Time-consuming materials design

I haven't written a post for a while - the longest I've ever gone without doing so. In fact, the third anniversary of this blog was 30 November but I was too busy preparing lessons and correcting assignments to even think about it, let alone be inspired to write something.

I spend a lot of my working time preparing material and lessons (especially the kind of material I've been uploading on this blog), which I'm sure is true of most - all? - other teachers of ESP. I love the work because it's creative (for me) and relevant (for students), so it combines what I think is valuable in teaching. But it is, of course, time-consuming.

I think this is an issue that all teachers of English for Specific Purposes deal with. "Relevent" is a key word for me when I'm preparing lessons, but unfortunately much of the published material - both textbooks and online lessons - are not directly related to my students' specific areas or needs. The "English for Engineers"-type textbooks, even when well-prepared and well-written, do not necessarily focus on the specific aspects of my students' fields or aren't suited to their various language levels.

It is, of course, the nature of published materials that they tend to a "one size fits most" approach - even when they seem to have been created for a specific field and level. This is the main reason that my university doesn't use textbooks for our courses.

Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, in their text English for Specific Purposes: A learning-centred approach, focus on this in the chapter "Materials design." They write:

"Materials writing is one of the most characteristic features of ESP in pracice. In marked contrast to General English teaching, a large amount of the ESP teacher's time may well be taken up in writing materials."

Among the reasons they mention:

"A teacher or institution may wish to provide teaching materials that will fit the specific subject area of particular learners. Such materials may not be available commercially. In addition to the profusion of subject specialisms, there is also a wide range of course types."

In my institution there is certainly a wide range of "course types" - not only different areas of engineering, but different course designs and schedules that differ in number of hours devoted to English each semester.

So many - most? - ESP teachers end up creating their own material. That's why, in fact, I created this blog in the first place. As long as I'm already finding material to use with my students, then perhaps other teachers could use it as well. Or, if it doesn't suit their needs, they might still find the website, text, or visual useful - or might be inspired by the types of exercises or activities I use with the material.

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

In any case, I enjoy the work I do and enjoy the creativity of designing materials. So as I begin my fourth year writing this blog, I will continue to enjoy sharing my ideas and the variety of texts and visuals I find with other ESP teachers.

Hackathons

Image from Clarus Commerce website

In my last post I focused on an article about San Francisco becoming the first US city to have a dedicated IoT network. In the article it mentions that there will be a "hackathon" in San Francisco from 20-22 November. From the article:

"In November, SIGFOX and the City of San Francisco will jointly sponsor a hackathon, in order to allow developers and makers to use the technology and generate new ideas for how SIGFOX's network can be used to create innovative smart-city solutions."

I didn't know what a hackathon was (it's not for nothing that my email name for this blog is nontechieteacher!), but my students knew about it, and together they attempted to explain it to me. I say "attempted," not because they weren't able to explain it well, but because different students focused on different aspects of what a hackathon is, depending on their own point of view and on what they most associate it with. The different ideas contribued gave us a lot to talk about, and formed a very useful brainstorming explanations session.

The explanation on Wikipedia is:

"A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams."

The information on the website leads to Tickets for the Hackathon with further information for participants in the section "Why attend":
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/smart-city-iot-hackathon-connect-your-city-tickets-19092263474

The winning categories listed are:

• Best start up project - most promising project to start a successful business modernizing cities;
• Best civic innovation project - highest impact project that improves citizens' lives;
• Best technical project - most technically advanced and ambitious project.

Students can brainstorm ideas of what could be developed, or what they would want to develop themselves. Then they could discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each idea.

There's plenty of material here for all types of engineering students!

Another aspect of the hackathon information on the website given above is the suggestions listed under "Prototypes Ideas for a smarter City (sic). It says:

"Here are several examples of applications that might tickle your fancy for this hackathon. Feel free to suggest more and think outside the box!"

So if students need some inspiration for their brainstorming, this material can be presented. The first one listed is Air, Water quality, Noise control, Energy efficiency with the prompt:

"Setting up ubiquitous sensors will help refine our understanding of where pollution happens, and where to focus efforts to limit its effets for healthier living. Is air quality better in neighborhoods with different transportation mixes? How does the weather affect energy consumption in businesses? Can the City cuts its utility bills by smarter use of sensors?"

Each of the examples has a prompt like this, which could certainly generate ideas. The full list of examples of applications:

• Air, Water quality, Noise control, Energy efficiency
• Inventory/Fleet management/Sensors on City equipment
• Traffic, transportation, parking, potholes
• Security
• Kids, pets
• Seniors, autonomy
• Art, street art, performance, interactive performance
• Fire detection, Earthquake, Flood warning systems, Disaster relief
• Wild animal tracking
• Parks, urban farms, beekeeping

Photo of a hackathon from Wikimedia blog

For more general information about hackathons, this article from Wired magazine online, "The Hackathon is On: Pitching and Programming the Next Killer App," is very useful.



Link: http://www.wired.com/2012/02/ff_hackathons/all/1

Some interesting excerpts from the article:

• "Hackathons, with their come-one-come-all ethos, have emerged as the new forum for networking, learning, and beta-testing new apps and ventures."
• "Venture capitalists are looking to hackathons as a new way to spot fresh faces worth recruiting and good ideas worth finding."
• "The trend has already spread beyond the conventional tech world. There are women-only hackathons, hackathons for teens, hackathons for colleage students, hackathons to fight autism, hackathons to improve education, hackathons to help veterans, hackathons to build Occupy Wall Street protest tools, hackathons on clean energy, hackathons on grocery shopping in Vermont, and 14 hackathons to troubleshoot water pollution -- footage of which was streamed live from nine cities including Bangalore and Nairobi."

This certainly sounds as if hackathons are a part of my students' lives - now and in the future.

IoT network in San Francisco

The City of San Francisco

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network that connects physical objects and allows them to "communicate" with each other. The company SIGFOX has established IoT networks in a number of countries in Europe, and is working on creating more in Europe, as well as North America and Asia.

A recent news article from the website radio-electronics that I used with my Information Technology students reports that SIGFOX will deploy a dedicated IoT network in San Francisco, the first city in the United States with such a network.

The article: http://www.radio-electronics.com/news/wireless-technology/san-francisco-to-become-first-us-6516

SIGFOX describes itself as, "the first and only company providing global cellular connectivity for the Internet of Things, fully dedicated to low-throughput communications." A list of cities where such networks have already been established is on the company's website:

http://www.sigfox.com/en/#!/connected-world/sigfox-network-operator

The article provided material for an interesting discussion in class about the advantages of such a network, and the impacts so far in the cities where it has been established. In addition there were a number of language features that were useful for my students.

First, to make students aware of how the text focuses on audience - in this case readers who are not sure what the "internet of things" is - we looked at the way it is defined in the article.

• "A growing phenomenon in numerous cities across the world, the IoT connects physical objects and allows them to communicate, analyze, and share their data through sensors, network connectivity and cloud software."
• "The Internet of Things links physical objects embedded with sensors and actuators to the Internet. It allows the 'things' to exchange data and communicate with each other, allowing a smoke alarm to send a text when the alarm goes off or it has a low battery; a tracker to locate a stolen bicycle; a sensor placed on a fire hydrant to alert authorities when a leak is detected."

Not only do the two explanations give the same information in different ways, but the second one further gives specific examples to make the information clear. This is the kind of thing I encourage my students to do when they are planning a presentation or writing a technical process description.

Another useful language aspect of the article is the use of tenses to refer to the future. This is also related to the work I have done with future prediction (see my posts Back to the Future today, October 26 and Past predicitons of the future, October 20).

Some examples:

• ... they will partner to deploy a dedicated Internet of Things network that will provide ...
• SIGFOX hopes to enable the IoT industry to finally take off and connect ...
• The next wave in technology innovation in San Francisco will likely be the ...
• Creating a network of this kind, the City will be able to attract new startup comanies ...
• The pilot plan in San Francisco will be executed through collaboration between ...

And the use of the future could be contrasted with the other tenses used, in order to illustrate how the tenses are used in English:

• The City of San Francisco and SIGFOX has announced that they will partner to ...
• ... the IoT connects physical objects and allows them to ...
• SIGFOX, ..., is currently operating or being deployed in 10 European countries ...
• If the last 10 years of technology development were about making it easier for ...
• Mr. Gamino has expressed excitement for the development of the IoT ...
• The initiative to make San Francisco better connected started in 2013 ...

Finally, since the article reports what a good development this is, there are many advantages of IoT networks detailed that students could either brainstorm beforehand, or add to afterwards.

Some examples:

• ... Internet of Things network that will provide low-cost, energy-efficient and two-way connectivity for smart-city programs, as well as businesses in multiple verticals.
• By providing a disruptively cost-effective, energy-efficient and simple way to connect the physical world to the internet, ...
• ... reinforces San Francisco's commitment to attracting startups and established companies in the emerging IoT space. It also allows the City to offer residents innovative new services and ...
• The types of applications - ranging from agriculture, connected health, security or logistics - that can benefit from the IoT is limitless.
• --- the City will be able to attract new startup companies, strengthen existing businesses and provide more jobs, economic growth and continuing prosperity for our residents ...
• etc.

Of course, there are also many relevant business and technology vocabulary items and collocations for students to be aware of, since they could use this language for their own writing and presentations.

The article mentions that there is going to be a "hackathon" later this month jointly sponsored by SIGFOX and the City of San Francisco, "in order to allow developers and makers to use the technology and generate new ideas for how SIGFOX's network can be used to create innovative smart-city solutions."

I had never heard of a "hackathon" before, but my students seemed interested to know more about it. This also relates well to work we do with innovations, and generating innovative ideas in their area of engineering. In my next post I'll write about this event, and how it can relate to work teaching English to engineers and engineering students.

Back to the Future today

The hoverboard from the film

In my last post I wrote about using predictions of future technology in lessons. But this week, my students reminded me of "predictions" made in the 1989 film, Back to the Future II, in which time traveler Marty McFly travels from 1985 into the future, arriving on October 21, 2015.

Throughout the film he encounters changes of the 21st century - some, for example, were fairly accurate:

• self-tying shoelaces
• wearable technology
• video calls
• hands-free gaming
• tablet computers
• robot car fuelling
• fingerprint recognition

But some were not quite right:

• flying cars
• power clothing
• fax machines everywhere

See descriptions of these in an article from The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11699199/From-hoverboards-to-self-tying-shoes-6-predictions-that-Back-to-the-Future-II-got-right.html

But the innovation my students found most interesting was the hoverboard - a 21st century flying version of the skateboard.

My students discussed the feasability of such an innovation, and then we looked at various sources to see if such a device will be possible - and how soon.

It seems that Lexus has created a hoverboard  that uses magnetic levitation with liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors and permanent magnets to give the hoverboard "frictionless movement."

The Lexus hoverboard

See an article at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11695267/Lexus-has-created-a-real-rideable-hoverboard.html




Then there is the Hendover Hoverboard, funded on Kickstarter, which has a disc-shaped hover engine. "These engines induce an opposing magnetic field in the surface substrate below that provides lift, levitating the board off the ground."

The Hendo hoverboard

Link: http://hendohover.com/

Then there is the "One-Wheeled Gyro Skate" which doesn't fly, but "uses gyroscopes like a Segway to help you balance with your feet on either side of one giant rollerblade-style wheel in the center."

The One-Wheeled Gyro Skate

Link: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/01/hoverboard-technologies/





For further news on "how close we are to riding real hoverboards," also see the following article from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2015/10/21/hoverboards-back-to-future/74318804/

My students discussed the pros and cons of each of these designs, and indicated which one they would most like to try out. Even more interesting, they gave their input on how they would design a hoverboard or change any of the designs we discussed.

There are many articles now on the internet about the innovations of this film, and how close the predictions made in the film are to the present day October 21, 2015.

Past predictions of the future

Page from the original Popular Science article

Making predictions about the future - what cities will look like, what technology will be available, how life will be different from now - seems to be a popular pastime among techies. I have often used articles with my students in which innovators predict which gadgets will be invented or which current innovations will change our lives.

For example, in my post of September 8, 2013 - The City of 2050 - I wrote about a BBC article that speculates what life might be like by that year.

I recently found an article from the fastcoexist website that referred to a 1925 article from Popular Science magazine in which then-president of the Architectural League of New York, Harvey W. Corbett, made some predictions about what future cities will be like, and even included some drawings of his ideas.

Link to article:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049647/what-the-city-of-the-future-looked-like-in-1925

Link to original article in Popular Science archives:
http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=YScDAAAAMBAJ&pg=40

The fastcoexist article is impressed that so many of Corbett's predictions of which changes will have to be made relate so well to life in cities today. For example:

• cities would become increasingly crowded;
• something would have to be done to make transportation more efficient;
• new ways of transporting parcels and goods would become necessary;
• roads would have to be redesigned to handle increased traffic;
• city centers would have to become more people-friendly.

Students could read his ideas for dealing with the above changes, and view his drawings of what his ideas look like, and compare their effectiveness to solutions that have been developed. Or to discuss their viability in cases where solutions have not yet been developed.

As a follow-up activity, students could read about other predictions from the past, and see which ones were accurate - and which ones seem rather funny now.

Some websites for this:

http://www.tested.com/tech/concepts/460223-futurists-were-right-10-predictions-made-sci-fi-writers-came-true/
This article focuses on predictions made by science fiction writers in the past.

http://www.businessinsider.com/predictions-from-the-past-that-came-true-2013-9?op=1&IR=T
This is a wider range of predictions, not only from science fiction writers, but also some as old as 1600 from different sources.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16444966
This BBC article focuses on predictions made by the American engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900 in an article he wrote for Ladie's Home Journal, What May Happen in the Next 100 Years.

Another interesting activity is for students to read predictions for the future being made today. For example these 5 predictions from Mark Zuckerberg:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-mind-blowing-predictions-about-the-future-from-mark-zuckerberg-2015-07-01 

Students can discuss whether they agree with these predictions, or believe something else will happen. This in turn could be used as a basis for persuasive speeches.

Popular Science Invention Awards

It seemed a bit early, but in May of this year Popular Science magazine published its top 10 choices for the 2015 Invention Awards - a "celebration of independent inventors."

The winners are:

• A plane that folds into a car
• Needle-free vaccination
• A Braille printer born from LEGO
• Personal pollution monitor
• Hands-on virtual reality
• A self-balancing vehicle
• An artificial reef for any seafloor
• Medical lab in a music box
• A printer for circuit boards
• A frying pan that teaches you to cook

Each invention has a link to a page with a short article about the inventor(s), what the invention does and how it works.

Link to the awards: http://www.popsci.com/2015-invention-awards

The information for 4 of the inventions includes a bullet-point list of "How it Works," with a diagram of the invention. The 4 inventions are the plane that folds into a car, the self-balancing vehicle, the artificial reef for any seafloor, and the medical lab in a music box.

I thought the frying pan that teaches you to cook sounded pretty interesting, but my mechanical engineering students chose to read about the plane-car. The invention, which is called AeroMobil Car, was invented by Štefan Klein and Juraj Vaculik of the AeroMobil Company.

The AeroMobil Car from the company's website

The information under "How it Works" is a very useful example of a short, clear technical description. From the website:

1. The adjustable wing can optimize its angle of attack for taking off or cruising. This allows for reduced speed and distance during takeoff.
2. Light materials, including a carbon-composite body over a steel airframe and six-pound carbon wheels, keep weight low.
3. The prototype's 100-horsepower four-cylinder Rotax 912 engine runs on conventional gasoline, so drivers can fuel up at existing gas stations. (Production models may have a different engine.) 
4. A robust suspension will enhance on-road performance and enable takeoff and landing on relatively rough terrain.
5. Avionics from Garmin will include a two-axis autopilot to control pitch and roll. In case of emergency, the vehicle will have a ballistic parachute safety system.

There's more information about the AeroMobil Car on the company's website:
http://www.aeromobil.com/

Students could get more information from the website to report to the class. On the website there is also a video (3:52) showing how the car opens to a plane and then flies. There's no narration, just background music. It's actually quite lovely to watch.

Economics news & vocabulary

A Wordle I created from the text

As part of my university's business English curriculum, there is content related to economics and current economics news.

For a recent lesson with my robotics engineering students, I used a text from the opinion section of The New York Times, titled "China's Troubling Robot Revolution."

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/opinion/chinas-troubling-robot-revolution.html?_r=0

The text was not only useful for a discussion of the impact that robotic manufacturing is having on China's economy (in comparison to other countries), but also for the valuable vocabulary it had for business, describing statistics and numbers, and for presentations.

Here are the examples my students identified:

Vocabulary for describing statistics/numbers:

• accounted for about a quarter of ...
• a 54 percent increase over ...
• it will have more ... than ... by (date)
• replace 6,000 workers with ... by (time)
• about a fifth of the work force
• automate about 70 percent of ... within (time)
• at an even faster pace than ...
• has made up nearly half of ...
• represents only about a third of ...
• roughly have the level in (country)
• have too little income relative to the size of ...
• as much as 40 percent of ...
• Between 1995 and 2002 about 16 million factory jobs disappeared.
• roughly 15 percent of total ...
• only about half of ...
• while more than 20 percent of ...
• According to one analysis, fully 43 percent of ...

Business vocabulary (as chosen by students):

• low-wage workers
• work force
• automation
• a leading manufacturer
• domestic consumption
• economic growth
• fixed investment
• gross domestic product
• domestic consumer spending
• return on investments
• generating returns
• service sector
• wage increases
• capitalistic economy
• social safety net
• rebalance economic growth
• saving rate
• service economy
• generating jobs
• blue-collar workers
• white-collar jobs
• software automation
• artificial intelligence
• unemployment insurance

Useful vocabulary for presentations (my choices):

• But the reality is ... / The reality, however, is that ...
• X will have significant consequences for ...
• That may make it significantly more difficult to/for ...
• One problem is ... / Another problem is ...
• By some estimates ...
• The bottom line is ...
• The solution, then, would be to ...
• According to one analysis, ...
• However, it seems likely that ...

Those who have read my blog posts know that I particularly like calling students' attention to useful collocations. In the lists above, there are certainly collocations often used in writing and discussing business topics.

Since the article was from the opinion section of the newspaper, I had students identify those parts of the text that expressed opinion, and contrast those with information that was clearly factual. This, in turn, generated discussion about which aspects of the article students agreed and disagreed with, as well as ideas for further impact of increased robotic manufacturing on the global economy.

Solar-powered plane flight

The Solar Impulse 2

An interesting item of news related clean technologies and renewable resources (see my last few posts) is that of the plane Solar Impulse 2, which is powered by the sun.

Two Swiss pilots, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, are currently underway on a flight around the world using no fuel whatsoever. They started in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and plan to end the flight there before the end of 2016.

In June, they completed a record-breaking flight from Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii, USA in 4 days, 21 hours, and 52 minutes. The plane must now remain in Hawaii over the winter in order to repair the batteries, but the pilots hope to finish by summer 2016.

The Solar Impulse website: http://www.solarimpulse.com/

On the website, the progress of the flight is continually updated, and there are both news items and videos relating to various aspects of the flight and the plane itself. Students can not only find out the technological details of the plane, but can also keep track of the project's progress.

There are videos of each pilot relating information about the project. Both videos are less than 3 minutes and are narrated in English (with French accents).

Of particular interest to engineering students is the technical information about how the plane functions.

Diagram from solarimpulse.com

This information is useful for both presentations and written technical descriptions.

Since there are many news articles about the Solar Impulse Project, small groups of students could be assigned different articles to read, and then in class compare and consolidate the technical details, as well as chronological information about the flight path. This can be added to throughout the semester - until the end of the flight next year.

Some useful articles for this purpose:

Solar Impulse's Troubled Round-the-world Flight (from The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/27/solar-impulse-round-the-world-flight-raise-20-million-euros 

Meet the Men Flying a Solar-Powered Plane Around the World (from Time website):
http://time.com/4004573/solar-impulse-plane-no-fuel/?xid=newsletter-brief 

Everything You Need to Know About Solar Impulse (also from Time, before the flight started):
http://time.com/3903110/solar-impulse-plane 

Solar-Powered Plane Begins Its Journey Around the World (from Wired website)
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/solar-powered-plane-completes-first-leg-round-world-flight/

Solar roads

Artist's rendition of Solar Roadway from the website

In my last post (Electric highways) I focused on an article about a project in the U.K. to create roads that would charge electric vehicles. In the article, there is a reference to an idea that would include a "Solar Roadway."

From the article: "The system would use electric cables installed under roads to generate electromagnetic fields and sent power to a gadget under a car. While it could potentially run on renewable energy (and maybe even be combined with something like a Solar Roadway), the government is still working out the details."

Since I like my students to follow up references to related information in articles, I looked at the link to an article on the website fastcoexist titled, "These solar roads could power the entire country."

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3029874/fund-this/these-solar-roads-could-power-the-entire-country 

This innovation would also power roads so that electric vehicles could be charged while driving on them, but would use solar energy gathered on "custom, glass-covered solar panels that are strong enough to drive on while generating enough power to light the road, melt ice and snow, and send extra energy to cities." 

The article is short (537 words), but has useful language material as well as interesting information about a innovative topic.

The article gives short, clear technical descriptions of how parts of the innovation work, and includes ways of explaining these things to a non-technical audience. I always have my students notice this feature so that they can include these ideas in their own presentations and writing.

Some examples that focus on audience:

• There are nearly 18,000 square miles of roads in the U.S., an area that's bigger than the entire states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts combined.
• Glass, it turns out, is stronger than you might think. "You first mention glass, people think of your kitchen window," Brusaw says. "But think of bulletproof glass or bomb resistant glass..."
• The textured surface means it isn't slippery.
• It also powers small LED lights inside that can light up dividing lines and spell out warning messages - if motion sensors detect a deer crossing the road, the lights can automatically tell drivers to slow down.
• Since the whole road is wired, it's also easy to maintain: If one panel stops working, all of the other panels around it call a local repair shop with the exact location. "A guy can come out and repair it in five minutes," Brusaw says. "Compare that to pothole repair."

Since it highlights the advantages of this type of road, there are many features of contrast and comparison:

• bigger than
• as many as
• tough enough to (twice)
• is stronger than
• safer than
• strong enough to
• more power than

And there are many uses of adverbs - including collocations with both adjectives and verbs. For example:

• nearly 18,000 square miles
• eventually (twice)
• basically
• easily withstand
• fully loaded truck
• supposedly safer than
• automatically tells drivers
• charge the cars directly
• continuously report their location
• an insanely big challenge

When I combine a focus on language features with an article on a topic that my students find interesting, they are more motivated to do the language work.

There's more information about this project on the Solar Roadways project website:
http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml

Electric highways

Visual from Highways England (in article)

Sustainability is a concern of most of my engineering students, and in each engineering field there are different innovations being developed. Since I teach groups whose specific focus is on sustainable transportation, I am particularly interested in new developments in this area.

A recent article on the fastcoexist website presents information about electric highways being developed in the United Kingdom that would charge the electric cars that drive on them.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049836/the-uk-is-testing-electric-highways-that-would-charge-your-ev-as-you-drive

The beginning of the article refers to the "charging problem that has been slowing electric car adoption for years" as a chicken-and-egg problem in this way:

"Some consumers don't want to buy an electric car without a full infrastructure for charging in place. But the business case for building that infrastructure is weak without more EV drivers on roads."

It would be interesting for students to brainstorm other types of "chicken-and-egg problems" in their area of technology and engineering. These problems often underlie the failure of a particular innovation to be fully developed or to be fully accepted by society.

The article has a sentence that explains how this technology would work, which would be useful for showing students how to explain something briefly:

"The system would use electric cables installed under roads to generate electromagnetic fields and send power to a gadget under a car."

The article is fairly short (463 words), and yet almost every sentence uses phrases indicating change (increase, expansion, etc.). Examples are:

• Brits are getting into electric cars more and more.
• Sales jumped up 366% in the first quarter of 2015.
• But the business case for building that infrastructure is weak without more EV drivers on roads.
•  The U.K. plans to add plug-in chargers ...
• But now they're testing out something new to make driving an EV even easier.
• If the tests go well, the new highways would add to the existing network of plug-in chargers, and make it even simpler to fuel up a Tesla ...
• "This has the benefit of saving time and improving the distance that electric vehicles can travel"
• ... could help to create a comprehensive ecosystem for electric vehicles.
• In a feasibility study, the government found that people would be more likely to drive ...
• ... especially if the charging networks spread off highways onto regular roads.
• "An important part of managing the road network over the next thirty years will be preparing the infrastructure for a shift to new types of vehicles and technology."
• "We need to plan intelligently for the future. Innovative technologies offer important opportunities to make the best use of road capacity and to improve the road user experience."
• "We're at a very early stage of researching and developing a system that could potentially transfer power to vehicles."
• After 18 months of testing, they'll decide whether to scale it up.

Students could identify this language, and then categorize them according to the type of language used (eg., comparatives, tenses, specific phrases, etc.). Then they could add to this by discussing other ways that this technology will cause changes.

The article mentions that this type of roadway "might even be combined with something like a Solar Roadway," and provides a link to an article on the same website about the Solar Roadway innovation. I will be writing about that topic, and comparing it to this one, in my next post.

More toys to promote S.T.E.M.

In my blog post of 9 October 2014 I wrote about GoldieBlox - a construction toy specifically designed for girls to promote their interest in S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, mathematics).

The toy has been extremely successful, and there is increasing interest in promoting girls' involvement with technology, especially at younger ages. In fact, there is increasing interest in promoting involvement with S.T.E.M. for all children.

There are two recent articles that look at this development:

The toys that could help close Silicon Valley's gender gap (from CNBC website) and How to teach computer science in nursery school; No assembler required (from The Economist online).

The first article focuses on the Dash & Dot robot developed by Wonder Workshop.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/04/the-toys-that-could-help-close-silicon-valleys-gender-gap.html

Wonder Workshop Dash & Dot robot pack

The CEO of Wonder Workshop, Vikas Gupta, was inspired to develop toy robots that teach children how to code in order to introduce his 4-year-old daughter to technology.

The article states, "As early as second grade, girls begin to form stereotypes associating boys with math, according to a 2015 study conducted by the University of Washington. By the time they enter college, men are already more than four times more likely to have an intention to major in computer science and engineering than women, the study found."

The article has links to this study and to another article relating to this company. In addition, it mentions KinderLab Robotics, which has introduced a toy to help very young children learn to code.

The second article focuses specifically on KinderLab Robotics' toy, KIBO.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21660077-how-teach-computer-science-nursery-school-no-assembler-required

KIBO robot kit from KinderLab Robotics

The article explains, "KIBO is designed for those aged four to seven. Instead of arranging, as an older programmer might, a set of constants, variables, operations and expressions, all written in something resembling English, into a logical sequence, a KIBO programme arranges wooden blocks that carry stickers bearing symbols. These symbols tell a plastic robot what to do next."

Since my students - especially the females - did not have such toys or programs to develop their interest in engineering, they could discuss what made them interested in their field and at what age. They could brainstorm ways to develop this interest in young children.

What could be particularly challenging is having students read the descriptions of how each toy works, and what it is designed to do. This not only gives examples of process descriptions, but could also inspire students to think of toys they would design for children to hone S.T.E.M. skills.

For more material related to this topic, see my posts Girls who code (24 August 2014) and Inspiring tomorrow's engineers (18 May 2014).

Problematic issues of driverless cars

Most of my engineering students love reading and talking about cars, so the technology of autonomous vehicles is very interesting for them. In my recent posts I've focused on this topic, and plan to use material related to this in my upcoming winter semester.

An article from the BBC News website questions why these vehicles will "take much longer to reach mass adoption than tech utopians like Google would have us believe" (What's putting the brakes on driverless cars?).

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33676388

Since my students are also "tech utopians," they tend to understand and agree with Google's arguments for why autonomous vehicles are a good thing, which are mostly based on statistics showing that autonomous cars are safer than those with drivers. (See the blog post about this written by Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car program at https://medium.com/backchannel/the-view-from-the-front-seat-of-the-google-self-driving-car-46fc9f3e6088.)


However, for students to understand opposing issues (or how non-techies think), it would be useful for them to consider problematic issues. They could first brainstorm these, possibly taking into account objections they've already heard or read about.

They could then compare their ideas with those presented in the BBC article.

The article identifies 6 "main challenges":

1. Ethical dilemmas - There are doubts over whether the technology will ever become sophisticated enough to handle difficult ethical decisions.
2. Who's to blame - If there is a crash or a fatality, who will be liable? The car owner, the car manufacturer, the maker of the specific piece of equipment that failed, the software company?
3. The technology isn't good enough yet - There are a number of conditions in which the safety equipment of these cars is not yet sufficient.
4. Standards, standards - Since driverless cars may need to communicate with each other, will the industry be able to agree on a technological standard for these systems?
5. Security risks - Connectivity presents security risks related to hacking.
6. Do we even want them - Many people love driving, and being in control is related to that.

In addition to the article, there are reader comments - 345 of them!Students could scan the comments to see which issues most people focus on, both pro and con.

This material could be used to prepare for persuasive speaking or writing tasks in which students try to focus on convincing skeptics to accept a future of driverless cars. Which persuasive appeals would they use for which concerns? People who love to drive cars, for example, would probably not be convinced by technology statistics.

This would help students to consider a variety of audiences, and how their persuasive techniques would have to be suited to each type of audience.

Impact of autonomous commercial vehicles

Image of video from University of Kaiserslautern

In my last post, I discussed an article on the Factor website that predicated a number of businesses that would be developed due to driverless cars. These businesses would, of course, have an impact on the economy and on society.

Another article from that website looks specifically at the impact of autonomous commercial vehicles - the article says that they will "disrupt our jobs, public services and lives ... and there's nothing we can do to stop them."

That sounds rather ominous, although the article does not predict a doomsday scenario. The article further states that these commercial vehicles "have the potential to disrupt our daily lives and we should start to plan for their impact."

Link to article:

http://factor-tech.com/feature/autonomous-commercial-vehicles-will-shape-our-jobs-and-lives 

The article also has a link to a video (1:13) from the University of Kaiserslautern, which has a team working on autonomous commercial vehicles.

Students could first brainstorm the ways in which autonomous commercial vehicles will "disrupt our jobs, public services and lives," and then could consider how we "should start to plan for their impact."

In particular, students could think of the different industries where these kinds of vehicles are likely to have the most impact.

The article refers to these industries:

• garbage trucks
• construction diggers
• delivery trucks
• work by public authorities
• work on construction sites
• taxi services (such as Uber)
• robot builders
• mining industry
• agriculture vehicles
• modern tractors
• mobile bucket excavators
• landscaping tasks
• all types of trucks

After brainstorming, students can see how many of these they thought of, and which other ideas they had that are not mentioned in the article.

Since a number of predictions are made about which industries will be impacted, and what the vehicles will be doing, there are many useful collocations of what machines do. For example:

• a garbage truck drives down the road and picks up trash
• a digger creates a trench
• a truck pulls into its stop to make a delivery
• a robot builder lays up to 1,000 bricks
• an 18-ton excavator performs landscaping tasks
• an excavator loads a truck

The article is about various possible future impacts, so there are many examples of hedging, uncertainty, and conditionals. Students could focus on these to see how they are used when the writer/speaker is only suggesting a possibility, rather than stating a certainty.

Some examples:

• Self-driving cars could be on our roads within 10 years
• ..., but in most cases they're a long way from being used
• Such a machine may not be fully autonomous
• ..., but you could reduce the people who work with such machines
• ... and if something goes really wrong
• ... robot arms which perhaps catch the garbage
• ... if Elon Musk's Tesla can produce 500,000 self-driving cars by 2020
• ... it's highly likely that commercial vehicles will become ...
• ..., although Berns warns that "it's not so easy to transfer."
• ... there are many small, incremental steps that need to be overcome before ...

In discussing the various future possibilities of  autonomous commercial vehicles, the article presents a number of advantages and disadvantages (which students can also brainstorm). Some of the possibilities presented could be either an advantage or a disadvantage - it would be interesting to see how students would classify them.

For example, these vehicles would:

• reduce the number of people who work
• allow machines to control themselves
• increase efficiency
• be more capable
• reduce accidents
• react inconsistently in different environments

A final language point of the article is the number of useful linking/transition words, including:

• while
• but
• yet
• if
• because
• like
• although
• as well as
• then
• whether
• meanwhile
• despite
• in large part
• similar to
• for example
• as
• particularly
• even
• in part
• to this end
• in other words
• so far
• unlike
• so
• even if
• for instance

Within the article there is a reference to a BBC news article (Autonomous trucks: Daimler seeks licence for road tests), which is short (298 words) and very simply written.

The BBC article:  http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33675934

All in all, not only is this article useful for brainstorming and discussion, but there are many useful language points to make students aware of. In addition, it can be used in tandem with the article about autonomous cars to generate ideas and discussion about future impacts of these vehicles on society, economy, business and technology.

Predicting businesses that use driverless cars

In my post of July 18 - Factor magazine website - I wrote about a website that has many useful articles relating to different topics of engineering. The articles are long enough for useful language work, but not so long that they're difficult for students. They are written in a range of registers, which can be useful for raising students' awareness of the range of formality in English.

In that post I mentioned that I would be using articles from that website and sharing my ideas with readers of this blog. An article I chose recently is on the topic of driverless cars - a topic that my engineering students are interested in, regardless of their specific engineering field.

The article is: Drive in style: The self-driving car-based businesses of the future. The article predicts 5 businesses that could emerge due to an increase in use of driverless cars.

Link: http://factor-tech.com/transport/19156-drive-in-style-the-self-driving-car-based-businesses-of-the-future/

Students could first be given the introduction to the article, which gives support for the idea that such businesses are likely to develop. Then, in groups, they could brainstorm ideas of which businesses they predict.

Alternatively, the students could be shown the 5 visuals accompanying each idea in the article and try to think of the type of business it is illustrating.

The five businesses predicted are:

1. Personalized driverless city tours
2. Self-driving cannabis dispensary
3. Driverless commuter gym
4. Autonomous on-the-go office
5. Travelling movie theater

If students hadn't thought of any of these ideas, they could discuss their opinion of them. Do these seem likely? How successful do students think they would be? What impact do students think these businesses will have on the economy, on society, on our future lifestyle? Do these ideas promote further ideas of the students?

In addition to using the article as a topic for discussion, there are many interesting language features in this article for students to be aware of.

There are many idioms and expressions used in the article that are common in English:

• (to) scratch the surface of
• the possibilities are endless
• (businesses) are going to spring up
• tailored to specific needs
• too good to miss
• (businesses could) crop up
• (to) hit the road
• traipsing after
• (to) leave a lot to be desired
• cropping up
• (to) head to work
• (to be) behind the wheel
• (if the idea) took off
• (to) fuel a rise in
• (to be) rolled out

There are also a number of more informal words, in addition to the informal expressions among the choices above. These can be contrasted with some of the standard-to-formal vocabulary in the article:

• a stoner
• comfy
• a 'woah, dude' location
• to spark up
• lugging (something around)

While discussing the topic, students can be made aware of the useful topic-related and business-related vocabulary (which they can use in their discussion):

• to disrupt a business
• new businesses are going to spring up to take advantage of
• tailored to specific needs
• businesses that could crop up
• driverless cars
• autonomous vehicles
• driverless vehicles
• a heads-up display style interface
• augmented reality
• a vending machine
• the cost of owning ... is likely to be too high for the majority
• companies partnering with
• a major part of their jobs
• the autonomous office
• a networked office
• owned by companies for their own workforce's use
• the staple working environment
• location managers
• salespeople
• regional managers
• a relative decline
• the advent of
• to try and counter (something)

Finally, there are useful preposition collocations (including many listed above):

• set to disrupt
• to take advantage of
• tailored to
• select from
• interested in
• complete with
• description of
• attractions around
• built into
• information about
• information on
• the emergence of
• an array of
• cost of owning
• partnering with
• equipped with
• to be owned by
• available in (sizes, colors)
• to take off (phrasal verb)
• to fuel a rise in
• to be rolled out

I plan to use a number of articles on various aspects of autonomous cars (ethics issues, problems getting the general public to accept them, business and insurance issues, etc.). Therefore, by focusing on specific topic-related vocabulary, I will help my students reuse what they learn. This will, in turn, make it easier for them to eventually use this information in a written assignment or presentation.

Descriptions of Pluto's features

The NASA photo accompanying the article

In my last post I wrote about New Horizons website, with news and material related to the Pluto flyby this summer. Now I want to focus on a specific article from the website as an example of how these texts can be used for the type of descriptive language that engineering students would find useful.

I've chosen the article, New Horizons Finds Second Mountain Range in Pluto's 'Heart'.

Link:  http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150721-2

This article provides information about the mountain range and compares it to the larger mountain range that has been named The Norgay Montes. Here is an excerpt from the article that compares the size of the two ranges:

"These newly-discovered frozen peaks are estimated to be one-half mile to one mile (1-1.5 kilometers) high, about the same height as the United States' Appalachian Mountains. The Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) discovered by New Horizons on July 15 more closely approximate the height of the taller Rocky Mountains."

There are many comparisons made in the article to describe the mountains' features, even though it is not very long (308 words). Students can notice how this is done in order to use this language in their own writing and presentations. Here are some examples:

Descriptions with adjectives, adverbs, comparatives, etc.:

• a new, apparently less lofty mountain range
• the bright, heart-shaped region
• newly-discovered frozen peaks
• (they) more closely approximate the height of
• the remarkably well-defined topography
• a pronounced difference in texture
• the younger, frozen plains
• the dark heavily-cratered terrain
• a complex interaction going on between the bright and the dark materials
• relatively young
• perhaps less than 100 million years old
• the bright sediment-like material
• as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across

Descriptions of location, size:

• the lower-left edge of 
• (are) one-half mile to one mile (1-1.5 kilometers) high
• about the same height as
• (they) approximate the height of the taller Rocky Mountains
• just west of the region within Pluto's heart
• (they) lie some 68 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of
• along the western edge of
• to the east / to the west
• probably dates back billions of years
• the bright circular feature to the lower left of center
• from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers)

In addition to this wealth of useful vocabulary, there are some grammar points that could also be useful. For example, even though most of the text is in the simple present tense, there are some uses of the simple past, present perfect and present progressive that nicely illustrate how these tenses are used. There are also examples of both active and passive voice, and direct and indirect speech. For example:

Contrast simple past tense with present perfect tense:

• NASA's New Horizons mission has discovered a new ...
• The Norgay Montes discovered by New Horizons on July 15 ...

Contrast simple present tense with present progressive tense:

• This newest image further illustrates the remarkably well-defined topography ...
• ... a complex interaction ... that we're still trying to understand.

Contrast active voice with passive voice:

• NASA's New Horizons mission has discovered a new ...
• The Norgay Montes discovered by New Horizons ...
• While Sputnik Planum is believed to be relatively young ...

Contrast direct speech with indirect speech:

• "There is a pronounced difference between ...," said Jeff Moore.
• Moore notes that the bright, ...

Since this language work is part of an extremely interesting article about a topic my students want to know more about, it seems an ideal way to combine topic and language study.

Check out the New Horizons website for more material that can be used this way.

The link: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

New Horizons achieves its goal

"Heart of Pluto" picture from New Horizons website

In my posts of January 25, 2015 (New Horizons soon to reach Pluto) and February 2, 2015 (The technology of New Horizons) I wrote about the NASA flyby mission to Pluto that was launched on January 16, 2006. The flyby was closest on July 15, 2015.

The New Horizons website now has continually updated information on what the scientific team has found so far, and are still finding. And - of course - there are great photos of Pluto and its moons, never before seen!

New Horizons website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

There are so many interesting sections on the website that it would be impractical to mention them all here, but as I use the material with my students in the autumn semester, I will be sharing my ideas on this blog.

One section I will focus on, however, is the Pluto in a Minute video series.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u7fD8rLzj22GAMKStDhK6nGvJ2GhEVy

Despite the name, most videos are a bit longer than a minute, but only one is longer than 2 minutes (at 2:27). The narrator is Amy Shira Teitel, a member of the New Horizons team, who unfortunately speaks rather quickly. But the 21 topics focused on cover a wide range of information (in short bits) about Pluto and the New Horizons technology, so there are sure to be clips of interest to engineering students.

Some examples of the topics:

• What is New Horizons going to do after Pluto?
• How LORRI takes such phenomenal pictures
• Dr. Brian May shows us how to really see Pluto
• How did New Horizons phone home?
• Meet New Horizons' science payload

The last one on the list is related to my February 2nd blog post, which focuses on the 7 instruments on the New Horizons spacecraft. Some interesting information mentioned in the short (1:33) video clip:

• The payload is extremely lightweight. All 7 instruments combined weigh less than the camera on the Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn.
• Very little power is used for the instruments. All 7 instruments functioning at the same time draw only 28 watts/second, which is half the power needed to illuminate a light bulb.

I'm looking forward to finding out next semester which topics my students want to learn more about, and which information they will find most intriguing. I hope they will be motivated to look through the New Horizons website and find a topic they would like to research further.

In my post next week I'll focus on a specific article from the website for language work related to describing Pluto's features.

Factor magazine website

From FactorTech website

I recently came across an online magazine that looks like an excellent source of texts for my engineering students. The magazine is Factor and describes itself in this way:

“Factor is a website and digital magazine covering the latest developments in technology, science and beyond, with a focus on the future. We’re particularly interested in how innovations are set to change the way we live, and what our lives are likely to be like in the future.”

What would be particularly useful for students - to encourage them to read articles on the website themselves - is that it is "a free, monthly digital title, available to read on iPad and online with a modern desktop browser. Each issue we take a different theme and look at the technologies and likely future developments surrounding it – from everyday life and work to sports and travel, from robotics to healthcare, and from future cities to space and beyond."

The Factor website: http://factor-tech.com/

The sections presented across the top of the home page are:

• Space
• Future cities
• Robots
• Connected world
• Wearables
• Food supply
• Green energy
• Health

But there are also further sections revealed by clicking the "all" button. These include: 

• Gaming
• Movies
• Sport
• Transport
• Drones
• Virtual reality
• 3D printing
• 3D modelling
• Comment

The Comment section has opinion articles about certain subjects (rather than reader comments), and this material could be very useful for students who are using persuasive speaking or debate in the classroom.

The articles in general seem to be fairly short and written in a simple way, without being very technical. But they are certainly a good introduction to specific topics and can inspire students to look for further information.

I will keeping checking this site for material that I can use with my engineering students. As I find and use specific articles, I will post ideas to share with my readers. 

Transparent solar cell

Image from Michigan State University

Ubiquitous Energy is a technology company developing transparent photovoltaics. These devices would eliminate the limitations of the battery life of mobile devices, and would provide "smart" glass for buildings.

The "first truly transparent solar technology" is described on the company's website:

“Implemented as a fully transparent film that covers a device's display area, ClearView Power™ technology transmits light visible to the human eye, while selectively capturing and converting ultraviolet and near-infrared light into electricity to power the device and extend its battery life.”

Company website: http://ubiquitous.energy/

On the home page, viewers can choose "Learn more" or "Watch video." The video (4:03), from Bloomberg Business, focuses on the many uses of such solar technology. In particular, having transparent solar cells would mean that they could be used as windows in office buildings and skyscrapers in cities - where there is not enough space for conventional solar technology. There is also further explanation of how the technology works, and how the company innovated a truly transparent cell.

Choosing the "Learn more" option brings you to the Technology section, which explains the features of the device in more detail - which is probably of the most interest to engineering students. This was the information my students wanted to read, since they found the idea of a completely transparent solar cell to be extremely interesting.

In the News section of the website there are a variety of articles about the company's technology and applications for it. Articles are added often, so the choices are always up to date.

The sections of the website, with their subsections, are:

• About (Ubiquitous Energy, Team, News)
• Applications (Mobile, Internet of Things, Smart Glass)
• Technology
• Careers
• Contact

There seems to be a lot of material here for lessons, and I intend to keep checking this website for ideas I can use next semester (plan ahead for September!).

There are also some interesting articles about this new technology. For example:

From Factor magazine -
http://factor-tech.com/green-energy/7287-transparent-solar-collector-to-turn-skyscrapers-into-power-plants/

From ExtremeTech -
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188667-a-fully-transparent-solar-cell-that-could-make-every-window-and-screen-a-power-source