Can Our Cell Phone System Save You From a Tornado?

I was trying to think of questions that I as a teacher could ask my students that an iPad could not.  My example was asking a student to choose any topic.  If they chose the topic of weather,  I would ask "How could you limit the number of deaths caused by tornadoes".  Then you could look and analyze there problem solving skills even if they did not come up with an exact answer.  In thinking up that question I thought of a possible solution.

A Solution:

Cell phone towers connect to your cell phone even when you are not on them.  When a Tornado Warning area set up by the weather service overlaps a cell phone tower, the tower should call all phones that are in the vicinity of that tower. A message like "This is the Weather Service. You are currently in a Tornado Warning Area.  Take Shelter Immediately." would be played.

After the message is delivered, the cell phone GPS can be stored in a database and emergency personnel can know the exact last known locations of individuals in that area.  That way they can have a better idea of where to start search and rescue.

Please let me know your opinions on this solution.  I do understand that if the power to the Cell phone tower goes out it will be a useless system but if it is part of many other warning systems, it can be a major help to society in my opinion.

Update:
NOAA has implemented a system similar to this.  It turns out they have been working on this for years. You can read a news story about it at this link: http://www.noaa.gov/features/03_protecting/wireless_emergency_alerts.html

Can You Replace a Teacher With an iPad?

An artist can not be replaced by a tool just as a teacher can not be replaced by an iPad.  We are here today to discuss the important role of both technology and teachers as they work together to improve education. 

This is a comment post that we hope to see lots of useful information come to fruition.  So to get the ball rolling,  "Why should you get to keep your job as an instructor when a device like the iPad exists?"

The hash tag of this conversation on twitter is #BeAMaverick.

UPDATE:

The conference went well and there was some good input.  A note to myself and instructors that want to use twitter in the class is that you need to start a hash tag early if you want lots of support from an online community.  It is like any kind of event.  You can not create some signs in the morning and expect lots of people to be aware of your event.  It takes an advertising strategy where you build up to your event. 

One of the big topics we saw at the conference was that the students of K-12 education are being taught skills that are based on algorithms.  These are problems that have a clear set of steps to achieve success.  These skills can be taught by an iPad since they can be drawn up in advanced and they know the expected outcome to grade the student. 

This is great except that most employers do not want those skills.  They are useful for assembly line work which has been fading in the United States.  Would you want a carpenter that has the skill set of building those prefab desks that have the instructions shown step by step or do you want a carpenter that can analyze any section of your house and adapt to any possible issues that may arise?

What current employers are looking for are those students that have learned in a heuristic environment.  This is where you apply problem solving skills to try to solve something that does not have any clear outcome.  It deals with the ability to discover new knowledge.   Currently the iPad or any other computer is weak on this type of processing.  

You will find code that is heuristic in the AI(Artificial Intelligence) field.   It is still something that computers can do but not very well.  IBM Watson is an example of this type of program.   A majority of code developed for computers is algorithmic in that it behaves in a predictable manner by following a set of steps set up by the programmer.  When you press save you want the program to save your data.  You don't want it to think about how to save or other possible ways of saving.  You just want it to do what you told it to do.   This is a difference between employees and computers.  People are fine laying out step by step instructions for a computer.  They are not OK with hiring a new employee that you have to explain their job to them step by step all the time.

Heuristic style programs will be interesting to see in the future when we get better AI.  Can a computer program teach and analyze your problem solving skills when there is no set answer?  Can it use a knowledge base to determine if you are getting better at solving real world problems and can the test adapt to your learning.  Would it be able to raise the bar at exactly the right time to keep you moving on the right track? 

Another big topic was that learning occurs when the student reaches a failure and they have to think and analyze what went wrong.  A good teacher will swoop in at that very moment and help the student just enough so that they don't give up but that they solve the problem and become motivated to move forward.   It is a fine line where you want them to struggle a little so that they really think about the problem they are trying to solve.  You don't want them to spit out facts and that be the end of the class.  You have to be careful not to burn them out either.  I feel this is an area where the iPad is weak. 

It will be interesting to see if future apps use the front facing camera to determine if a student has understanding or if they are confused.  It will also be interesting to see if they can build educational apps that push the student at the right pace for them to be successful.  This is already in the computer science field but it resides in games and not as much in education.  A good game will push you enough so that it is challenging but not ridiculously impossible. 

Overall it was a great learning experience.  Please comment if you have thoughts and ideas yourself on how teachers and iPads can work together to get the most successful students. 

Camper Guitar - Why have 1 when you can have 2

The quad coil pickup area is ready for business

This is the second post in this series on my blog.
First part: Someday I Will Own a Guitar That Looks Like a Camper

This was a busy weekend but I still had time to do some modifications to the guitar.  I started out expanding the bridge pickup cavity so that it could hold two humbuckers instead of one.  I drew out the area that needed routing and I used my plunge router to make some room.  It's a little rough so I will need to do some sanding.  On the bright side, this section will be completely hidden by a sheet metal racing stripe down the center.  This will give some nice style and remove the need for finding custom pickup rings to hold the quad coil.  Another benefit is it will create the top portion of the shielding as well.

Sweet metal plate I found on the original camper

The other feature I added this weekend was the dual output jack area.  I needed a custom plate and I found yet another part to harvest off of the original Camper.   It has a nice vintage look plus the words Higher Voltage always help.   I will have to cut it down and get the holes drilled in the plate itself.  I will also be sanding down the area so the plate will be flush with the body.

For now I have the two holes drilled in the side into the cavity.  I mentioned in the earlier post that I want stereo output on this guitar.  The Acoustic pickups section will go out one jack and the humbuckers will go out the other.  This will give me the ability to blend the sound of 2 amps and get a nice effect.  This is not the first guitar to have multiple outputs.  Gretch introduced a guitar that has a splitting of the upper strings from the lower ones.  You can read and see more about it in this article.   My friend Kirk also has a stereo Wurlitzer guitar.  This guitar uses one output jack that can have a stereo or a mono cable plugged into it.  It has an A - B knob that lets you control the blend of both pickups.   Both are ingenious ideas and a different twist that you often don't see on most guitars today.

That's it for this post.  Happy modding everybody!

Getting closer with more cavity space and a location for the output jacks

Someday I will own a guitar that looks like a truck top camper!!

Rough Layout of the Project

I started thinking about taking a kit guitar I received from a friend and making it into a cherry red SG with a gold Bigsby vibrato. But when I thought about it I realized that you can buy a cherry red SG with a gold Bigsby. It is a common model. So I was walking around looking for inspiration and I saw a plaque screwed on the front of a decrepit old camper. I decided that would look nice on a guitar so I started salvaging parts off the camper to include in the guitar that had a new inspiration that I personally haven't seen before.

In this blog I am going to write about my progress in creating the Camper guitar. It may go through some rough spells and it might come out iffy but by gosh it will make some sort of sound when I plug it into an amp on its maiden voyage into the world.

Using Dremel to flush mount the plaque.

For electronics I decided on 3 standard pickups and an acoustic pickup. Two of the pickups are scrapped from an ESP that I replaced with Seymour Duncan Blackouts. I thought I could make a solid 4 coil brick at the bridge that would run pretty hot being wired in series to a single volume and no tone. On the acoustic side of things I am going to try having a volume, tone and a push pull that redirects the output to a separate jack. That way I can have it in the mix to a single amp or pull up on the tone to send the acoustic electronics to a separate amp. 

So I was sitting there looking at the SG body with this huge king like plaque trying to figure out how to place it. After a while of observing I settled on at the bottom where the horns of the guitar lined up with the points in the crown. I noticed the plaque was a little thick so I thought it would be neat to flush mount the whole thing into the body. With a pencil trace and a Dremel I am on my way to building the Camper guitar. Stay tuned for future updates to this project.

Close to being flush