Tech Blog

GoAnimate in French- Animating “The Subjunctive”!

Sam Goeuriot, Intermediate French, Upper School World Language

In this project students in Sam Goeuriot’s Intermediate French Class were to create animation using the subjunctive as they wrote their scripts.  Students used GoAnimate for their animations and in some case also used Audacity for audio recording.  The results were excellent and students seemed to really enjoy using GoAnimate.

Student Exemplars:

Student Photos-Videos in the Classroom:

3-D Modeling Using Fusion 360 by AutoDesk in Art and Design

Betsy McDonald, Art and Design-MakerSpace, Upper School Art

“The US Art & Design classes this year are using Fusion 360, by Autodesk, to learn the basics of 3D modeling. This introduction gives them basic skills to be able to create models to print on CA’s 3D printers. Using Fusion 360 is a change from previous years when students used SketchUp. While SketchUp has an easier-to-learn interface, the entry level of Fusion is also very accessible, and very few problems occur. In SketchUp, it is easy to make a model that looks correct, but in fact will have construction errors rendering it unprintable. Fusion 360 is a huge improvement in preventing this because creation techniques with Fusion 360 were designed with 3D printing in mind, resulting in models which are always printable. For students that need to grow beyond Fusion 360, like our US robotics teams, they often graduate to Autodesk Inventor, which is similar to Fusion 360, with more complexity built in. Robotics teams can model their whole robot virtually before building because the parts they use are available virtually to download and embed in their models. Here in CA’s Makerspace, we’ve become huge fans of Autodesk products, not only for the use mentioned above, but because their products are free to students and educators, and they have a wealth on online learning resources. CA may even extend its US arts electives to include new additions using these projects.”

Student Work:

Student Interview:

Betsy McDonald Instructing:

Where is my time going? Infographics using Piktochart!

Kim Cherre, Cary Academy Upper School Physical Education and Health

Kim Cherre facilitated a time management project with her freshman in P.E./Health class in order to help students understand where they are spending their time, how much time they are spending on a variety of activities- including homework, sports, extracurriculars, etc.  Using Piktochart, students are able to create visuals that represent the large amount of data that they collect within their project.  This also assists with their reflection as they determine where the stress points are within their busy schedules. Students collaborate and work on the project through their OneNote Classroom Notebook.

Student Exemplar (Including image above):  https://magic.piktochart.com/output/16472869-shons-tm-project

Collaborating and Staying Organized in Science Olympiad- OneNote to the Rescue

MaLi Burnett, Club-Science Olympiad, Cary Academy Upper School

Science Olympiad is a formal club at Cary Academy requiring students to compete in a variety of events such as: Astronomy, Optics, Chemistry, Forensics, and Material Science, etc.  Students are challenged in competition at regional and state-wide tournaments.  MaLi Burnett is the Science Olympiad Club Sponsor and collaborates and manages the club using OneNote as a platform. Ms. Burnett and the Science Olympiad students have found the notebook extremely helpful in guiding their research, preparing for competition, and organizing for regional and state events.

Racing to Save the Cell- Faculty and Student Exploration

 

Freshman Biology Classes and US Faculty, Cary Academy Upper School

Students and faculty explored virtual reality through an InCellVR app allowing them to explore organelles, kill viruses, “gobble” up proteins made from ribosomes, etc. The experience gave students and faculty an entirely “in cell” experience- one that a student could never get from a microscope or even electron microscope.  Student and faculty feedback was very positive.  Freshman had a hard time putting their smartphones away!

InCell VR:

iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/incell-vr-cardboard/id1044805956?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nivalvr.incell&hl=en

Sites in VR

iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sites-in-vr/id625987419?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.ercangigi.sitesin3d&hl=en

 “Meanwhile, why not do a little VR shopping via the holiday windows in New York City: https://windowwonderland.withgoogle.com/ . “

 

A Lesson Before Dying Newscast – A National Broadcast Video Project

 

Kristi McGauley, American Literature, US English Department

In this project in Kristi McGauley’s American Literature course, students developed “national network broadcasts” as related to their topics in American Lit.  The students were given the following prompt:

“Work in your assigned small group to script and shoot a video news segment about Jefferson’s case that might appear on a national network broadcast. The segment could include any of the following: on-the-spot interviews with the two attorneys immediately after the trial verdict, an interview with Miss Emma, Mrs. Gropé, Reverend Ambrose, or an eye-witness account of the execution from Paul. Your group might choose to combine several segments to make a whole program on Jefferson’s case. Be prepared to screen the video for the class. You will need to create a storyboard, compose and script, and upload them to the WikiProject Page.”

Student Work:

 

 

Egyptian Pyramids and Palmyra in 360-Virtual Reality in the History Classroom

Note: To view in true Virtual Reality, download the Round.Me App and place your phone in a Virtual Reality Viewer! Alternatively, go to this video on your smartphone, and play it.  In the upper right hand corner of the screen, toggle to VR Mode.

Paige Meszaros, World History , US History Department

In this project, Paige Meszaros worked with her students to begin investigating virtual reality field trips to get a “close-up” and different view in her World History Course.  “In T3, the World War II course will extend this project to include blogging about their experiences researching and narrating historical tours in three areas- the Pacific theater, the European theater, and the North African theater.”

Initially students explored a variety of sites and provided feedback on their experience.  Video and images are included her.  Student feedback was exceedingly positive and the students look forward to designing their own field trips in T3. We did find alot of variability in the quality of the VR among different apps and students had favorites.

Listing of Apps Used for Initial Research:Virtual Reality Tour Links for River Valleys-2bxj2oo

Student Images and Feedback:

360 Video (A bit blurry)

Note: To view in true Virtual Reality, download the Round.Me App and place your phone in a Virtual Reality Viewer!

 

Detection of Mutations for Human Afflictions: Experimental Design

Joselyn Todd, Advanced Biotechnology, US Science Department

The Advanced Biotechnology Course provides students with a broad overview of the science of biotechnology as it relates to the human health and food production industries, with particular emphasis upon cell biology, genetics, recombinant DNA methodology, and protein production and isolation. Students will develop proficiency in the laboratory techniques unique to the biotechnology field and work in concert with area scientists and academic/industrial partners to apply their learning to authentic experiments.

In this first independent project, students were given the task to investigate a given phenotype or human disease, identify the gene(s) that are associated with the disease/phenotype, and then design an experiment to clone the gene from your own genome and possibly others.  The students were to design a diagnostic test that could be used to determine if an individual had or did not have the disease by analyzing protein sequences and the mutations in the enzymes that have been shown to confer disease states.  Working backwards, students then explored cDNA sequences and finally DNA sequences to design PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) primers that would target the mutation areas.  Follow-up experiments included RFLP analysis.  Students posted their work to the ADV. Biotechnology Blog, and scientists commented on the quality of their experimental design as well as their video presentations.

Student Work:

Full Blog Post Exemplar

Video of Experimental Design

 

Scientific Paper: DiGeorge’s Syndrome-2kfrpfb

Photos:

The Consequences of Choices- The Walking Dead

Donna Eason, World Building and Immersive Storytelling, US English Department

“In this course students begin their collaborative process in world building and story development. Students will create a single civilization based on a historical, realistic, or speculative fiction format.  They will create all aspects of a civilization – the environment, government, economy, society, and culture.  In addition, they will create a mythology of their civilization’s genesis as well as a historical timeline of major and significant events.  Some of these events will be explained in detail. After they’ve created their civilization, they will then each create a character that will exist in their world.  Each student will pull from the knowledge (content and skills) that they acquire from creative writing lectures to create a well-developed, round, dynamic character.”

In this specific mini-project, students are learning the consequences of choices through “playing” The Walking Dead- X-Box and then analyzing the “play”.  The project is aimed at developing the skills of group interaction- delegation, compromise, and negotiation as well as developing empathetic relationships to groups and individuals.  These skills will be late used for immersive storytelling within a “World”.

Here Donna Eason (Click on the Image to See the Video) explains the project:

 

Student Work- Discussion Post:

“I thought actually playing the game made the experience a lot more immersive for me, personally, which I think lends credibility to games being an immersive media. I really felt like I was actually making the decisions according to what I thought – Liam (another student in the class) even saw this too, which I think was interesting. It was when I chose to apologize for not being strong enough to save Shawn (character in The Living Dead). Liam caught onto the fact that I apologize for many things that “aren’t my fault” just because I feel like I’m not good enough, which I think shows the immersion. I felt like I was really able to make decisions that represented what I wanted to say, even if the class disagreed (I don’t regret anything).

I think the choices to try to help Duck, ally yourself with Kenny with the other survivors, etc, were all really impactful. I’m sure they’ll come back later, and they were decisions that I really felt like I was making and that I might have to make in a trying situation such as theirs. I was really emotionally affected by the scene where Shawn died. He wasn’t around for very long, but he really seemed like a nice guy, and even though Herschel was kind of harsh, he wasn’t a bad guy and I felt sorry for not being able to save his son or be a better person in his mind.

I was really emotionally affected by the scene where Shawn died. He wasn’t around for very long, but he really seemed like a nice guy, and even though Herschel was kind of harsh, he wasn’t a bad guy and I felt sorry for not being able to save his son or be a better person in his mind.” – Sam

Photos:

 

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