Students share at MISO conference
Photo by Faith Owan
Seniors Tyler Lum and Deshawn Carillo set up a 3-D printer before the start of the Maui Independent Schools Organization (MISO) conference held at Kamehameha Maui on September 25, 2015. Students were invited to participate in the teacher training day by highlighting some of their work at the Innovation Lab.
Select Kamehameha Maui students presented their work and technology tools at the Maui Independent Schools Organization conference held at KS Maui, Friday, Sept. 25.
MISO is an organization that allows professionals from the independent schools on Maui to meet, collaborate, teach, and learn. The conference is held once every two years, and this year there were representatives from 15 schools in attendance.
The conference features professionals, usually Maui independent-school teachers, who conduct workshops in the field of education, but some of Kamehameha Maui’s students were also asked to help by presenting at the Innovation Lab, a center for showcasing students and their work.
Senior Sanoelani Lanias, was asked by her senior project adviser, Aunty Venus Rosete-Medeiros, to talk about the book she wrote and self-published for her Hōʻike Nui project. Behind Blue Eyes is about mental health disorders and her experience with them, which she also discussed at the conference.
Lanias said the book tells about her own journey of overcoming mental health disorders and discusses “ways that teachers can help their own students.”
She said that “Aunty Venus” wanted her to present because she thought the book would be inspirational. Lanias said it was unexpected because she hadn’t thought her book was “anything special.”
“I’m kind of excited because I really want to make a change,” she said. “Even if it’s on a small level, I want to do something to help the community and other people like me.”
Lanias was one of several students who presented their work at the conference.
Deshawn Carillo brought the 3-D printer he assembled for his own project to demonstrate its operation.
“It lays down filament, layer by layer, in order to create a 3-dimensional model,” he said.
Carillo said that he has spent about 24 hours on his project, setting up the printer and using it to produce figures.
“It took a long time to learn and explore the software that came with it,” he said.
So far, Carillo has printed two baby dragons, a monopoly house, a tetrahedron (a triangular pyramid), and a spinning top.
Senior Tyler Lum also presented at the counseling center during MISO. He was asked by Mrs. Phyllis Sone to help by demonstrating Google Cardboard.
“[Google Cardboard] is basically a virtual reality but used with your phone and a piece of cardboard,” he said.
Users hold the cardboard binoculars—which use plastic lenses—up to their eyes, and look at a photo on a smartphone. Thanks to a downloadable program, the photo shows a 3-dimensional, virtual world in which the viewer can see the image shift panoramically as they move the device up and down and left to right.
Lum learned to use the device in his IT Foundations class. In the class, students try to figure out how to use different pieces of technology by themselves.
“[We] play with it, and just basically have fun with it,” Lum said, “because IT Foundations is how technology can affect us today, and the next days.”
