NoVa Mini Maker Faire - March 16

Hands-on Creation, Invention, and Fun at
 Northern Virginia’s Inaugural Mini Maker Faire
Sunday, March 16 11am-4pm

(Early Registration ends tomorrow!)

Reston, VA - Robots, rockets, radio broadcasts, and repurposed trash: So much to do and see at Nova Labs’ inaugural NoVa Mini Maker Faire on Sunday, March 16, at South Lakes High and Hughes Middle School campuses. Inventors, hackers, crafters, artists, and DIY’ers from across the region will demonstrate and collaborate with Faire-goers to make things, new inventions, tools, and gadgets, which can often be completed with reusable materials or household items.

Early bird discounts, available at http://bit.ly/1fjnV23, end February 28, 2014. Students are free; adults $10. At the door, tickets will cost $8 for children and $20 for adults.

Along with hands-on projects for adults and kids of all ages, Faire-goers will enjoy food, performances, and a series of short talks. More than 85 booths will feature “Makers” aged 12 to 92.  A few of the unusual mix of projects and activities include:

·       Aluminum Aerogami (a combination of origami and model airplane building from aluminum cans)

·       3D scanning and printing of you

·       Musical instrument maker

·       Snoopy Robot

·       Solar- powered Car

·       Light-up sewing

·       Hand-spinning yarn

·       Kinetic, wearable, and electronic art

·       Science experiments you can do at home by Gravity is Optional

·       Spy gadgets by the Spy Museum

·       Open-source hardware projects

For a list of all scheduled Makers, visit http://makerfairenova.com/meetthemakers/

Sponsors

The NoVa Mini Maker Faire is presented by Nova Labs,  a non-profit maker space in Reston, Virginia.  Sponsors include Make:Makezine.com, Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, the International Spy Museum, WyoLum, the Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) Clubs, Holland & Knight, Activity Rocket, Ideaventions, and Small Batch Assembly.

Education reforms in Virginia

Reposted from the DailyPress:

Education reform moving forward

Monty Mason and Rob Krupicka

For much of the last year we heard a constant drumbeat for the need to adjust and reform certain elements of our K-12 educational system. Reforming the Standards of Learning tests, letter grades for schools, and even state takeover of failing schools have been proposed. In this session of the Virginia General Assembly we have focused on many education initiatives.

SOL testing reform, HB930, passed through the Virginia House of Delegates unanimously last week. The bill, which we co-patroned, would reduce the number of SOL tests in kindergarten through eighth grade by more than 20 percent and provide increased flexibility to local school boards through the use of authentic performance assessments. By replacing certain SOL tests with more robust and flexible assessment tools, we allow for creativity and flexibility in the classroom, while still having confidence that content is being taught. This will ensure students are making progress and learning the critical thinking skills they need to compete in today’s economy.

Washington Post First Person: Rosie O’Neil, Georgetown University

Rosie O'Neil is active on Arlington's Career, Technical and Adult Education Advisory Committee, a member of Dr. Templin's NOVA Advisory Council representing Arlington, and a former Chair fo the Arlington Public Schools Advisory Council on Instruction.

From the Washington Post Magazine:

First Person:
Rosaelena O’Neil, Georgetown University

Andre Chung/For The Washington Post -  Rosaelena O’Neil, associate director and program counselor, Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy, Georgetown University.


Interview by Amanda Long

Everything I do in education centers on my mom and dad’s decision to leave Argentina. It wasn’t about finding a better life. It was about coming to the United States, knowing there would be more opportunity for consistent, uninterrupted education. All my papi’s 13 years of work as a civil engineer were unrecognized here. He had to start completely over. When your parents give up a beautiful, bucolic life — we lived on a vineyard — for a two-room flat in West New York, New Jersey, that’s a sacrifice you don’t forget. Basically my whole life growing up was about being educated and taking every opportunity possible.

One major part of my job is to sit down with students to articulate their curricular experience. I will look at a student and say, “Now that you’ve accomplished your general education requirements,

Deep Learning - Arlington Artisphere March 24

Reposted from Data Science DC

A Short History of and Introduction to Deep Learning

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  Monday, March 24, 2014

  6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
• Artisphere

  1101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (map)

  Metro and parking information: http://www.artisphere.com/visit.aspx
• For our March event, we are thrilled to have John Kaufhold from Deep Learning Analytics present a technical introduction to Deep Learning, one of the hottest topics in data science in the last couple of years. How hot? Go search for "deep learning", and skim through hundreds of hyperventilating news articles describing how it's used at Google, Facebook, Netflix, and more, and how it's beating image and speech recognition benchmarks at near-human levels of performance. At it's core, Deep Learning is in many ways just the next iteration of the venerable Artificial Neural Network, a repeatedly hyped machine learning technique almost as old as the digital computer. So what's real innovation, what's hype, how do Deep Learning nets actually work, what's new about them, and what does it matter to you, the data science practitioner? Join us and find out!
  
  

     6:30pm -- Networking, Food, and Refreshments

     7:00pm -- Introduction

     7:15pm -- Presentation and discussion

     8:30pm -- Data Drinks (on-site cash bar!)
  
  
  

  Abstract:

  Big data and the emergence of data science as a formal discipline have both renewed interest in machine learning technologies that are scalable, fast, affordable and do not suffer from overfitting. Though the "No Free Lunch theorem" implies no machine learning technology in 

National Engineers Week - 3rd week of February

"...be open to technical training"

From HyperAlergic

President Obama Pens Personal Apology to an Art Historian

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  by Alicia Eler on February 18, 2014

Art historian Ann Collins Johns 

Professor Ann Collins Johns at the University of Texas at Austin was just as peeved as many people were about President Barack Obama’s knock on art history majors. So she did what any self-assured art historian would do and wrote a letter to Obama on January 31, shortly after the President’s remarks, and sent it using the White House website. Then came the surprising part: Obama responded with a handwritten note on February 12.

Johns told Hyperallergic that she did not save her original email because she posted it via the White House website:

However, I’m pretty sure that my email was not so much one of outrage at his statement, but rather a “look at what we do well” statement. I emphasized that we challenge students to think, read, and write critically. I also stressed how inclusive our discipline is these days (even though my own specialty is medieval and Renaissance Italy).

Asked for permission to reproduce the letter, Johns wanted to make it clear that she loves Obama. “What I did NOT expect is that THE MAN HIMSELF would write me an apology. So now I’m totally guilty about wasting his time,” she wrote on her Facebook profile page.
Here is Obama’s response, written on official White House letterhead then scanned and sent to Johns by email. We’ve transcribed the text below; the White House let the professor know that the original will be mailed to her shortly.

Ann —
Let me apologize for my off-the-cuff remarks. I was making a point about the jobs market, not the value of art history. As it so happens, art history was one of my favorite subjects in high school, and it has helped me take in a great deal of joy in my life that I might otherwise have missed.
So please pass on my apology for the glib remark to the entire department, and understand that I was trying to encourage young people who may not be predisposed to a four year college experience to be open to technical training that can lead them to an honorable career.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama

(letter reproduced with permission)

(letter reproduced with permission)

With reporting and contributions by Hrag Vartanian
h/t Andy Campbell, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Texas State University

Lists of MOOCs

MIT and others provide a huge number of MOOCs (Massive, Open Online Courses) perfectly suitable for those who have a desire to continue learning from wherever and whenever they choose.

If you want to expand your mind but don’t have time to go back to school, there are plenty of options to get an advanced education online. The best part? All of these programs are completely free!

Check them out here: http://bit.ly/19vWxP6