Science Teaching v 2.0

Sprout is another useful web 2.0 tool. I have seen the logo around quite a bit on presentations but only decided to have a look at its possibilities after reading a technology web 2.0 and general nerdery in the classroom blog

This application will be invaluable in the business world and I guess this is where the people who are developing Sprout see their market. Very professional promotional material can be produced without the involvement of expensive advertising agencies. There are a number of good examples on the Sprout beta site.

Advertisers and educators have similar problems. How do we engage our audience and keep them informed? When we have created a teaching/selling moment then our educational/promotional material has to be focussed and stimulate further interest and questions.

Web 2.0 tools like sprout allow us to build media rich learning and assessment bytes for our students. They can relive the excitement of their classroom experience online at home when they may well be awake and ready to learn.

To try it out I put together some information for chemistry students before they investigated the structure and bonding involved in silicate minerals as they made a work of art in their chem lab.

It was an excuse really to test the the mashup capabilities.

• Played an old and tired looking Powerpoint and captured it as a videoclip with Jing. Loaded it onto sprout and used the resizing tool. (A cheap version of camtasia perhaps, made by the same outfit)
• video of classwork downloaded from You Tube
• Another powerpoint turned into a video clip via jing then loaded into Sprout (this seems to be an effective way of uploading jing tutorials to the blog but more later)

Finally if you are still there Sprout is an invaluable tool for producing e learning resources

I have already put a quiz together and thought I would try out other features of the tool.

I took a class of fifth form students along to the computer room without preparing them for the activities I had designed.

• I asked them to register with Mystudiyo giving minimal instructions. students seem to be very familiar with the process (name then email addres)
• Gave them the name of my quiz (reactions of metals) and asked them to do it. The whole process took about 20 mins and they were all happily engaged.
• I set up a quiz that allowed collaboration
• Asked students to design questions based on the topic they were studying (microrganisms but genetics if they wanted)
• There was limited time left so only indicated that it would be good if they googled pictures then embedded.
• The questions they came up with were quite interesting in that they went well beyond the scope covered in class
• I initially thought I would need to give more prescriptive instructions but then decided it was better to have a bank of questions that covered a wider range.

The class enjoyed both activities and I will routinely use Mystudiyo to build up banks of questions perhaps to use in a school quiz.
Making their own questions challenged them to think about work covered in class and was just as valuable as attempting the quizzes.

The quiz has some obvious limitations. In a number of instances students simply didn’t have enough time and cobbled something together to complete the exercise. (they won a Mars bar if they completed both exercises……never underestimate the power of a bribe)

Just been reading that great wee magazine, Interface (hard copy without the need to be connected) over a glass of wine or two. It is a mine of information for anyone interested in the latest technologies that could support learning in New Zealand schools.

Peter Kent a former secondary school Physics teacher and Primary school DP in ACT has written a stimulating article on interactive whiteboards “See it to believe it”. Interactive Boards have been around for a number of years and my impression is that primary teachers have been faster to recognise their value in the classroom than anyone else. I visited BETT at the Olympia London while on on holiday in January this year. To quote from its own publicity blurb it was ” the world’s largest educational technology event” An army of sales people were ready to pounce on anyone who loitered near a display. As a marketing event for IWB’s it was a success but paid scant regard to the more immediate needs of the vast majority of schools. (from an NZ perspective)

Peter answers a number of questions including:

What value do interactive whiteboards(IWB’s) have in today’s classrooms?

“…an IWB can improve the quality of teaching by giving access to the potential of ICT”

I would argue that the use of ICT only makes sense within a wider discussion on 21c pedagogy. Do we need a whiteboard at the front of a classroom interactive or not? Do we need to redesign the classroom environment from scratch after we decide what we want to achieve in it? We need to put ICT into a pedagogical context.

The term interactive whiteboard is misleading. The interactive nature of the boards is limited to the teacher directing a lesson. Some control can be given to students as they move objects around on the screen to complete a class cloze or diagram labeling exercise. We should correctly refer to IWB’s as “digital whiteboards”, a helpful tool that makes life easier for teachers. We shouldn’t become bogged down in debates about the relative value of new technology tools.

What do you see as the reality of IWB usage-in terms of the way they’re being used compared to optimum use?

“….if a teacher’s underlying pedagogy is good usually their use of an IWB will be inspired…..If the teacher use a primarily didactic method…….then their use will probably be dreadful…”

I couldn’t agree more but does good pedagogy necessarily involve the use of an IWB? The real pedagogical issue in most schools is connectivity. Students are highly connected outside of school yet the moment they come through the school gates they have to power down and get the A4 writing pad out. They treat this technology with the respect it deserves by screwing up their notes to practice basketball skills with my waste paper bin.

The advert on the back page of the latest Interface is a good example of it being “about the technology” and not “about the pedagogy” Learning and Teaching Scotland first blogged about the Asus EeePC last November. It entered the market as a dirt cheap web browser (about $450 then). Since then it has grown in spec and price. It is sometimes viewed as a curiosity. How does it compare with a fully spec’d laptop and can you do without all the usual bells and whistles?

All the wrong questions are being asked again. If we move from dirt cheap paper technology what would the corresponding web 2.0 equivalent be? Probably an Asus Eee PC 900. Which brings us Back to the Future.

18c classrooms had students with chalk slates doing exercises set on a chalk blackboard. Maybe the 21c equivalent is a class of students connected to the web with their Eee Pc’s as the teacher provides skilfully enhanced lessons via the portal opened up by an interactive whiteboard. Interesting times eh, need another glass of wine now.