Coloring Our Behavior
In stores, people can buy mood rings that will supposedly change color depending on a person’s emotions. But what if we can do the opposite and change our emotions and behavior depending on the color? Apparently, colors can make us feel better, reduce hostility, or make us feel refreshed. Color your office or room and experience the changes for yourself and others.
Links:
[Seeing Red: How Color Alters Our Behavior] by Divine Caroline
Wiimote Whiteboard – Part 1 – Setup of a Cheap IWB
With interactive whiteboards (IWBs) popping up in classrooms all over the world, maybe you feel a little left out. Not only are they a great way to incorporate technology into your class, but they can also be a lot of fun. But with IWBs prices more than $1000, it could be hard to convince your school to buy you one.
Alternatively, you could produce a cheaper version by using a Wiimote. You heard me right. Using a wiimote, computer, infrared pen, and a projector, you can turn your whiteboard (or any surface) into an interactive whiteboard. If you already have a computer and a projector, the wiimote and infrared pen will set you back $40-50; that’s a LOT of money saved. The Wiimote is used as an infrared camera and detects the infrared pen as your mouse cursor. It’s as simple as that.
Alright, enough chit-chat. Let’s get started. Today, I’ll be going over a list of things that you’ll need in order for your new IWB.
You’ll need:
A Wiimote
An Infrared Pen (can be made or bought from sites such as http://penteractive.us/)
Computer with a Bluetooth Adapter
Projector
Programs Needed:
Smoothboard
- First thing to do is to set up your projector to your computer and position it to the surface that you want to use (whiteboard, screen, table, etc)
- Next you want to do is to connect your Wiimote to your computer via bluetooth.
NOTE: There have been difficulties in connecting Wiimote controllers via bluetooth. For help, check out this page. - Once your wiimote is connected, position it so it could see your whole surface. The Wiimote has a viewing angle of about 40-45 degrees. Also note, that it acts as a camera, so if something is between the infrared pen and the Wiimote (for example… your body), the Wiimote won’t pick it up.
- Startup BoonJin’s Smoothboard program and calibrate your surface by pressing pressing the “Calibrate” button on the program or A button on the Wiimote. Use the infrared to point and “click” the crosshairs that will appear on the 4 corners.
- Once calibrated, you’re good to go! Smoothboard allows for the infrared pen to be seen as Motion Only, Left Clicks, and Right Clicks but be aware of which option is chosen.
To see the Wiimote IWB in action, check out some of these videos:
Using a 55 Dollar Interactive Whiteboard to Enhance Learning
Students Using Wiimote Whiteboard
Wiimote IWB with Edusim & Kindlelab as the software projects
Technical Difficulties
Sorry for the inconvenience everyone. Something was wrong with my computer (long story) and I had to end up reformatting it. Just started some classroom service learning also so it’ll take awhile to get up and running. But once the computer is good to go, I’ll be right back. So sit tight and I’ll be back in a jiffy 
Wiimote Whiteboard
For the next couple of days, I’ll be taking a look at using the wiimote as an interactive whiteboard. As a preview of things to come, check out the first video that started it all.
Free Fonts for Everyone!
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In the world of typography, a picture could actually be made of a thousand words. Designers all over the world know the importance of typefaces and their impact on their audience. Whether it’s through a poster or through a handout, the appearance of letters can say much more than what they spell. Many good fonts though cost money. Luckily, the kind staff at Smashing Magazine, Tripwire Magazine and Naldz Graphics have put together a list of free fonts that you could use for your next design. Whether you’re a fan of typography (like me) or a designer that just needs a good font, you should take a look at some of these and add them to your repertoire.
Link:
[45+ Most Wanted Beautiful Free Hand Drawn Fonts] by Naldz Graphics
[40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design] by Smashing Magazine
[75+ Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design] by Tripwire Magazine
Course Management System – Moodle
Meet Moodle. It’s a free course management system. Course management systems such as WebCT and Blackboard cost money to implement. Moodle doesn’t. If you or your school would like to create online classes (or hybrid classes of both online and face-to-face learning), Moodle could help make that step seem less painful. Try it out and if you already have some experiences with it, be sure to comment below.
Link: [Moodle.org]
Need Some Stock Images?
If you need something to spruce up that brand new blog that you just made, we might have the thing for you. The nice people over at InstantShift have compiled a list of sites that that offer stock images. Not only are these high-quality, they’re also royalty free. Now this doesn’t mean that all of it is entirely free.
There are few thing you need to keep in mind before exploring these sources that “Royalty Free” does not mean the images are totally free; it just means that you don’t need to pay the photographer a royalty each time you download or use the image. That is why you need to read terms and conditions or license agreements carefully as these sites offer free royalty-free images.
With these, you could make a beautiful card, an attractive brochure, or even a incorporate it into a banner that isn’t just text (yes, I’m bashing myself). Just make sure you follow those rules and you should be fine and dandy.
Link: [40+ Sources To Download High-Quality Royalty Free Images]
Art Education 2.0
Incorporating technology in art classrooms may sometimes seem like an odd thing. Over at Art Education 2.0, Craig Roland has embraced technology for art classrooms. Here at this community, people all over discuss a variety of ways of adding technology into art education. Take a look and join the group.
Link: [Art Education 2.0]
All Tripped Up for a Kindle 2
Every week here on ATU (All Tripped Up), I’ll be putting up a segment known as “All Tripped Up.” Despite being a blog about art and education, I feel that it’s important to break the rhythm once in awhile and let you see what’s going on in my head.
So why a Kindle 2? For those of you that don’t know, the Kindle 2 is an e-book reader by Amazon. I’ve known about it for a long time but only now I’ve been contemplating on getting it. There’s so much possibilities for it and I could truly benefit from it.
As a college student, I would definitely use the kindle to replace my textbooks. I already have a laptop to carry around and to carry my textbooks along with that has been a painful experience. I keep all of my textbooks for future reference so having them at my fingertips with the kindle would make them available whenever I need them. Also, the textbook (and ANY references) will be instantly available for any papers or research projects that I would need them for.
I also plan on becoming a teacher so the kindle would be perfect for read alouds for not just me but for fellow teachers of any grade level. A wide variety of information would be available to us. In a 1-on-1 setting with a student, I could quickly pull up a novel on the kindle, have the student read a page or 2, and assess them. Students could also be informed of important current events. Newspapers would be accessible without going out to buy one and I could quickly read it to the class and give them a sense of what’s happening in the world today. The possibilities are endless!
And after a hard day of work,
I don’t want to go berserk.
With all that stress, what would I do?
Why, read with my Kindle 2, thats what I’d do
Periodic Table of Typefaces
For all of you that like typography as much as I do (and i love typography), here’s the Period Table of Typefaces by @justcreative. It brought a smile to my face I could imagine it as a poster in my room. It could also be for a design class. Isn’t that a great idea?
Link: [Periodic Table of Typefaces]
If you have a digg account, you can digg it here.
