Stowe's Brunswick and Bowdoin

The Stowe Society's "Stowe at 200" Conference included a walking tour of sites in Brunswick associated with Stowe. Polly Kaufman lead the tour starting at the Pjepscot Historical Society building. Fifty or more people participated with a small number from the Stowe Society, a few more from the conference and most from the general public in the area.

Dr. Kaufman carried photocopies of some notes and images of interest. I found the following image from collections at the New York Public Library via Wikimedia Commons that shows sites more as Stowe experienced them.

By Lane & Scott, FitzHugh Lane [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The most easily identified buildings in the lithograph from the left are: First Parrish Church, Massachusetts Hall, Winthrop Hall, Maine Hall, Bowdoin Chapel, and Appleton Hall. Dr. Kaufman related the story of Harriet Beecher Stowe using her husband's office in Massachusetts Hall to write parts of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Note a confusion in local informal history. The Bowdoin publication "Academic Spotlight" in an article "Tracing Lasting, Local Footprints of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'" relates the story of a student tour guide who incorrectly identifies the site of Calvin Stowe's office as Appleton Hall.

As a student tour guide for Bowdoin's Office of Admissions, Tom Brickler '10 had led dozens of prospective students past Appleton Hall.

Stopping, he would say: "It was here, where Harriet Beecher Stowe sometimes worked on the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin." For full dramatic effect, he might add the words: "writing late into the stormy winter night."

The author of the Spotlight article suggests:

Though it is campus legend, no one knows for sure if Stowe—the wife of a Bowdoin professor—actually worked there during the years that she wrote the novel in Brunswick. But it hardly matters: The compulsion to imagine and re-imagine the daily existence of luminaries connected to Bowdoin—including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Joshua Chamberlain, and Nathaniel Hawthorne—is part of the ambience of being at such a historically significant college.

While it may "hardly matter" to casual visitors and some reporters, it clearly matters to Stowe enthusiasts and scholars. If these kinds of historical resources were more easily accessible, then perhaps we can increase the number of people who care about the historical details.

Tracing Lasting, Local Footprints of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'

Tracing Lasting, Local Footprints of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', Academic Spotlight (Bowdoin)

Bowdoin's Academic Spotlight on Tess Chakkalakal's course on using place-based resources to connect with 21st Century reading of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Includes a brief video clip of a class held in the First Parrish Church:

Can we build digital resources to support asynchronous access to experiences similar to this.

Harriet Beecher Stowe on Child Labor

Harriet Beecher Stowe is most famous for her writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin. But her indignation against slavery seems to be matched by a similar feeling about child labor. A correspondent from England complained about a reference in Uncle Tom's Cabin to labor conditions for children in England. She responded as follows:



Beecher Stowe moved from Brunswick several years before the beginning of the Civil War. So, it seems unlikely that she would have seen this ironic outcome of her advocacy for the abolishment of slavery:



WANTED! 120 Girls and Boys to work in Maine cotton mills for 9 hours per day. L-A Museum and Maine State Archives.

Learning from students and others

Members of the MAMS ITeam shared their interest, engagement and creativity using Minecraft. But when I ask them to connect their work in Minecraft, with learning in school, they don't provide compelling examples or analysis. I tried to illustrate last week with the high school students' example of creating a model of a cell in Minecraft as a high school biology assignment. I don't know how effective that was.

Paul Soares, Jr. posted this link to a video (that showed up in Joel Levin's blog) of Minecraft project that illustrates more compelling connections to desired learning outcomes:



Does this exemplar help students to understand what we are trying to develop? Last year ITeam members tried to use Alice to meet Mr. Hale's social studies assignment to create a town. They used the libraries of available objects to create responses but the medium seemed to lead them away from his assignment and toward something that it could support. Does Minecraft provide more generic materials that can be used to meet assignments to represent various time-periods and cultures?

Fifth-grade student at WES creates a featured game in Gamestar Mechanic

A fifth-grader at Woodside Elementary School created a game that Gamestar Mechanic has featured on its Game Alley:

Use this link to Josh's Dark Realm to see the full-size version.
Gamestar Mechanic provides embed codes to make it possible to share student' s work on websites outside of Gamestar's. But the embed code contains Javascript so I suspect that this attempt to share his work will fall short of the intended. He is well on his way to creating his digital portfolio of evidence of 21st Century learning outcomes. I fully expected this embed to fail because of restrictions on Javascript. But it worked! Unfortunately, the dimensions of the game are greater than the layout for this blog will allow. Clicking on the "Play" button opens the game in half a window. Need some work on this to recognize his achievement. Use this link to his Dark Realm in order to see the full size.

CellBots Remix

In anticipation of the upcoming US Open Robotic Soccer Tournament to be held at Bowdoin College, I shared the work with members of the MAMS ITeam. Tim H. helped to explore this set of tools. Here, I show that other hand-held devices can also access the page. Avery showed that he could also see it on his iPad. We need to find ways to secure and detect these kinds of services in order to ensure safety and decorum.

Uncle Tom's Cabin at ARIS

From Drop Box

Illustration by Hammatt Billings [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The original image is in the public domain and shared at Wikimedia Commons. I added a medium resolution (500px jpeg) photo as display media for an ARIS item. The Harriet Beecher Stowe NPC (non-player character) gives the player a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin after engaging in a dialog.

ARIS initially displays the full height of the image but supports touch-screen zoom and panning of the image. Here, I zoomed into Billings' illustration but kept Stowe's name and print run (150,000 copies) in view. Then I took the screen capture of the image which includes the ARIS Controls. The 'Detail' button brings up a brief caption and attribution information.

The iPhone's system (iOS 4.2) supports zooming into the image far enough to see pixellation easily for individual words. I suspect that this does not detract much from the quality of the exhibit as iPhone users experience it but may be more of an issue if players are using iPads. If people want to study the image in more detail, then the attribution information will allow them to easily locate and inspect the image at the highest resolution available (1024 px width).

Child slavery, too?

By Bain News Service photograph, c. 1909 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The banners these New York City children wore read, "Abolish Child Slavery."

Were children in Maine also an important part of the labor force in textile mills along the Androscoggin River?

If Waiting for Superman is an accurate representation of the current situation for some students, then we still need to liberate children from intolerable conditions.

Stowe House, Brunswick in ARIS

As I spoke with ITeam members yesterday and with Dennis Edmonson this morning, I wanted to have examples to share rather than just speak about them. So, I took the historic image (from the post-card of the Leighton Company, circa 1905) cropped it to meet the size guidelines for ARIS media and put it into ARIS as a plaque (320X320 px). I added the appropriate citation information to the caption text.

Then, I navigated to the page in ARIS and took this screen shot from the phone. It is difficult to read the text and it did not help to enlarge the photo. After seeing the photo in context, I revised the text to read:

Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in this house. Here, between 1850 and 1852, she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Photo credit: Hugh C. Leighton Company, c. 1905 (en wiki) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

For this image in the public domain, it is less critical to include the live links: By Hugh C. Leighton Company (en wiki) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. I wonder how we should handle attribution in other cases.

The Quick Travel option in ARIS helps to support this kind of exploration because users can inspect resources irrespective of their proximity to the location:

ARIS and Local History

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine

By Hugh C. Leighton Company (en wiki) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

ARIS is promoting a Global Jam on April 18-20th to create 50 'games' in 50 hours. I took this occasion as an opportunity to share the idea in more detail with Dennis Edmonson. I wanted to learn whether he knows of students who might be interested in helping to create ARIS exhibits for Topsham and Brunswick as Capstone Projects.

Dennis made the connection with the Museum in the Streets^TM initiatives in several communities in Maine (and beyond). They have a well established and protected concept that they have developed and refined over the last twenty years. Communities pay a fee for the assistance to develop walking tours and then provide free tours (brochures and physical plaques with pictures and short texts) to visitors to their communities.

The ARIS Dow Day and BikeBox approaches reduce the need for physical signage and increase the types of media that can be shared (e. g. video clips of re-enactors). But they increase the need for technology infrastructure (devices and support). Next, I need to visit with Chris Nulle to get his perspective on the degree to which the re-enactors (local and beyond) would be willing to share clips.

OpenAttribute - Not at PicassaWeb

From SCSpaeth PicasaWeb

ITeam has been exploring ways to help ourselves, peers, teachers and others to understand issues of digital citizenship associated with Creative Commons and related licences and attribution. We have looked at site-specific tools at Wikimedia Commons and found them to work inconsistently. Flickr has a similar tool. Unfortunately, site-specific tools, add a burden for learning how to use multiple tools.

So, I was excited to learn recently that Mozillians have taken on the challenge of attribution and begun a Drumbeat project, OpenAttribute to improve attribution. The OpenAttribute Project is creating Firefox and Chrome extensions that intend to simplify and unify attribution. This approach might make it easier for ITeam members to encourage and support best practices for this aspect of digital citizenship.

Molly Kleinman writes about the development of the idea in her post Announcing Open Attribute:

Workshops and how-to guides and step by step flowcharts haven’t reduced the confusion, so we thought, “What if we can just create attributions automatically? Like the citation generators in academic databases? Click a button and you can have a properly formatted citation in MLA style, APA style, Chicago style. Technically, there is no reason why we couldn’t do a similar thing for attribution.”

So, I installed both the Firefox and Chrome OpenAttribute extensions and tested in a couple likely sites. I got mixed results from this software that is still under development. As I worked, I thought about Ari's post on the Sketchpad.cc blog about using screencasts to help developers improve their software. He cites Dennis Daniel's substantial effort to give YouTube feedback to the Sketchpad.cc project. Dave Humphrey at Seneca College in Toronto encourages his students to make real contributions to real projects. Could this be our contribution to Open Educational Resources?

It works for this Seamless Services? blog but the generated html can't be put in comments.

Seamless Services?
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
/ CC BY-SA 3.0

The comments tool rejects too much of the html.

Sensors and graphing to support STEM learning

Jan Mokros at the Maine Math and Science Alliance advocates use of charting real-time sensor data to help students develop understanding of charts as symbolic representations of physical phenomena. Unfortunately, at Mt. Ararat Middle School, our sets of probes and sensors are aging and replacements are expensive. So, I have been exploring alternatives that ITeam members could help to implement and in so doing learn and share their learning.


From bottom clockwise: Physical data board, the flex sensor, board application, laptop application and visual display.

Demonstration of visualizing physical computing. A bending sensitive sensor (Piezo) connects to an Arduino Uno input pin. The Arduino Sketch outputs the measured values of bending. The Processing Sketch reads the stream of inputs and changes the location of the dots. The visualization is one that came with the sample code. Its meaning is in demonstrating capacity of these tools for interesting work. I wonder whether the Scratch or html5 crews are up to creating more meaningful charts of displacement v. time.

Credits (Shared via Creative Commons or Public Domain Licences):
http://webzone.k3.mah.se/projects/ard...
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Knock
http://www.processing.org/

Arduino-I/O-Remix

The Html5-based Modkit editor for Arduino, excited me because it seems like another gradual step for middle and high school students to learn important science, technology, math, arts and engineering. So far, we have elementary students starting Gamestar Mechanic and continuing with Scratch, or Alice; Modkit or AppInventor; and iOS SDK. They should be ready to start work on Java in high school with much better preparation.

I got an Arduino Uno (~$30 fully assembled and tested) to help evaluate the system over vacation. The Modkit team recently released a public beta associated with the publication of the latest version of Make Magazine. A comment from the Modkit team about the release of the public beta indicates that it should be possible to program other pins, too. But when I try to program it, I only get a "Programming device" followed by "error compiling" messages. Arduino literature says I should choose /dev/tty.usbmodemXXX but I see /dev/cu.usbmodem621. Could that be the problem?

So, I decided to wade into using Arduino programming tools directly. That seemed to me to be a less than optimal solution for students but it would allow me to troubleshoot the failure transfer and run simple programs. I hesitated because I don't have time to learn another language. But I discovered that Arduino developers have created an environment that reminds me of the early days of learning how to code html pages: examine and copy source, modify to get the desired result, and share. When I open the Arduino monitor, it says that it is using /dev/tty.usbmodem621. Could that be the reason it works for Arduino and not for Modkit?

In any event, I suspect that the MAMS ITeam html5 group can easily work at this level. Then when we figure out how to use the Modkit, then the more experienced users can help the new users to get started.

/*
  Analog Input
 Demonstrates analog input by reading an analog sensor on analog pin 0 and
 turning on and off a light emitting diode(LED)  connected to digital pin 13. 
 The amount of time the LED will be on and off depends on
 the value obtained by analogRead(). 
 
 The circuit:
 * Potentiometer attached to analog input 0
 * center pin of the potentiometer to the analog pin
 * one side pin (either one) to ground
 * the other side pin to +5V
 * LED anode (long leg) attached to digital output 11
 * LED cathode (short leg) attached to 110 ohm resistor to ground
 
 * Note: I use the Uno Arduino's built-in LED attached 
 to pin 13 on the board, as the second LED.
 
 
 Created by David Cuartielles
 Modified 4 Sep 2010
 By Tom Igoe
 Modified 28 Feb 2011
 By SC Spaeth
 
 This example code is in the public domain.
 
 Original: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogInput
 Remixed: http://scspaeth.blogspot.com/2011/02/arduino-io-remix.html
 
 */

int sensorPin = A0;    // select the input pin for the potentiometer
int ledPin13 = 13;      // select the pin for the LED
int ledPin11 = 11;
int sensorValue = 0;  // variable to store the value coming from the sensor

void setup() {
// declare the ledPin as an OUTPUT:
pinMode(ledPin13, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin11, OUTPUT);
// open the serial port at 9600 bps:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// read the value from the sensor:
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
// print the value from the sensor:
Serial.println(sensorValue);
// turn the ledPin on
digitalWrite(ledPin13, HIGH);
digitalWrite(ledPin11, LOW);
// stop the program for <sensorValue> milliseconds:
delay(sensorValue);     
// turn the ledPin off:        
digitalWrite(ledPin13, LOW);
digitalWrite(ledPin11, HIGH);
// stop the program for for <analogInMax - sensorValue> milliseconds:
delay(1023 - sensorValue);             
}

Now I see a small flaw in this system where the html transfer converts the 'less than' and 'greater than' brackets of the html into ampersands and code in the last few lines. It does however show up in the rendered blog page as written in on the Arduino resource page. That can be fixed with an adjustment to documentation style. Not bad for a few hours of tinkering!

Robotics at MTA and MAMS

Dr. King announced new course offerings in a post on his blog that included an elective on Robotics. This slightly more detailed description from the Program of Studies document provides details about the tools they plan to use. I'd also like to know who is developing the course and planning to teach it.

ROBOTICS
Prerequisite: Science I
½ Credit;
Recommended level: 10-12
Robotics is the science and technology of the design, manufacture and application of robots in various applications, including space exploration, surgery and everyday living. In this course, students take on the roles of mechanical engineers, computer scientists and electrical engineers. Students research dynamics, kinematics and sensors. Subjects such as motion planning and obstacle avoidance, and velocity and acceleration are covered. Students put the knowledge into practice through lab settings where robots are created with teams. Students will have the opportunity to use VEXX robotics and/or Lego Mindstorm. COURSE #1490

I hope this will get students started in projects that will turn into exciting Capstone Projects. I know some middle school students who are ready to start pre-capstone work.

James Smallwood, a Mt. Ararat alum who owns a small IT business hints at the opportunities for our students:

I grew up in Topsham, Maine and attended Mt.Ararat for a few years and if I had a learning tool such as a robot while I was being taught computers basics in 7th grade, there's no doubt in my mind that learning would've been a lot less complicated and much more interesting.

Another ITeam logo?

Coby spontaneously created a logo for ITeam and then updated it with a revised version. I have been exploring the possibility of helping students to create a participatory logo. AdaFruit's MiniPOV kits seem like an exciting possibility.

Zach Rattner, an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech got aMiniPOV device. He had some time on his hands and some expertise in Javascript, CSS and Html so he created a web-based program that helps people write the code to display messages and images on the MiniPOV devices.

I used his tool to create a draft of another logo for MAMS ITeam. I didn't have enough room for MAMS-ITeam so I used the next best option (ITeam [MSAD]75) that fit within Ratter's scheme. I suspect that ITeam members could find ways to improve the logo. In doing so, they would learn more about digital representation and images, e. g., in the grey area below the controls, you can see the binary codes that his program generated. He opens the code to inspection so it might be possible for ITeam students to modify the Javascript code and get something that works even better for us. The wonders of an open-culture!

Share the road

During winter break, I have been exploring resources to support customization of learning. I found excellent tutorial resources at AdaFruit for a variety of low-cost projects. On one of their tutorial pages for their SpokePOV devices, they included links to documentary photos that people had shared. This one intersects with one of my other interests:


Photo license: Sparr0 - Attribution, Share Alike

This project depends on interesting biological and mathematical concepts. Does work on projects like this transfer to better understanding of important learning outcomes? Could we use bikes as mobile billboards to generate support for the Topsham-Brunswick Trails Project and other regional trail projects: Merrymeeting Trail?

Developing a culture for Capstone

In our meeting this morning, the Capstone crew reflected on the Capstone Celebration meeting. They appreciated Mr. Ottow's presentation the most because he spoke directly to them. I asked them if they were willing to have me post the clips of their presentations on the Capstone Facebook site. They accepted. I also told them about the response from the School Board that I described in this post and sharing with MAMS ITeam members.

They generally reacted negatively to the idea that principles of Capstone should be extended earlier in high school and to the middle school and beyond. Zach said that while it is great to have more choice in the selection of projects, it still is yet another thing to do and a source of stress for students. Others nodded in agreement. We discussed the issue of whether Capstone will substitute for other graduation requirements. They seem to be waiting for an authoritative answer to this issue rather than seeing the opportunity they have to help influence design.

I told them explicitly that I am writing about our process as part of my contribution to the development of Capstone. I think they were surprised to hear me reflect on their contributions to the discussion. Dan backed off a little on his position regarding time logs. He explained how he had used them extensively in learning to play piano but now doesn't need logging. Allie reiterated her position on design for each student. Since this is consistent with mass customization of learning, it seems like we should try to find a solution to this challenge.

Jameson Presents His Perspective on Capstone to MTA Faculty

Jameson Bryant and Brooke Smith, juniors at Mt. Ararat High School, have served on the MTA Capstone Committee and provided students' perspective on the design and development of the Capstone Project. Jameson helped present the plan to the MTA faculty during part of a Professional Development day at the end of January. Brooke helped present the plan to the School Board at one of its regular, televised meetings.



In this clip, Jameson describes and reflects on his service on the committee. I hope this is a sign of the culture we develop!

ITeam Project Support

Last spring, ITeam built a green screen to support projects. From that modest start, students and teachers across our district have started to use green screen technologies.

Ari Bader-Natal blogged about Education 2.0 being on the Radar. From there, I found Dale Dougherty's blog and links to Make Magazine. We often borrow tripods and make do. Could ITeam members make projects like this, too?

Mobile Document Camera Stand

Jacob and Ian created windblades that were a similar level of complexity for the Maine Windblade Challenge. So, I suspect we need to find the right matches of projects and access to resources. We have a similar challenge in finding ways to support the matching for Capstone Projects. In fact, Make Magazine, or other venues like it, could be both sources of projects and places to authentically share innovate Capstone Projects.

Re-Building Capstone

We are establishing a formal Capstone program at Mt. Ararat High School to give student alternative ways to show that they meet the mission of our school. As part of the process, we are running a Capstone Pilot with a subset of students. At yesterdays' committee meeting, Dr. King described Chandler M.'s plan to rebuild a motorcycle. After the meeting, I wrote to Dr. King:

Thank you for making time in your schedule to participate (even briefly) in the capstone meeting today. I thought that your part added much to the deliberations. Your story about rebuilding a motorcycle resonated with me because my brother's student initiated learning project consisted of 3 or 4 years dedicated to rebuilding two Model A Fords.

Students have wanted more engaging learning experiences for a long time. But only the most persistent and/or well-supported have been able to do substantial interest-based project and connect them with their school experiences. How can we make it possible for all students to get the benefit of doing the "hard fun" of something they want to learn?