LearningForward

Kent Chesnut's technology in education blog.

Notetaking - then and now 

When I was in school (many years ago), I would read the textbook and make notes in a notebook.  My oldest son is in graduate school now; he reads the textbook and takes notes directly onto his laptop.  Can the process of notetaking move to a completely electronic format? 

Textbooks are large, heavy, and expensive.  Computer technology is small, light, and surprisingly cheap.  Imagine the heavy, bulging backpack (and associated sore back and neck) replaced by a small computer / ebook reader and electronic texts.

 Notetaking - with electronic texts 

I am interested in seeing electronic textbooks accepted and used in education.  Liberally licensed texts such as Creative Commons would ease a financial burden on many students (and possibly whole school systems).  Even if the etexts had a cost associated with them, they could still be much less expensive than traditional textbooks (I wonder how much authors of textbooks receive per copy… I bet it’s a small amount of the student’s cost when buying the text).  The cost of ebook reader hardware (either a specialized ebook reader or a small computer) would be easily covered by switching just a few college textbooks from traditional texts to ebooks. 

An impediment to this transition is the lack of an ebook reader that provides capabilities to help the student read / study / take notes.  I was thinking about such a reader this week and put together a list of requirements that could make studying an etext as efficient as (or more efficient than) a standard textbook.

 Requirements for an Educational eBook Reader

• Support typical ebook formats (pdf, txt, html, epub)
• Allow user to hilite text and search for hilites
• Allow user to attach notes to hilites and to search for those notes
  (Notes should be added and viewed without moving away for the page being read)
• Allow user to print (or export) hilites and attached notes with references to the book / page number
• Keep info (hilites, notes) for lots of books
• Allow >1 book open at a time
• Allow user to adjust font and text size to accommodate reading
• Allow hyperlinks in notes
• Allow audio notes
• Mark current location
• Auto open to current location
• Support > 1 user
• Allow user to see notes together
• Automatically show notes on the current page connected with the text they refer
• Allow user to jump to next note location
• Allow user to attach notes to graphics

Does such an educational ebook reader exist? 
What’s your favorite ebook reader? 
What other capabilities would need to be available in an ebook reader to make it an improvement over traditional textbook studying? (I’d love to add them to my list)

I’ll be looking around at ebook reader software… but I’d love to hear what any readers have to say about this.

Next week I’ll try to get back to the Scratch Balance board.  But as readers know (if any readers actually exist), I’m easily distracted.

In this second post about the Scratch Balance Board, I’ll be looking at an extremely simple project - and the process of creating projects for use with the balance board.  Earlier posts that referenced the purpose of the balance board are here and here.

One of the first ideas about a project using the balance board was a virtual segway.  The first step was to build a simple project that uses the 4 arrow keys to control a virtual segway.  Run the project here.  Download the project here.  The key is to control the project by polling the keyboard (instead of looking at keypresses) and using “broadcast” to communicate the state of the keys to the segway sprite. 

The segway sprite uses “When I receive” to act upon the keypresses.  A screenshot of the Segway sprite scripts is shown.

• sorry
• I’ll
• use
• these
• bullets
• to
• spread
• stuff
• out
• again
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k

 The next step is to use the board control script to send those same messages.

Scratch will not let you save off a script by itself.  So I created a sprite that contains the board control script.  I then exported that sprite.  When I want to add balance board control to a program, I simply drag the sprite file into the Scratch window.

Here’s a screenshot of the board control script.  There’s a short explanation of this script in last weeks post.

• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k

 So how does it work?  I’ve linked in a short narrated video of me trying to drive the segway around the track here .  I used RenderSoft’s CamStudio OpenSource version 2.00 to capture the video and compress it to a .swf file. 

Results from this first simple project:

• Sometimes I have a little trouble getting the PicoBoard to communicate.  I think it may have to do with plugging other stuff into the USB when it is plugged in - or possibly loading other software.  I’m not sure.  I did have to reload the PicoBoard driver to get the board operational again.
• The Balance Board is usable - but I found it very useful to have a chair to hold onto when I was trying to drive the segway. 

For the next post, I’ll try to make a little more complex project.  Any comments would be appreciated.

In my last post, I discussed building input devices for Scratch (see here).  My goal was to create a peripheral that could help get more kids interested in Scratch, programming, and educational endeavors in general (by providing more intrinsic motivation).

My first peripheral - a Scratch Balance Board.  The idea was to allow some neat activities like the Wii balance board.

 Remember that you will NEED the PicoBoard interface discussed in the previous post.  The cost is $50 plus $10 shipping to Oklahoma.

Background

I started this project wanting to build a practical Wii clone.  The tough part of the balance board is pressure sensing.  Load cells are very expensive!  And Force Sensing Resistors are only good for very small loads.  So I changed my goal - to build a very simple balance board using parts that can be easily and cheaply acquired (or hopefully scrounged).

Design

Note that I’m a software engineer and am a real klutz when it comes to mechanical things.  This design is not meant for production - it’s meant so that an adult and kid can put this together and play with writing Scratch programs using the balance board as an input device.

Here’s a picture of the outside.

It’s basically a simple box comprised of the following:

• 2 1″x12″ boards cut 22″ long for the top and bottom.
• A frame around the boards made of 1″x4″ boards.
• The bottom 1×12 is screwed in place.
• The top 1×12 sits on top of an elaborate force management system (more on that later).
• Note that the top 1×12 must slide easily within the frame.
• k
• Sorry about the extra lines
• but needed to keep pics from
• getting screwed up.
• If the pics aren’t lined up on
• the right side, try making your
• window narrower or wider.
• k

Here’s a picture of the inside with the “elaborate force management system”.  This elaborate system is composed of 4 tennis balls which are just placed at the 4 corners of the box.

Switches are placed at the center of each side to detect where the user is standing / leaning.

Note that the switches are mounted to scraps of 2″x4″ boards.   The 2×4’s are glued in place with standard school glue.

• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k

As you can see from the closeup, each switch is comprised of 2 small screws.  These screws are parallel to the side of the box frame and 3/4″ away from the frame.  The screws are 1/2″ apart.

The wires are held in place by the screw being tightly screwed into the board.

• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k
• k

The switch is activated when the top is pressed down.  This picture shows the other half of a switch mounted to the upper 1×12.

The washer is about 1″ in diameter and held in place with scotch tape.

Note that the objects under the washer are rubber tubing (about 1/4″).  These tubes serve 2 very important purposes:

• Allow washer to flex when contacting the screws.  This flexibility is needed to allow the switches to work even if the screws are not exactly the same height.  This also allows the switches to stay made even when the board is tilted on the perpendicular axis (i.e. you can lean forward and make the up contact even while leaning left and right.
•  Using the tennis balls as the suspension system is easy, but leaves no adjustment.  Adjusting the height of the washer off of the top 1×12 changes the force needed to activate the switch.
• k
• k
• k
• k

The screenshot at right shows a script I have attached to the background.  Notice that the script will work in either of the following 2 conditions:

• The force required to activate the switch is high compared to the weight of the user.  The user must lean toward a switch to activate it.
• The force required to activate the switch is low compared to the weight of the user.  When the user stands on the board without leaning, all the switches (or at least a pair of them - right/left or up/down) are activated.  When the user leans toward a switch, the opposite switch opens.

Note that no message is sent if opposite switches are both met.

The biggest shortcoming in the design is the force adjustment described above.  A system that allows the washer to be flexible but also allows for adjustment toward and away from the top 1×12 would be very helpful.

 I’ll look at 2 or 3 simple programs to use with the board in my next post.  I’d love to hear any comments or suggestions.