HST Students Participate In Videoconference About Artificial Limbs

On Thursday, February 18th,  Mrs. Sofia's Health Science Technology class participated in a videoconference dealing with the advancement in artificial limbs.  The Great Lakes Science Center teamed up with WVIZ in Cleveland, Ohio to give the presentation.  David Garcia, a gentleman who has a business that produces artificial limbs gave the presentations that included photos and videos showing some of the new technology in the field of artifical limb production.


Artificial Limbs have been produced for centuries.  Ancient Egyptians produced artificial toes.  The artificial hand goes back as far as 500 years.


One of the products that were shown was a Terminator style arm that was infused with the client's muscles so the arm could function the same way a normal arm does.


Another product that was displayed was the iLimb.  The iLimb is a complex hand that functions so much like a natural hand that a client can pick up a compact disk using the hand.  It looks and functions similar to the artifical hand Luke Skywalker had in "The Empire Stikes Back."


Many of these advancements are being researched and developed in Cleveland, Ohio.  To see some of these devices in action, visit The Great Lakes Science Center this Saturday at 1pm.

An Alternative To Twitter

When most people think about microblogging they think about Twitter.  Twitter is currently the fastest social network/micro blog on the net.  Twitter is not the only microblog in the game.  There are currently 139 microblogs available for people to use.  Most of them will wither away only to be replaced by seeds of new microblogs.

There is a fairly new microblog geared towards education.  Edmodo looks and feels like Twitter.  There is even a mobile app for Edmodo users.

Edmodo can be created by anyone but the majority of the users will be teachers and students.  Its preferred that the teacher set up an account along with accounts for thier students that will be using it.  Teachers have the ability to list all of thier students or set them up in specific classes.  If a teacher needs to send a message to a specific class her or she can or if he or she need to send out a message to all of the students they can do that as well.  An example could be if a teacher is absent, she or he can send a message to all of his or her  students.  If that same teacher had to leave before the final period, only those students could be notified.

Edmodo is completely in a closed enviroment.  Communcation is restricted to the teacher's specifications. 

There are some restrictions to using edmodo.  Some people have found limiting to themselves to 140 characters in Twitter difficult.  Edmodo limits you to 100 characters.  Its also a relatively new site so users are few.  Emodo's website comes equipped with a user forum page to discuss issues and ideas to use edmodo. 

You can attach photos to edmoto without going to another website.

Edmodo is a great alternative for teachers if Twitter isnt the right answer.  Its a controlled enviroment that looks and feels just like the real thing

Changes To Safari Montage

There are some new changes to Safari Montage that will greatly benefit the faculty and staff.  The most impressive improvement is the intergration with Smart products.  You can create Notebook files and add them to the Safari Montage library.  There are also ways where you can capture what you do in Safari Montage in Smart.  You can find more information on how to do this at http://www.safarimontage.com/.

Some extra features that are also added are the ability to speed up or slow down audio in the clips.  You can also instantly change the language spoken without restarting the video that is being played.

You can also access Safari Montage from home.  You can go to http://www.lcdlc.org/ and click on Video On Demand.

Blogging from E-Tech Ohio!!!

Hello Everyone,

I am here at the Educational Technology Conference in Columbus, Ohio. As i see interesting sessions and technology from the conference I will be blogging about them to keep everyone informed about the cool and exciting things I run across here. Enjoy!

Robert Moore

Multimedia/Professional Development Analyst

Lorain County Joint Vocational School

Oberlin, Ohio