DIY: Inexpensive Wiimote-based Smart boards

My son's school has been lucky enough to be able to afford Smartboards for each of its classrooms so that teachers can use them in a number of amazing ways. Students can interact with web pages, flash games, and software using "electronic chalk". Material, both digital and physical, is easily presented to the entire class. The boards open up a wide range of activities never before possible in the classroom, limited only by the imagination.

That said, smartboards can be exceedingly expensive. Second only to the capabilities of smart boards themselves is the inventiveness of hackers, DIY'ers and Makers who set out to use the relatively inexpensive Wiimote game controller to create an less expensive, home brew version of the Smartboard. Even better, building the system can be made part of the educational process for everyone involved .

This article from MAKE: Blog ( Make your own Wii smartboard) details how to create and use this inexpensive system in your own school or group. The video below offers a quick view of the amazing things you can accomplish with such a system.

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Cool Tool: Geni.com - Online Family Tree Maker

If you are not already into heavy-duty family genealogy with dedicated programs GEDCOM files and an account on Ancestry.com, you might find Geni a quick way to start documenting your family tree.

It is simple and easy-to-use and includes an easy way to bring other family members into the discussion via email. I know from my own research that documenting everyone in the family usually falls to one interested party, so a little collaboration would be helpful.

Geni is a bit limited, as you can't yet import or export the GEDCOM files mentioned above. These are a standard data format used by almost all serious genealogy folks. Still, it is fun to play with and could become yet another great online service to replace the traditional PC-based applications we are all used to using today.



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