I blame video games and society. We are only educated to be skilled workers and can do paper work. On the other hand, if you can sneak video game elements into your teaching, you can get more attention from your kids. A couple decades back when I was a kid, I'd be thrilled to play a round of a video game, any kind of game. Fast forward to 2011, kids have seen them all and don't get the thrill seeing anything anymore. Take a look at this thing:
It is a persistence of vision display. You can display anything on it like "Welcome" but I chose to display angular speed and acceleration for my lab. Most of my college students liked it. Kids love it. It's not very hard to build.