hi everyone - wired magazine has a fascinating article about a new jersey company that will manufacture whatever inventions you design with their free windows CAD (computer assisted design) software. http://www.emachineshop.com/
the wired article can be found at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/fablab.html this opens the doorway for some interesting constructivist learning opportunities. youth and adults can develop skills using this CAD software on a donated computer. they can take and teach workshops on how to best use this software. then when the time comes to order a physical creation of their design, they might choose to use the new http://fundable.org web site to raise funds for their design to be built. naturally, they would want to create a video explaining why people ought to make donations for their design to be built. this video could be uploaded for free to the internet archive using cyberduck (free ftp software for macintosh) or smartftp (free ftp software for windows.) the internet archive is at http://www.archive.org i recommend uploading videos in mpeg-1 format, so they are viewable by macintosh, linux and windows computers. it's best to upload videos in segments of 10 minutes or less, so that synchronization problems (between the audio and video) don't creep in towards the end of the video. to help people understand the capabilities of eMachineshop software, some community members might create narrated screencasts. an inventor/designer who created one or more quality screencasts would be more likely to get their design/invention funded. a free windows (and linux) program named Wink is good for creating screencasts. (see http://shorterlink.com/?3K7VUA.) Wink doesn't have audio capabilities yet, but that capability is going to be added to the software sometime in the next few months. alternatively, the commercial windows software named camtasia studio (about $300) is excellent for creating screencasts. antonia stone, the founder of CTCNet, named the original community technology center in harlem, "Playing To Win." she was so prescient in understanding the connection between playing and learning and economic empowerment. we must seize the opportunity to learn and teach eMachineshop CAD software. it's very smart of the company to distribute this software for free. let's put it to use in our communities to teach generalized computer design skills. good things happen when the human imagination is let loose to roam free. - phil if the technology access movement wholeheartedly embraces eMachineshop CAD software, based on an article published in wired magazine, would that give wired an easy way to do a cover story about the technology access movement? -- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.his.com/pshapiro/ (personal) http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/pshapiro (blog) http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro (technology access work) http://mytvstation.blogspot.com/ (video and rich media) "Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others." - Desiderata _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
