January 2016 OET Newsletter

Do2Learn

Do2Learn, the new CEHD Makerspace in the Education Resource Center (ERC), will host two introductory sessions on January 20 and February 2. We invite you to attend and see what the possibilities are!

Located in 012 Willard Hall Education Building, Do2Learn is an area where students, faculty and staff create, educate, hack, design, and learn about hands-on educational projects ranging from programming to 3D printing to stop action video creation to gardening to sewing and anything else you can imagine.

Find out more at the following sessions:

Wednesday, January 20:

• Finch, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. – A new robot that will introduce you to programming with fun activities.
• Squishy Circuits, 12-1 p.m. – Have fun as we make circuits from conductive dough.

Tuesday, February 2 (a repeat of January 20 sessions):

• Finch, 12-1 p.m.
• Squishy Circuits, 1-2 p.m.

Feel free to bring your lunch. Look for the grand opening of Do2Learn March 11!

UD Guest Accounts Allow Network Access

If you have a guest visiting UD, you can request a network guest account. Step-by-step directions are available online, but in a nutshell, this will allow your visitor to register his or her computer to access websites and other resources while on campus. To make your request, log into the network page and click on the link Request network access for a guest. When you submit your request, you will receive a temporary login and password for your guest. Guest accounts allow visitors access to the UD network for 60 days or less. You can make requests for up to 10 guests, any more than that contact IT’s help desk or send a note to OET.

Summer Camps

Despite a mild winter, our thoughts have turned to summer, as we prepare to host our New Arc Academy and Week of Code summer camps. The New Arc Academy (NAA), for 4^th-7^th grade students, will meet from 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m., July 25 – August 5. Now in its 22^nd year, the NAA will focus on who did it as students participate in forensics, Scratch programming, and Lego robotics activities related to crime solving. Presentations by the Delaware State Police and other crime analysts are planned.

New to the scene this year is Week of Code for 5^th-8^th grade students. Week of Code, which meets from July 18-22 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., is for students who wants to delve deeper into programming. Students will use Processing, a cross-platform, Java-based language focused on visual arts, to experience mobile application programming and physical programming.

To register, or for more information, visit the New Arc Academy and Week of Code sites.

UD Ed Tech Conference

More than 20 concurrent sessions by local educators are planned for the University of Delaware Educational Technology Conference. The conference will be held Saturday, March 5, in Willard Hall Education Building. Topics include working with Office 365 across devices; online formative assessment for writing; creating digital content for the classroom; tips, tricks, and ideas for maker spaces; and reaching all learners with technology. A complete list of sessions is available on the UDETC site.

As reported in UDaily, keynote for the day is Chris Aviles, an innovative and inspirational educator at the forefront of gamifying the classroom. Chris Aviles is the educational technology coach for Fair Haven School District in Fair Haven, N.J. and one of Center for Digital Education’s Top 30 Technologists, Transformers, and Trailblazers for 2015.

We look forward to having you join us! Registration is required. The cost is $60 ($50 for full-time UD faculty, staff and students) and includes conference materials, parking and lunch. There is still time to register as a presenter (attendance is free).

Educational App of the Month: Zaption

Suppose you create a video or find an interesting video on YouTube, and you want to ask your class about specific parts of it. Enter Zaption. Zaption is a free app that allows you to add interactive elements such as open-ended and multiple choice questions, images, and text slides to videos to create a video “tour”. You can then publish and share the tours by link or embed them on a website. Unlike many other free apps, the free version has no ads and allows you to upload unlimited lessons. Great for online classes, the in-app analytics makes it easier to understand how students are learning. Although the free version probably will met most needs, the paid version is $89 per year and offers additional interactive elements. See the Zaption site for a comparison of the versions.