Learning with the Fang

Last week I was happily distracted by what might be an adumbration of the virtual school of the future.  It all started when I clicked through to one of Johnny Lee’s YouTube videos that shows how to hack a nintendo Wii controller into an electronic whiteboard (thanks to OlDaily).

I started tagging the videos and related posts for my buddy Dave the LifeKludger and had a flash of inspiration.  If I could find evidence that non PhD types have successfully done their own hacks based on what Johhny presents we would be really onto something.  As I surfed around I found plenty of evidence and stumbled upon ‘littlegreatideas‘ - my new favourite web site.

It turns out that Johhny is a man with some funky projects on the go.  More great hacks with wiimotes, prototypes of folding displays, an excellent community art project, pointers to other interesting stuff - including a paper on brain - computer interface!

All this got me thinking about My old post on a vision for School of the Future.  Imagine I was a school kid who saw the YouTube about the interactive whiteboard and decided to give it a go.  Imagine if I could convince a few fellow students and a supervisor or two to make something out of stuff we could find lying around.  We go into the ‘room of requirements’ where we find the resources we need (a wiimote, projector, old computer, tape, lcd’s, tools etc) and give it a go.  We then upload a short video of our version to YouTube using our phones and the school wifi.  We might even post a comment or trackback to Will Richardson’s post that would inspire other learners to try the experiment and might even help under funded and over optimistic administrators understand that a $10 Proof of Concept project is not a replacement for an expensive robust product.

You may call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Fang - Mike Seyfang

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