DISTANCE - we've come a long way...

Colleagues at Explorer HQ and I are now off and running with a project called DISTANCE.
This stands for Developing an Internet of School Things: a National Collaborative Experience.
The project has some funding from TSB (that's the Technology Strategy Board, not the bank....)

We've got a project website which is just a holding page at the moment, but will develop more as we start to move into the main phase of working with schools.
So at the moment, we're doing a lot of thinking, and this stuff...

Yep, writing...

We're working on some resources that will be available to schools in some format during 2014.

Last week, I had a good chat with Catherine Muller from Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory. They are doing some cool things related to climate within the city, using various sensors and other technology.

Helen Steer from Explorer HQ and I are wrangling up some lesson ideas and curriculum materials. We're also working with colleagues from the Open University, Sciencescope, INTEL and several other organisations.

Here's Arosha, from the Open University, one of the people we're working with introducing a major aspect of this work: the 'Internet of Things'. The video is taken from an OU course called 'My Digital Life'.


Computers are getting smaller and are able to communicate with each other wirelessly. This means that we can begin to collect data from them, and make connections.

We can monitor journeys that are made by students, and also collect data from simple everyday actions which can provide powerful insights into our lives.
Arduino is one of the technologies that is used here, and although I don't pretend how it works in detail, the possibilities are exciting.

Follow the project as it develops on
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Check out a Telegraph article which features the project... and this CNN article has some useful additional detail on the Internet of Things.


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