#edtech
1. Pupils will expect seamless technology in school
2. Peer-led support will form a key part of safeguarding
3. Machine Learning will be at the centre of everything
4. We’re all going to need more bandwidth
5. Outsourcing will become inevitable
6. Systems security must be more robust
7. Flipped learning is here to stay
8. Using 1:1 devices will become standard
9. Critical data will be stored in the cloud
10. BYOD schemes will become standard
11. School systems must be scalable
12. Schools will make better use data for decisions
13. Servers will become redundant
14. We’ll build a culture of reading for pleasure
15. Collaboration tools will become more prevalent
16. Windows 10 adoption in schools will accelerate
17. Video communications tools will become more widespread
Do you ever find yourself walking down a busy sidewalk while typing messages on your phone? Do you ever use your phone while crossing the street? I used to do both of these things. Over the past couple years, I’ve been thinking a lot about my phone usage, and how I spend too much time staring at its screen. I realized that I need to rein in my phone usage and reclaim my life. While I began thinking about how to do this, I came across several others sharing helpful ideas about the same thing.
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EdTech is the field where innovation meets education. Examples could be new learning platforms in schools, massive open online courses (MOOC) or technologies that help you learn faster.
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Learn Anywhere
DIY now offers year-round online courses in dozens of subjects for your kids to access from a mobile device anytime, anywhere.
Courses are designed to fit every family’s schedule and every kid’s pace. Memberships cost as little as $12.
If you’re already a DIY Camps subscriber, look out for another email explaining your new, cheaper plan.
We look forward to learning with your family!
Chalon Bridges
Director of Learning
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Meet Race: The Rockstar Maker
Meet Race. Race loves comics. He also loves rocket science and rock music.
We first noticed Race in DIY Courses where his passion for the topics always exuded throughout all of his projects.
“When I took the Filmmaking camp, I learned how to use special effects without using special effects apps. In the Musical Mayhem camp, I learned to make unique musical instruments and desktop soundtracks. In the Inventor camp, I learned how to use everyday objects and turn them into cool creations.”
Race has a particular interest in Rocket Science, commenting on how since he was 3, he was drawn to exploring the mysteries of space. “I always wanted to know new things about it. Plus, for a couple of years now I’ve wanted to build a rocket. So as I was browsing camps I saw Rocket Science Camp and thought I could do a lot of stuff I’ve always wanted to do.”
Aside from being a rockstar maker, he’s well, an actual rockstar.
“…since I was a baby I’ve loved rock music. I’ve lived it, dreamed it and played it, which continue to do. I play drums at the School of Rock and want to become a drummer for a 70’s classic rock band, an 80’s arena rock band, and a 50’s, 60’s du wop rock band. I also want to use my music to make peace in the world.”
If you’re thinking that Race is a sort of Renaissance Man of his day, we totally think so too! Race is now 11-years-old and is a staple in the DIY and maker community. He attends the New York Maker Faire each year where he likes to dive into the year’s latest gadgets, inventions, and participates in creating his own gadgets at home.
“I have a workstation in my basement where I constantly invent, make, circuit bend and more.” When asked what he wants to do with his skills, he replies “I also want to be an inventor when I grow up and create the flying car.”
In his spare time, Race liked to hang out in his garage which he’s converted into a comic book store. “I have about 120 comics and about 20 toys. I open it every year, each year opening it more and more. I’m also a super 80’s guy. I love the 80’s. I watch 80’s movies, play 80’s video games, collect and play with 80’s toys, listen to 80’s music and more.”
Be sure to check out Race’s DIY portfolio!
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Our periodic round up of news + cool things found on the internet. Starting with the awesomely subtle gif art of Iain Acton. More links below!
This past week the celeb world has been all abuzz over an iCloud hack which has caused us all to wonder if our passwords are secure enough. We found this guide to protecting your Apple ID with two-step verificationuseful.
General Assembly has wowed us again with their new Dash system, which allows any user to learn code in a series of quick 10-min lessons.
Do you favorite tweets and then forget about them? Sign up for Hubble and you’ll get those gems delivered directly to your inbox.
Miranda July continues to push the boundaries of digital and social art with her latest app that sends strangers to deliver messages.
We love this roundup of the 13 best Hyperlapses, especially this SpongeBob one posted by Nickelodeon.
Fashion Week is here and with it comes a wearable tech collaboration between Opening Ceremony and Intel.
We felt validated in what we do here at Kandu after reading this feature on how middle schoolers will impact the future of business.
Last, a few words to live by to start your weekend off right:
“Find something you enjoy doing and then keep doing it.” ~advice from Philip Guo’s 1,000 hour rule. Add to that Tattly’s new Practice temporary tattoo and you’ll be golden!
Happy Weekend!
#TeamKandu
We are excited to introduce Tips & Tricks, a new series that will make building Kandus even easier. Just look for the mouse in Planet Kandu, then play and remix to learn how it’s done. We’ll share these on the blog, too, so keep a lookout here for more ways to become a Kandu master.
Need more help or have an idea for a Tip or Trick? Let us know by sending us an email, a tweet (tag it #AskKandu), or a comment on this post … We’ll reply as quickly as we can so you can keep on creating.
Last week, I attended the Unity3d annual conference– Unite 2014. I went with our CTO, Chris, and John and Roman, our lead Unity developers. Kandu is built using Unity, so we were eager to meet other people using Unity3d, and show folks what we’ve been working on.
We had an awesome time. The conference was in Seattle, which is a great city. (We asked ourselves– should we move from New York to Seattle!?)
Here’s a pic of the four of us in front of the Space Needle during one of the breaks. In order: John, Chris, me, Roman. Don’t ask about the T-shirt thing: the color choices were truly un-planned. Then weirdly it happened the next day (me: gray Kandu t-shirt, everyone else: blue). You can now compute what might have happened on a third day… (hint: me burgundy, everyone else gray).
Coming out of the conference, here are a few things that I’m excited about:
Everyplay: Unity announced they acquired this company. It lets people record their game session, or in our case, their Kandu session, and share the result online. Everyplay’s a great tool for creating walkthroughs, and getting help from other people. We think that in the long term, Kandu will create a community around people teaching each others how to build awesome stuff. Everyplay makes that a lot easier for everyone– our developers to build, and Kanduers to enjoy.
Thenew GUI system in Unity 4.6: One of the hardest parts of making Kandu is implementing the “graphical user interface” or GUI. This is the stuff we take for granted, like buttons, scroll bars, tabs, and other visual designs that help you navigate through software. As a game engine, Unity is optimized for making game-like experiences. But wrangling Unity to make GUI elements has been hard. This new update promises to make it easier, which means that John and Roman can spend more time building new functionality, and less time building buttons.
I also discovered that Unity has an education effort, geared to teaching people in high school and college how to program in their environment. We had a chance to exchange ideas with Michael and David from Unity– we showed them Kandu, and it seems there may be some opportunities to collaborate in our shared interest of learning how to code. We’re looking forward to seeing how this discussion evolves.
Oculus VR and Unity: like peanut butter and jelly, two great tastes that get even better together. I spent about 30 minutes playing Lucky’s Tail in VR mode. It was pretty astounding– I even got motion sickness after a while it was so immersive, from looking up and down.
Speaking of Oculus– Leap Motion demonstrated what happens when you connect a leap to an Oculus– I’ll upgrade the PB&J metaphor to smores. I put the Oculus on and saw an orb in front of me along with a pair of VR hands that corresponded to my actual hands. I grabbed the orb, and on contact it spouted rays of light. Then my hands got… hot! As if it were really happening. This demonstrated how powerfully visual cues can affect sensory perception– after all, my hands were touching nothing more than air. Chris also reported having the same sensory experience. It’ll be fascinating to see how this combo progresses.
Ultimately, we came away really impressed by how generous and smart the Unity community is– it made us feel really good about some fundamental choices we made at the start, such as what to build Kandu in. We’re excited to deepen our relationship with the Unity community, and contribute as we can over time to making it even more awesome.
David
P.S. Another awesome moment: showing Lucas Meijer, who leads engineering at Unity, what we’re up to. He made a kandu on the spot!
David is Kandu’s CEO. You can follow @dbennahum or check out his LinkedIn profile.
Back to school season is in full swing and we are very excited to announce a new resource for teachers using Kandu in the classroom: lesson plans!
Designed by educators, this curriculum made up of 5 lessons will teach your students how to use Kandu to build basic games while using critical thinking skills and learning programming logic. We plan to create more of these in the future, so please let us know if you have any feedback either in the comments or by emailing us. We’d love to hear from you!
Note: Kandu is available for FREE download in Canada. Not in Canada? Sign up here to be the first to know about our U.S. launch.
