Science Teaching v 2.0

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.

I’m not usually a fan of multiple choice testing but fun quizzes that allow feedback, engage students and let them practice skills are useful. I came accross MyStudio on Edublogger.

There are a number of features I like about this tool

• Easily embed text, images, audio and video
• Ability to create ‘non-collaborative’ quizzes or “collaborative” quizzes (allows others to add further questions to your quiz)
• Quizzes are easy to embed into blog posts

There are a number of disadvantages that cause problems for science quizzes:

• You cannot format text in the answer boxes so chemical formulae cannot be used directly
• the 60 character limit constricts the types of answers that are possible.

I particularly like the ease with which video can be uploaded in a quiz. Clips of chemical reactions can help visual learners by reducing the dependence on text or static images. Using video clips produced by the students encourages engagement.

The process of producing a quiz illustrates neatly how the use web 2.0 technologies is changing traditional pedagogy. A number of simple media tools are involved to author material that would have required the assistance of a publisher a few years ago.

• Using a digital camera to take movie clips (preferably done by a student while the teacher is drinking coffee and supervising)
• Using widows movie maker to edit the files before uploading to You Tube You Tube
• using Jing for a screenshot from a powerpoint presentation
• embedding the video files in a MyStudio quiz

I am currently trialling the quiz with students on my school blog for homework and classroom use.

Hope to start using Asus Eee’s in the not to distant future as a cheap web browser to allow students to be “connected” at school as well as home. The whole web 2.0 thing grinds to a halt while students have to “power down” in the usual disconnected high school classroom (no I don’t want another pod of computers in a room I have to take my students to)

Jing is a screen capture program that hovers somewhere on your desktop. If you are using a projector in your classroom the kids will spot the Jing ball and want to know what it is!

I use it for two different types of ” 5 minute tutorials”.

• Mimio interactive whiteboards do not allow you to screencast at the moment. Using Jing to capture work on the Mimio with commentary through a microphone you can record key points of a lesson. This can be placed on a blog or server for student access at a later date. Warning the video was a trial using the cheapest microphone from Dick Smith and you can’t spell check handwriting….even if you can read it.

I was doing the usual reactions of acids (with metals, bases and carbonates). I used the video in each case to remind students of the steps involved in isolating a pure sample of the salt formed in the reactions.

• ACD chemsketch free software allows you to draw chemical structures and produce 3 dimensional models. A 5 minute tutorial is a quick way of showing students how to use it. Jing is a useful tool for creating 5 minute tutorials to train students or staff how to use software.

The original tutorial produced with Jing is fine but for some reason there is a slight soundtrack lag after uploading to youtube. If anyone knows how to fix this please leave a comment

The Consolarium is the Scottish Centre for Games and Learning in Dundee. It is an offshoot of Learning and Teaching Scotland. I first heard about these organisations from Ewen McIntosh who was the keynote speaker at the Ulearn 07 conference in Auckland NZ. Ewan speaks regularly on the impact of emerging technologies on organisations, on education, on young people and on society in general.

That one keynote was the catalyst for a complete rethink of my attitudes to teaching and learning in secondary science education. Since then every time I look at classroom practice through the lens of emerging technologies opportunities arise that challenge traditional assumptions.

Blogs provide communication opportunities with and between students and stimulate collaborative learning. One of the key posts on Ewan’s blog Thinking out of the (X) Box alerted me to the potential of gaming in education.

Which brings me to my good friend Derek Robertson who is currently in charge of the Consolarium and hence the professional development in the title of the blog. Derek is passionate about lots of things including his football team Dundee United ( blinded by unrealistic optimism ). His infectious enthusiasm for the potential of gaming in education has attracted a big following. I was fortunate to spend a morning at the Consolarium in January while on holiday from New Zealand and catch up with his latest ideas. I have watched him on a number of videos recently arguing the case for gaming in schools and politely rebutting traditional methods that placed the teacher firmly in the role of the expert who had all the knowledge. Education by transmission is severely limited if the receiver is switched off or the paper storage system has been screwed up and and on a collision course with the back of the teacher’s head.

The second guest on the show played to the fears parents have of kids transfixed to a computer screen for hours. He also seemed to be concerned about the authority of the teacher being undermined . In secondary science the distinction between a gaming environment and working physics simulation has become blurred. As Derek comments good teachers have always used appropriate resources to open doors to the curriculum locked to many. The traditional Victorian classroom many of us still teach in restricts us to a limited number of learning styles and exclude many, particularly boys.

Deconstructing games and teasing out the science underneath the skin is a good start for secondary teachers. The Nintendo Wii Sports game allows you to simulate motion in a realistic way. For instance playing a round of golf you can hit the ball hard enough to land on a particular spot. You still have to judge how far the ball will carry if it is on fairway or the rough. A cross wind will also affect the trajectory of the ball. Similarly you can lob a tennis ball and observe the effect of spin. These are games but Newton’s laws of physics lurk underneath the graphics.

Cars, bikes helicopters and people move around in games like Grand Theft Auto 4 with slick realism.

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Objects that move around in the real world follow Newton’s laws of motion. To develop software that mimics the real world you need to understand the physics of motion.

Rockstar North is the developer behind Grand Theft and they are based in Edinburgh Scotland. They are currently advertising for a physicist and people to test their games to check that they are realistic! The boundary between games and scientific simulation through a physics engine blurs.
I am currently trialling the use of “Phun” an addictive piece of software for designing and exploring 2D multi-physics simulations in a cartoony fashion. It is proving popular with boys in particular. It can be downloaded free.

Thanks again to Ewen and Derek for some of the best PD to come my way in years