Delaying the End of the World

Part of the satisfaction I get out of technology is sharing it, and particularly with teachers who have the attention of and privilege to educate our next generations. It's been famously said many different ways that the things you grow up with are normal, the things you're exposed to while your brain is still plastic become an advantage and anything you come across after the age of 30 will bring the end of the world.

The way I see it, the earlier and the more advanced a topic our children get comfortable with, the further we push out the end of the world. Ok, a bit dramatic, perhaps it's more about defining their normal and launching point for their lives intertwined with tech.

One of the (many) ways Google makes sharing concepts easy is through their Experiments site that focus on distillations of topics. The one I've chosen numerous time is the Tiny Sorter, that uses a small classification model that you can run locally on an Arduino board after training the model in your browser. This works on virtually any device, even my Chromebook. 

Pixelbook, Arduino, Tensorflow, JS & Googley eyes!

Originally designed to sort cereal marshmallows, I had to modify it a bit to handle Skittles, as Lucky Charms aren't to be found in the grocery stores of New Zealand (this may be considered a good thing by many!). Below is a little video of it in action -

What is great about this experiment is that it touches on physical crafting, lightweight programming, AI concepts, physical outcomes and ability to tweak and modify the solution in an approachable way.

Now that's the kind of homework hand out I can get into! 

Go have a dig at Experiments With Google - there's no need to invent the wheel or the lesson plan - there is anything from AI, Chrome, WebXR to Culture & Arts. We need more people teaching technology. 

The flow of information is always towards dispersal, let's develop good skills and practices with the fastest learning generation for everyone's collective benefit.