Day 128 - Burlington High School Student Help Desk

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Day 65 - BHS Student Help Desk

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Day 39 - Trevor Dorazio, Burlington High School Junior

My Statue Capture


123D Catch App

Just imagine, anything you can see can be made into a 3D object on your iPad. This is what the developers at Autodesk have been working on and putting out in the app 123D Catch. Along with several other 3D developing apps on the iPad by Autodesk, this one in particular is interesting because the user can actually take the pictures in order to create the 3D image.

The team at Autodesk has been trying to develop ways to more easily integrate everyday people into making complicated 3D designs, causing more people to go take that extra step into learning more about the industry and eventually go into business using such a technology as the interest and market for it grows. There is currently a version to download on a PC or Mac, an online version, and an app.

Using the app, I have captured and recreated some familiar objects such as, the lower library stairwell, the lower library yellow submarine, the pedestal outside the main lobby door and William Duffy’s statue inside the main door of the school. There is an in-app gallery to share and discover other peoples’ captures, as long as they decide to post them.

I shared my statue capture and the developers took it and put it in their “featured” section, a true honor to have the original artists find my capture appealing enough my capture enough to feature among all the other captures from the many people who post their own. As an extra feature, it is possible to print out your 3D capture from a 3D printer and have a physical model of what you created on your iPod, iPad or computer.

Autodesk’s Intro. to 123D Catch

Day 10 - Andrew Marcinek, BHS Help Desk

This past Friday, the Burlington High School help desk had the opportunity to present at the ACTEM 2012 conference in Maine. Initially we had planned on attending in person, however; schedule conflicts prevented us from attending. Alice Barr, an Instructional Technology Coordinator from Yarmouth, ME, offered to help us setup a Google Hangout and present virtually.

Our session was in the form of a panel discussion with our student run help desk. We shared our story along with first hand accounts of the course from the students who make it up. The talk started at 11am and we presented an overview of our school and the course. We then took questions from the audience. Without any hesitation, the students on our panel, which consisted of Hannah Lienhard, Yash Kamani, Michael Lockney, and Andrew Abou-Rjaily, began to field and answer questions from the audience. One question asked students, “How do you deal with your peers if you find them breaking your AUP policy?” Michael and Andrew relayed how it presents an awkward situation to confront your peers, however; they stressed why it is important to follow our AUP and how if we don’t, it could affect the availability of technology resources and privileges in the future.

The next question asked the students, “What is it like to share something new with a teacher or administrator and how is your idea or suggestion received?” Hannah Lienhard shared her experience working at our three day Burlington Public Schools Professional Development Conference held the week before classes resume. She shared how most of her suggestions and ideas were “well received by faculty and administration who sought out her help”. And she added, “working with teachers in this capacity, outside of the normal structure of school, is like being at Disney when all the characters take off their masks and reveal themselves. It was great to see and experience first hand teachers and students learning together.”

The help desk students did a great job sharing their learning and experiences with the audience at the ACTEM conference and continue to share their expertise and talents through the BHS Student Help Desk website on a daily basis.

This course, to some, may seem thin on content and experiences, but I, along with my colleague Tim Calvin, see great things from the help desk students. We see an energy and passion to create, learn, take risks, and share what we are learning. We see students excited to learn new concepts and share it with a larger audience. We see students driven to innovate and invariably curious. It is a course where we don’t always know the right answers, but we know how and where to find them by asking the right questions. And above all, we are always ready to listen and share.