for me to manage is to just turn on the Guest User option which allows anyone to do a simple reboot to reset the machine to a pre-determined state.

I ensure the desktop wallpaper has a warning about saving local files to their school GDrive account and that restarting will delete everything. All iMacs are linked to my machine using Apple Remote Desktop which saves me a walk and multiple keystrokes by remotely rebooting or sending command line queries or commands. They are also binded by Meraki management profiles which allows another layer of control and observation.

I use the Dock Master website to create a custom dock profile which I then push out using Meraki. It works like a charm and a I can near-instantly update it by replacing the profile with a newer version and checkin-in all the iMacs. I also use custom profiles generated out of Apple profile manager for printers but I find Dock Master just so easy to use.

It's a bare minimum of dock items: Finder, Safari, iMovie, Pages, Keynote and some links to our SIS and school website. The Macs are so rarely used nowadays it doesn't really make sense maintaining a massive library of apps.

Primary STEM

In the last few weeks I've been doing some intensive STEM activities with our kindergarten classes. Intensive because it involved a lot of supervision and teacher involvement. We played with greenscreen wormholes:

where we used the greenscreen effect in iMovie to embed different images together.

After that, we used the greenscreen to transport students to the Arctic where they helped build igloos, swim with polar bears, and ice fished. The iPads made it quite easy since we could use the front camera and they could see themselves instantaneously, ala a weather forecaster on TV. For this activity we used the Doink Greenscreen app which is still the most feature-rich easy chromakey app I've used.

Another class we experimented with paper circuits. I gave segments of cooper tape out, a button battery and one LED and challenged them to make a circuit that lit the LED. Most were successful, though the finicky nature of the copper tape made for a lot of troubleshooting from teachers.

Today I decided I needed to step back a bit and let the kids do some of their own exploring. So I'm planning on just bringing down tubs of playdoh and toothpicks and let them loose with just a vague idea of "3D shapes." I might start with challenging them to make their initials and see where they take it!

3D shapes made from radial slices

This is the workflow I use to slice digital 3D files into laser cut radial slices for constructing physical 3D objects. The process is similar for making interlocking slices or stacked slices.

I use Slicer for Fusion 360, made by Autodesk. It can be used with their Fusion software for 3D designs but Slicer is also usable as a standalone product.

Take an .STL file from Thingiverse or perhaps it's a file you have crafted yourself. I used this rubber duck file:

When imported into Slicer you'll notice the duck is facing "down." You can change this in the import dialog box; I changed the axis to "Z."

Manufacturing settings: these settings are different depending on the material you are using. For the duck, I used 12"x20" cardboard sheets ordered from Uline, they fit the Dremel LC40 perfectly. The thickness of 4mm was the hardest measurement to finalize. Slot offset can introduce some wiggle room to your interlocks; I leave it at 0. Tool diameter refers to the thickness or kerf of your cutting tool; for the laser I just opted for 0, though average laser cut width is about .012mm.

The object size section is how large your finished 3D object will be. I leave this as default until I am ready to adjust the final sheets. Making the measurements smaller will reduce the number of sheets needed and increasing the measurements will maximize the use of available area, reducing waste.

Construction technique changes how the 3D object will be constructed. I am using radial slices to make the duck look a little more interesting. I did "By count" as the method meaning I can change how many slices there will be. Adding more slices adds more detail but involves more slices, which uses more material. The thicker the material the less number of slices you can have since you'd eventually end up with just stacked slices.

Notch factor and notch angle cuts notches in your slots to make sliding easier. For cardboard this seems unnecessary but for harder materials I can see the benefit.

You can now click on slices in the preview and manually move them around. This is helpful if you see blue sections that signify pieces that are floating and not joined to anything, or red pieces that signify impossible-to-fit pieces. In either of those colours you should adjust something to make sure the pieces can be cut and fit.

Slice direction is useful if you want to manually change the axis or direction of slices. This was useful for the duck to make sure it was symmetrical and the slices showed off the best contours of the shape.

Assembly steps is incredibly useful since it shows an animation of how the slices fit into each together. This makes it easier for students to visualize how the model comes together since it even shows the texture of the corrugated cardboard! Also handy if you are making step-by-step instructions and need some screenshots.

Now click "Get plans" and export as .EPS files. You may also want to save it as a Fusion file since that will save all your manufacturing settings:

Since the Dremel is picky in its colour-coding I open these EPS files in Illustrator and make the following adjustments:

1. Select all
2. Change stroke size to 0.5 (can go to 0.1 but it's hard to see lines that narrow)
3. Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork
1. Change red to green (to let cutter score the numbers instead of cutting them)
2. Change blue to red (signifying cut lines)
4. Usually there is a rectangle bounding box around the objects. Select the whole box with the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and delete so the cutter doesn't make unnecessary cuts. 
5. Save as an Illustrator file and also as a plain .PDF

The PDF file can now be imported in the laser cutter and cut!

Breadboarding and Fritzing

I had an interesting situation presented to me last week when a couple of Grade 7 students asked for help with Arduino. Sensing a greater play at work I asked what they were trying to accomplish and it turns out they had purchased a NEMA17 1.7amp stepper motor from Amazon and wanted to make a moving arm model for science fair.

It took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts but it turns out they had a family friend who had constructed one similar and suggested to them to acquire the necessary materials. Unfortunately, said friends neglected to over Arduino basics, breadboarding or stepper motors controls.

It gave me an opportunity to revisit the Arduino and pinning out of various components and modules, and also gave me opportunity to play with Fritzing, a handy breadboarding/circuit diagram planning program. Note that there is a Homebrew Formulae for Fritzing at: /api/cask/fritzing.json

I ordered some A4988 stepper drivers and Easydrivers and set it all up on a small board. Inputted some quick code (see below) and printed out the diagram:

/*this code controls a stepper motor

 * it uses two push buttons on a breadboard

 * one is forward and the other is reverse

 * StepForward and StepBack tell the motor what to do when a button is pushed

 * adjust the x< value for rotations

 * adjust the delay for speed

 */

 

#define stp 2

#define dir 3

#define MS1 4

#define MS2 5

#define EN  6

const int button1Pin = 7;

const int button2Pin = 8;

const int ledPin =  13;

int button1State = 0;

int button2State = 0;

char user_input;

int x;

int y;

int state;

void setup() {

  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(button1Pin, INPUT);

  pinMode(button2Pin, INPUT);

    

  pinMode(stp, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(dir, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(MS1, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(MS2, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(EN, OUTPUT);

  resetEDPins();

}

void loop() {

      button1State = digitalRead(button1Pin);

      button2State = digitalRead(button2Pin);

      

      if (button1State == HIGH) {

        digitalWrite(EN, LOW);

        StepForward();

        resetEDPins();

        delay(1000);

      } 

      if (button2State == HIGH) {

        digitalWrite(EN, LOW);

        StepBack();

        resetEDPins();

        delay(1000);

      }else {

        digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);

      }

}

void resetEDPins()

{

  digitalWrite(stp, LOW);

  digitalWrite(dir, LOW);

  digitalWrite(MS1, LOW);

  digitalWrite(MS2, LOW);

  digitalWrite(EN, HIGH);

}

void StepForward()

{

  digitalWrite(dir, LOW);

  for(x= 1; x<500; x++)

  {

        digitalWrite(stp,HIGH);

        delay(1);

        digitalWrite(stp,LOW);

        delay(1);

    }

}

void StepBack()

{

 digitalWrite(dir, HIGH);

  for(x= 1; x<1000; x++)

  {

    digitalWrite(stp,HIGH);

    delay(1);

    digitalWrite(stp,LOW);

    delay(1);

  }

}

Slicer 360 and 3D models

I've been having some fun with cutting larger 3D models using Slicer 360. It allows import of .STL files and slices them into a variety of interlocking slices. The models below were made with interlocking slices, however you can also do stacked slices, such as the terrain models I created last year.

I can see the benefit of having bigger 3D shapes made out of little material, and the challenge or puzzle of slotting them all together. I think kids of all ages would get a kick out of it. However, I can see the limitation being the actual 3D .STL file -- creation using Blox 3D Junior is limited in its 3D formation and Tinkercad is a bit too tricky for the younger ones. I guess you start creating in Blox 3D Junior and then import into Tinkercad for further refinement but that level of app smashing is probably too much for our kids.

Rapid prototyping with cardboard

I was inspired by John Umekubo's cardboard cutting tips to investigate how to make prototyping with cardboard faster, easier and safer. Cardboard, of course, is a wonderful medium for design thinking and prototyping because it's plentiful, reusable and offers unlimited possibility in construction with little modification. How else can young students learn the meaning of flanges, flutes and corrugation?

In my brainstorming for a recent kindergarten class I opted to laser cut some construction tiles, similar to K'nex or Kiva planks in their versatility. I emphasized the idea of imagination and creativity, and the "first draft" mentality of prototyping.

I began with Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece and the idea of incompletism. That is, making creative thinking unlimited by not restricting ourselves to perfectionism. Can machines be built that are missing a piece? Would that make the machine unusable or broken? Or could modifications be made? It was an interesting discussion, though in retrospect most kids would have preferred spending much more time playing with the tiles than considering the legitimacy of perfectionism!

Snow day!

Vancouver received quite a bit of snow this morning so most schools are closed in the area. It gives me a chance to reflect on the first few days back and prioritizing the projects I'm working on this year.

We're still having a bit of trouble with the laser cutter not cutting through materials dependably. I'm going to try to clean the lenses and bed soon and see if that helps.

Our Ender 3 is running PETG reliably now. Unfortunately, I've noticed that the bed is quite warped; it is higher in the center than on the edges and corners. The buildtak surface also works a bit too well and the PETG seems to bond too tightly to it; it's actually ripped in a few places due to print jobs adhering to the surface. I applied a broad sheet of kapton tape to it and that seems to be working much better.

I also updated the firmware to enable manual mesh bed levelling. This is a game changer in levelling the bed. After calibration, the z-height is adjusted as the extruder moves across the bed; you can actually see the z-stepper motor move as the extruder travels along the x and y axes. I first updated to the latest Marlin firmware but had a bit of trouble with memory space, so switched to the much leaner TH3D firmware.

To actually updated the firmware on the Ender 3 I had to load a bootloader. It was a straightforward process involving an Arduino Uno board and half a dozen dupont wires. I haven't used an Arduino in over a year so it was a nice refresher in using the Arduino IDE.