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App Review: Truss Me!

janoszd — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 20:55:41 +0000

Cost: $1.99
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Grade Levels: 7-12
iPad App Link

I generally see promise in any app related to technology and engineering, and I saw it here too in a concept to bring a structural design app to the iPad. But, this one misses the mark.

This app seems to try to make a truss structure game too much like Angry Birds in how it scores at the expense of basic understanding of how some of the elements work. I realize there are general explanations in the Help section, but the help should be more prominent and there once you are in the interface. It also lacks certain seemingly obvious user interface elements such as an “undo” button and a tap to take you to the next challenge once you’ve completed the current one. Finally, especially for a younger inexperienced audience, it would be helpful for each challenge level to actually state what exactly the challenge is. It took me, an experienced iPad user, and someone that has used software like this to some amateur extent, way too long to figure out how to manipulate things in the build area. For now, stick to the desktop/laptop and web versions of this type of software.

Perhaps, the developer will take some feedback and incorporate it quickly into a better release.

Engineers Decide: Children’s Interactive iBook Available for Free until March 31, 2014

janoszd — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:49:07 +0000

Written by David Janosz Jr., ‘Engineers Decide’ was designed to inspire and educate future engineers and children who have a curiosity about the engineered items they encounter everyday. The first of its kind, the book tackles subject matter that has, to date, never been published in an interactive electronic format. It is built with interactive multimedia and multi-touch tools available through iBooks Author and is exclusively “Made for iBooks,” Apple’s leading eBook platform.

For Immediate Release

Frederick, MD – In 2008, author and educator David Janosz began to search for picture books to read to his oldest son, and noticed a discrepancy in the works available.

“I noticed that there were a large number of books available about people working in a limited few professions like fire fighters, artists, athletes and celebrities, rather than books about more prevalent occupations,” Janosz says.

Further, the author could find no books related to engineering, one of the world’s most popular professions.

With the release of ‘Engineers Decide’, an interactive iBook available for free through March 31, 2014 in 51 countries supported by iBooks, Janosz hopes to fill the gap in the market.

“I wrote and published ‘Engineers Decide’ because I want every young person to be able to envision himself or herself doing engineering,” he says. “I know that most will not become engineers, but too many children never even see the possibility.”

Ideal for parents or teachers with children ages five through ten, ‘Engineers Decide’ explains that engineering isn’t about “things” but about individuals, inspired to bring forth the discoveries that will change our world. By instilling the joy of designing the future – whether as part of a team or working solo – ‘Engineers Decide’ ignites children’s curiosity to the wonders of applying their imagination to meet fresh challenges.

Synopsis:

Awaken the young engineer within your student or child! Ideal for ages five through ten, Engineers Decide explains that engineering isn’t about “things” but about individuals, inspired to bring forth the discoveries that will change our world. By instilling the joy of designing the future – whether as part of a team or working solo – Engineers Decide ignites children’s curiosity to the wonders of applying their imagination to meet fresh challenges. Engineers deciding upon solutions for product development, as well as all sorts of inventions familiar to children, are described simply and depicted with colorful artwork. And photos show children actively participating in the adventure of discovering next-generation technology. Filled with interactive graphics and videos, Engineers Decide stirs tomorrow’s engineers to realize their potential by exploring this exciting field.

Janosz employed his own decades of experience as an educator while creating the book.

“We used colorful, vibrant artwork and simple, effective language. Photos show children actively participating in the adventure of discovering next-generation technology,” he says. “Further, the iBook is filled with interactive graphics, videos, and a drawing scratchpad. It’s truly about exploration, not just teaching.”

‘Engineers Decide’ is available now and can be downloaded from the iBooks Store on an iPad or OSX Mavericks. The iBook is free through March 31, 2014 in 51 countries supported by iBooks.

To download the iBook, visit: http://tinyurl.com/engineersdecide

The trailer video for the book can be viewed here:

About the Author:

David A. Janosz, Jr. is an educator with eighteen years experience designing and delivering STEM education programs nationally and internationally with a focus on technology and engineering topics. He resides in Maywood, NJ, is married and a father of three young children.

Diana Chelaru provided original artwork to serve as the primary illustrations for Engineers Decide. Ms. Chelaru is an artist from Nyack, NY.

Teach Ingenuity Concepts LLC is a small business that focuses on publishing and consulting related to technology and engineering education and STEM for grade levels Pre-K through twelve.

Contact: David Janosz / dave@teachingenuity.com

Engineers Decide

janoszd — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:51:40 +0000

I wrote Engineers Decide because I want every young person to be able to envision himself or herself doing engineering. I know that most will not become engineers, but too many children never even see the possibility.

I originally wrote the book in 2008, which is about the time my oldest child was old enough to have picture books read to him. Immediately, I noticed a large disparity between the number of books that are available about people that work in a limited few professions such as firefighters, artists, and athletes, and those that were about more prevalent professions. At that time, I found no children’s books related to engineering, one of the world’s most popular professions. Since that time, thankfully, a few self-published titles have emerged, such as Engineering the ABC’s written by my friend Patty O’Brien Novak.

So, I set out and made dozens of notes about things that engineers do. I went on to note ideas that put those things into some context that I thought children could understand and relate to. For example, a thought about engineers that work on machines became a page about engineers that work on machines that make something that is fun and familiar to all children such as crayons.

Upon completing the original manuscript, I put a package together and sent a proposal to dozens of publishers. I received but one response to say that the idea had merit, but the book just wasn’t right for their company. Now that the book was nowhere other than in a few dozen publisher’s slush piles, I was more than discouraged. But, in January 2012 things started to look positive again when I learned of Apple’s release of free iBooks Author software. Since I have some background in design and page layout software, I figured I might be able to pull off self-publishing the title without having to put out over ten-thousand dollars to fund a print run. I was also very intrigued by the fact that the iBooks format offered interactive multimedia features.

I went ahead and contacted the artist that I had hired to do some drawings for my first publishing attempt, Diana Chelaru. Diana made the drawings into beautifully colored panels while I searched online stock photo and video databases for the multimedia elements. With a few hundred hours invested into the endeavor, my dream became reality when the iBook was released in the iBookstore on July 17, 2013.

Here is the original description:
Awaken the young engineer within your student or child! Ideal for ages five through ten, Engineers Decide explains that engineering isn’t about “things” but about individuals, inspired to bring forth the discoveries that will change our world. By instilling the joy of designing the future – whether as part of a team or working solo – Engineers Decide ignites children’s curiosity to the wonders of applying their imagination to meet fresh challenges. Engineers deciding upon solutions for product development, as well as all sorts of inventions familiar to children, are described simply and depicted with colorful artwork. And photos show children actively participating in the adventure of discovering next-generation technology. Filled with interactive graphics and videos, Engineers Decide stirs tomorrow’s engineers to realize their potential by exploring this exciting field.

Thus far, Engineers Decide is only available as an iBook for the iPad. Please use this link to download from the iBookstore.

If you represent a group of educators or an engineering professional society, I would be happy to work with you on a free promotional offer for your school or group. Please feel free to contact me at dave@teachingenuity.com with regard to that or any feedback you may have about the book.

Student Motivation and Envisioning Success

janoszd — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:33:33 +0000

Johnny is entering the ninth grade in Springfield High School. Having been historically an “average” B-C student, mathematics has always been exceptionally challenging to him. During the past summer, his parents arranged for a personal tutor to do one session per week with him. Also wanting a fresh start of sorts in math going into his new high school, Johnny actually welcomed the opportunity for the one-to-one support. He even happily agreed to cut back on video games to fit in the sessions and also the additional summer assignments provided by his tutor. All in all that summer, he did spend less time playing video games, he improved his math skills with the more personal attention, and he looked forward to beginning his new math class.

Johnny’s new math teacher, Ms. Mathematica, has a reputation. She is a twenty year veteran in the classroom and she is known for having a tough and very disciplined approach to teaching mathematics. She has even had three students go on to earn doctoral degrees in mathematics and another two of her students actually have gone on to become math teachers themselves. Ms. Mathematica is one that doesn’t believe in partial credit. Either the entire problem is done correctly or it is wrong.

After a strong first few weeks in class, Johnny soon reverts to old “habits.” Ms. Mathematica’s class is highly structured. Even when students are working together in groups, they are all expected to be doing the same thing at the same time. Johnny can often be seen gazing out the classroom window during class. He hasn’t caused any disruptions during class, but despite Ms. Mathematica’s reminders to stay focused on the work, he has simply lost concentration.

Instead of doing his homework after school, Johnny goes to his room and plays video games. Interestingly, he is good at one particular game called World of the Sorcerer’s Magic. Typically, he plays for about an hour and a half after school, then breaks to come to dinner. He eats hurriedly, but not fast enough for his parents to tell him to slow down. Throughout dinner he is always just so anxious to get back to playing. Between chatter about the day with his family, his mind is thinking about the maneuvers that will get him to the next level of the game. Because he participated in the family discussion and he didn’t eat too too fast, somehow it doesn’t seem impolite for him to excuse himself to go back to his room to play some more.

So then, where and how did Johnny become more apathetic toward math and more interested in his video game? The answer to both, I believe, is all about motivation, and, more specifically, his ability to envision his own success in each endeavor.

How is the motivation to succeed in math any different that motivation to succeed at video games? The rewards for both seem to be about the same. You don’t ordinarily and immediately win money when you play video games, nor do you if you are good math. You can win praise from your peers for both; I’ve heard just as many students praise a friend for being good at math as I have the same for video games. Johnny’s not necessarily going to find a nice girlfriend just by virtue of being good at one or the other.

Motivation, by the way, to those outside of the education profession, is THE KEY to learning. So many education research studies point to motivation as the main factor in student learning, but most of the education world is slow to catch up.

You see, I don’t believe that motivation in this sense is innate or intrinsic. In fact, anything you’d probably say is intrinsic about motivation is probably due simply to earlier experience and successes. But, I do believe it is closely linked to vision on the part of the young person. If someone can see themselves succeeding at any task, they can become motivated to achieve.

In video games, players can easily envision success and can also SEE and FEEL evidence of it quickly. New levels of performance are constantly obtained. Although people may spend hours trying to get passed that one level, they will continue onto the next because they have done something similar before. Wow, just writing this is bringing me back to the journey to navigate Super Mario Brothers as I did as a kid.

Now let’s take this out of the learning math and video games context and talk about what it looks like in trying to develop one’s ingenuity. Technology and engineering teachers are among the few in schools that are willing to let students set their own direction for projects. Ultimately, it works best when students can choose and frame their own projects and constraints. Choosing and directing projects of their own is about as motivating for young people as it can get. It’s not uncommon to find a teacher that is encouraging their students to write down information about everyday problems with the hope they can focus on one of them for a class project.

Even if the project work is contrived or set by the teacher, motivation is enhanced because the hands-on nature of the work allows more students the chance to be able to succeed. No matter what the project is, the fact that there are many many different possibilities in terms of how to approach and solve a design problem allows students to see just as many possibilities for success. Even though there may be constraints of the problem to deal with, there are still so many possibilities.

So then, is there any hope for Johnny in Ms. Mathematica’s class? Where Johnny saw no chance to succeed, his motivation disappeared. He was feeling some success earlier that summer with his tutor because in that one-to-one situation it was much easier to succeed and in that particular setting the motivation appeared much faster. But, this is why I try to advocate for learning about technology and engineering and for the development of the ingenuity of our young people. It’s because the motivation that I’ve witnessed students feeling in these settings not only helps them to develop and apply their ingenuity in a real and more motivating context, I’ve also witnessed how it can help students envision success in other school subjects.

So, where we would normally say “he’s got a lack of concentration,” we should be admitting there’s a lack of motivation. And, we’ve got to lose this attitude that all kids should want to learn just so that they can better themselves. The lack of concentration comes more from the school itself, so then the school itself should take responsibility for the motivation. Let’s also hope that Johnny is able to feel some success in mathematics by applying it in his technology and engineering class.

Ingenuity

janoszd — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:30:21 +0000

The profession I most closely identify with has been challenged since I’ve entered into it, perhaps longer, with an identity crisis. This is not surprising; I believe that many others in education are hard-pressed to articulate why they teach what they teach. To me, this discussion is very much about identifying the personal quality that one wants to develop in young children. Language arts and English teachers strive to develop literacy in young people. Physical education teachers strive to teach lifelong physical fitness.

Most in my profession have wanted to hang their hats on the term “technological literacy,” especially since the release of the National Standards for Technological Literacy by the ITEEA in 2001. Is technological literacy a personal quality? Yes. Is it measurable? Well, yes, but many would set out to measure someone’s proficiency using Microsoft Word in an effort to describe a young person’s “technological literacy.” Unfortunately, the time when my profession could have captured this term and made it their own has long since sailed away.

“Design” is a pretty understandable term, but it is not a personal quality. It’s more a verb or activity and also sounds like something art teachers teach. I’ve taught many students over the years about the design loop or the other design processes, but I’d rather hang my hat on a personal quality as an outcome of teaching.

Some like to use the term “engineering.” Does “engineering” describe a great deal of what we teach and how we teach it? Yes, but engineering (the verb) doesn’t describe everything that I’d want children to develop through their education. Add to that the fact that engineering is the title of a very specific profession and you might see the problem with widespread adoption of the term as something desirable in every school for every student. Further, engineering is not really a measurable personal quality.

“Innovation” also sounds like a desirable thing. But, I’m not sure that you could call innovation a personal quality. An innovation to me is more of a thing, a noun. Yes, there is a describable process behind the term and I want young people to learn to innovate, but innovation really isn’t a personal quality. Beyond that, innovation seems to have become pretty cliche in the current common vernacular.

There has been a recent rally around the term “STEM” in the realm of education among those in and around my profession. Is it a very laudable goal that we should be striving toward to have more integrated learning especially at the high school level? Absolutely. But, that may be the best thing that will ever come from the acronym that as far as I can tell was first conceived as a way to organize funding streams instead of as a way to make interdisciplinary connections. I’d also rather not describe what I’m about in terms of the acronym du jour, which will surely fade into the next catchy acrostic invention.

This brings me to the term “ingenuity,” the namesake of this blog. Every student should be spending time in school developing their ingenuity, and lots of it. Looking at some dictionary definitions of the term I find that it is a personal quality. It’s a term that can be used in conjunction with talent. There’s an outcome to be had from applying it. Perhaps we haven’t yet found the most effective way to measure it in an educational setting, but in my heart of hearts I believe that it’s just as measurable as one’s physical fitness. One can challenge themselves to develop their ingenuity and they can also put it on display in a competitive setting.

So, fifteen years into my education career, I think I’ve decided on the term that I’m going to “be about” and promote it’s development in our young people. I want my own children to develop their ingenuity because I think it will make them every bit as successful in life as almost anything else. I want the young people of our nation to develop their ingenuity because I think it’s what has always set us apart from others and I think that will continue. I want others around the world to develop their ingenuity because with ingenuity becomes independence.

President Obama’s State of the Union 2011

janoszd — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:25:52 +0000

About the first thirty minutes of President Obama’s State of the Union Speech tonight was dedicated to innovation, education, and infrastructure.

I don’t take lightly how the president interwove these themes with education and our schools. I especially noted this reference to the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): “And over the next ten years, with so many Baby Boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.”

I admire the goal; it’s a very laudable one. However, so many people do not yet realize the power of the two middle parts of the STEM acronym and the value added to a student’s experience when they study them along with mathematics and science. Though they are hard to find and it may not be true in every school, most schools math and science departments are staffed with people that are very capable of teaching those subjects. What we do not have is enough people to teach our students about technology, engineering, and ingenuity.

Also prominent in this first segment of the speech were themes of entrepreneurship, manufacturing, how technology has revolutionized our lives, global competition, creativity and imagination, clean energy, infrastructure, and invention. Our students need to know about these things too, but there is really no time left in their math and science classes to learn something meaningful about these other important topics.

The president also made reference to Sputnik and how it led us to transform our education system and research and development.

If we’re going to reinvent ourselves and reinvent our nation, we cannot do it with the same education system that came out of the post-Sputnik era. While giving our kids more experiences in learning math and science were great things to come out of that era, we need to build on that for the future. Our education system needs more in the way of instruction in Technology and Engineering, which is core to developing ingenuity of our young people.

Here where I live in New Jersey, we have set a strong foundation for these studies. We’ve also engaged engineers, architects, industrial designers, and other professionals and showed them a path to sharing their knowledge and experience with children. Let’s build on that and truly reinvent education with study of Technology and Engineering at the core.

The Team Approach

janoszd — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:16:12 +0000

I’m writing this post for the first time from my new iPad. This device and Harry Roman’s post about Edison and R&D got me thinking about the process of invention and how its changed over the past century.

During Edison’s era, he made innovation happen in a unique way for that time. Having people of various backgrounds, experience, and expertise became the standard for research and development in industry and you can see the evidence of that in the iPad. While how exactly this product was developed and by whom remains an industry secret and a mystery to most all of us, one thing is certain: I imagine that hundreds of people had a hand in it’s development.

I imagine that the following types of people were involved in creating the iPad:

– Industrial Designers

– Engineers

– Marketing Professionals

– Manufacturers

– Software Developers

– Other industry professionals that had experience with original devices that failed in the market (reminder: iPad wasn’t the first of this concept)

Our young people need to learn about ingenuity is how it is applied by teams regardless of scale or market consciousness of a project. They need first hand experience being a team member as well as a team leader so they can begin to understand the dynamics of team work.

One interesting thing to me is how the credit for innovative products gets passed by the public. People seem to credit Edison alone for the invention of the incandescent light bulb. Yet, today the “inventor” of the iPad is Apple. I wonder if over time we’ll remember the companies as the inventors of things rather than the individuals the way we used to.