Adam Savage's 10 Commandments of Making (the world and your classroom a better place).

While browsing the "Technology" category in the Podcast store, I stumbled upon a pod that includes Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame.  It's called "Still Untitled:The Adam Savage Project".  Adam sits down with two hosts and talks about everything, but one sticks out.  It is a recording of his keynote at the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire.

It rocked my world in a way that made me think about every decision I make as an educator.

In the keynote, Adam gives the "Ten Commandments" for being a maker.  It could also be the "Ten Commandments to be an Awesome Teacher and Human Being Put on This Earth to Inspire the Kids We See Everyday".  

I can see why he went with the more succinct title.   

I got tingly listening to it, and you will too.  Here is a YouTube of the speech.  The commandments end at the 10:20 mark.  Below are the video is an outline of the commandments and some thoughts and quotes.

Make Something.  Anything.
"Humans do two things that make us unique from all other animals:  We use tools and we tell stories"
"When you make new things, you are joining in the most ancient dialogue humans have ever had."

Make something that improves your life.

Adam goes on to cite the joy you get when you use something you have made in an authentic way.  Would this experience mean more that an 'A' grade on a test for some of our students?

Start now. 
Do the thing you want to do."..."mock it up" 

No excuses.  If you don't have a welder, create a cardboard mock-up of what you want to make.  Get dirty, and get dirty fast.   

Find a project that gets you interested in the thing you want to build 

You won't learn anything for the sake of learning it, you must have an authentic goal in order to learn what you want to learn.  

Ask for advice.  Ask for feedback.

Trust.  In your colleagues and your students.  Do they trust you?     

Share

I gave him a one man standing ovation in my kitchen when I heard this:

"There is nothing that makes me angrier than when somebody does something beautiful and you ask how it's done and they say it's a secret.  No secrets!  What are you protecting?  No one has a monopoly on being you, and if you think that your technique is what makes you interesting you're being ridiculous."

Please recognizing that discouragement and failure are a part of every single make project."

"They are still gonna suck, I'm not going to lie to you.  It sucks to fail it hurts to cut yourself, but they are going to happen in every single project.

Measure Carefully

Are the experiences we are designing for our students planned and precise?

Make things for other people.
"Giving your stuff away does place you in a slightly vulnerable position, but a magical one.

Use more cooling fluid

"Cold metal cuts much better than hot metal."

I think this applies to our students' ability to learn.  Are we priming them so they are ready to learn?
Are we using the best practices to prepare our students brains so they are ready to pick up what we are laying down?

I plan on using this in my first day back with my students.  In the comments below, share how this talk grabbed you and what does it mean to your classroom.

Makey Makey Something Awesome Part the Second

This has been pretty fun!

After going through two initial designs, here is the rack I created.   (This is my happy place.  Pardon the mess.)

The parts are 1 inch PVC, tee joints, and elbows all from the local hardware store.  

The best $12 investment I have ever made was the PVC cutter I bought pictured on the piano bench.  No sawing, no dust...just clean quick cuts!  Also, it doubles as a spy "interrogation" tool in a pinch, with a great suspenseful 'click, click, click' as the blade ratchets down.  That's a bonus, just for you.

I decided to make a drum rack instead of individual stands for each of the pieces.  It's was a lot easier to design and manipulate, and cut down the measuring time exponentially.  From right to left the drums are going to be:

1. Snare
2. Hi Hat
3. High Tom
4. Crash
5. Bass
6. Ride 

The plan is to craft some drum heads from cardboard and foil.  Glue is the medium of choice to get the heads on the rack, so we will see what happens...  

MakeyMakey Something Awesome Part the First

One of my goals this school year is to create the projects I am assigning to my students.  One of the projects is creating a homemade instrument.  For mine, I am making a homemade electronic drum  kit with the MakeyMakey and samples in Scratch.

 Here's a vid of the very early stages of testing:

    

Got to have my (Monty) Python.

The Ministry of Silly Walks, a dead parrot, and a quest for one of history's most sought after relics have all led to this.  

A computer programming language that can help you learn and teach coding in your classroom.  

Python is a computer programming language named after the legendary British comedy troupe Monty Python.  

If you haven't seen them, stop reading and get ye to YouTube right away.  Your life will be better for it.


For this post, Python shall henceforth reference Python 3.4.1, available here.  It's designed to be clear, concise, functional, and therefore a great language for beginners to dive into.  

Here are some of the things you can do with this language: 

• Create simple to complex programs, including games and web apps.
• Use a variety of libraries and modules to add functionality to your program.
• Take advantage of great documentation and tutorials, like the courses available at Codeacademy.  

It's great language to get started on and dive into the world of computer programming.  

Hello World!

Learning is the most addictive activity one can engage in, next to making music.

I like to learn, a lot. 

I like to teach, a lot. 

I like to make music, a lot.     

My hope for this blog is to share some things that give me that tingly feeling...the "part of Harry Potter when he chooses his wand" feeling that comes with teaching. (I know, the wand chooses the wizard, but for the sake of sentence structure I had to make that concession.  Grammar be praised.)    

I aim to write and post about finding new tools to help your students learn as well as trends in: 

• instructional design
• coding
• music education
• something that solves a big problem in your personal or professional life.

I teach middle school music ( and Kindergarten music) in a certain approachable yet fast growing midwest city.  Yes, the barbecue is everything you've heard it is, and then some.  Yes, we have one of the best professional sports franchises in the United States.  We also have a football and baseball team, too.  We make beer, startups, tech incubators, Hallmark cards, chocolate, more beer, clothes, coffee and have a pretty kicking performance space in the Kauffman Center.  

All of these above things make me excited to be in education right now, I hope we can share the best parts of our teaching and help others help their students (both metaphorical and real) become addicted to learning.  Welcome to the party!  

Joe