A conversation with Dr. David Buchanan!

Today I have the pleasure of posting a conversation I had (on December 1st, 2018) with Dr. David Buchanan, Executive Medical Director for Illinois with Oak Street Health and former Chief Clinical Officer at Erie Family Health Center here in Chicago. I've gotten to know Dr. Buchanan through our daughters who attend the same school, and over the past couple of years we've had some enlightening conversations about the work we both do and our common interests in technology and health informatics. Dr. Buchanan sat down with me at a local coffee shop to talk about his experience with health informatics at Erie, Oak Street, and his experiences as a physician before working with these two organizations. Some topics discussed include medical records (then and now), the affect the ACA (the Affordable Care Act) has had on medical records, and some of the initiatives he's been involved in to make health data more responsive and accessible to providers. This conversation is in 3 parts.

Conversation part 1
(24:40 min)

Conversation part 2
(30:02 min)

Conversation part 3
(35:58 min)

Dr. David Buchanan's biographic info. (PRWeb)

"MAKING" in the City!

So this summer has been very interesting in terms of making things. At the end of this past school year I decided to learn more about 3D printing and other "MAKE-ing" that I can get more experience with. By doing this, I can hopefully incorporate some of these technologies into my teaching. So far as a Spanish and Photography teacher, I have had my students produce a few tech-driven projects including a cooking video, a self-promo stop motion video (both of which were in Spanish), and a PSA-themed stop motion video for my photography students. Some of these projects you can view on this blog below!

To start my Maker summer, I decided to visit the MakerLab at the Harold Washington Public Library (the central downtown branch of the Chicago Public Library). In a classroom-sized room on the 3rd floor, they offer free workshops to the public on a variety of Maker technologies including 3D printing, Laser cutting, Vinyl cutting, sewing, Arduino tech, and many others.

My first project was a 3D printed collage/ relief sculpture using Tinkercad and a 3D printer from Makerbot. Since the suggested theme was literature, I decided to use the Waldo and Woof characters from the Where's Waldo series by Martin Handford. To create the initial character images, I searched for an image of Waldo's face and an image of Woof in Google. Once I found the jpeg images, I imported these into Inkscape, a free open-source vector drawing program. I traced them to create the vectors and exported them as .svg files so that Tinkercad could open them. Once I had imported them, Tinkercad automatically turned these files into 3-dimensional shapes that can be adjusted and manipulated. I made a base for the 2 figures to stand on, placed them, and exported to Makerbot's print software for printing. Voila! Press PRINT and wait for the printer to do its thing...

Waldo in Inkscape.

Woof in Inkscape.

The finished "collage" in Tinkercad.

Makerbot print utility software and print preview.

Milie working hard on my print!

Almost done...

Tadaaaa!!!!

Some of the other things I've made in these workshops include a Mexican sugar skull pendant, Laser-cut cat earrings and medallions, a headphone holder, a modular sculptural toy, and a dog-themed electronically cut bookmark. The common tech that we used for almost all of these projects was Tinkercad and Inkscape which are both free to use. Also, when you do a workshop, written instructions are provided as is the chance to get free printing time if you visit the Makerlab workshops at least 4 times (you get a stamp card). There are other tech that's offered at the Makerlab like Arduino and Fusion 360, among others but I haven't been able to check these out yet but hopefully before the summer is over I can do a few more workshops. Thanks Makerlab and CPL for everything!

Modular toy

Headphone holder

Sugar skull pendant

Cat pendant

Making a Pizza video (in Spanish)!

So what better way to get students to produce a good cooking video in Spanish than to have one you created yourself! I enlisted my daughter to help with the tasting and tech support just in case anything went wrong with the ingredients. On a more serious note, the fundamentals of video creation and organization are emphasized in the video with titles throughout and the instructions (in Spanish) are voiced over, with the whole package created within iMovie on the Mac. My students are going through my lessons on pre-production, recording, and editing of the video in class, and since this is my 5th year doing this, I can say that these steps really do help students to better organize and execute their videos. Best of luck to all of you doing similar projects in whatever subject you happen to be teaching or supporting!

Video created by Fernando Herranz.

Screencasting with Quicktime: iMovie on iPhone! (In 2 parts)

 

(Part 1: Getting started.) 

 

 (Part 2: Adding text and saving/uploading to YouTube)

So this isn't necessarily a new discovery for all you teachers and librarians out there but it sure is a great resource for explaining how something works on the iPhone or the iPad. In this case, I'm teaching a video creation lesson for my Spanish 3 Honors students where they prepare a food dish using the Imperative or command verb form. Many of them will be using their iPhones and iMovie, so I figured I would show them through this screencast I made how it works on their phones, and hopefully they can create some great videos with this small but great app. Making this all happen is Quicktime which helps to record the screen on your iPhone or iPad on your Mac, as long as you connect via USB. For a detailed description of this feature (called mirroring) check out this link. Enjoy!

Screencast by Fernando Herranz.

Big, Beautiful Data!

Here's a great article on the connection between data and art. SAIC and NU have joined forces to connect these 2 areas that were once often seen as separate entities: the sciences and the arts. "The new, interdisciplinary course Data as Art combined big data with collaborative research, studio arts, and visual communication design, enabling engineering and art students to translate mountains of information into visual art." Sounds so cool! Click here to read and be impressed.

And of course there's a video! https://vimeo.com/73251605