All the colors!

Beta testing is just about complete on my "Who did it in the Woods?" Twine project, and to add a final touch to it, to demonstrate ways to control what colors show up per link (passage), background and text, I'm working on some CSS code snippets that you'd add to your "Edit Story Stylesheet" editor (with your Twine project open, click on the bottom left down arrow, then click on the 2nd link from the top). Hopefully in my next post, I'll have scripting snippets complete and at that point, I will release my Twine project live!

So ... onwards to thinking about 2018 Saturday Enrichment Program lesson planning, I'm checking out re-teaching MIT AppInventor using Google Drive and Google Fusion to show kids how to use map APIs (application program interface) and free cloud databases to build "locator" type apps. For example, in the past, I've built a "Farm2Table" app that lists local Charlottesville restaurants that feature locally grown food that gives directions to them using an API call to Google Maps. I've had a lot of fun teaching AppInventor with the Saturday series to 2nd and 3rd graders and over the Summer to 7th and 8th graders a couple of year ago. This coming year, I'll add a tablet as well as my phone as "real life" testing devices. And with the help of the "Time Well Spent" initiative (check out Tristan Harris' recent 60 minutes interview), as always, teaching will be with a serious eye to, well ... "time well spent" approach to app development, meaning less junk food for the mind, more "how can I use this to make better use of everyone's attention?".