Month: April 2008

More youtube and some Flickr

Decided it was time to see what I could do with Flickr, so I spent the day taking photos of Junior Cert Science demo apparatus. The plan is that I will show this to students and they will have to name the demonstration. Hopefully it will help the second-years revise for Summer exams. It must be rather daunting to have to go from a year of short class tests, to a set of formal exams which require knowledge  taken in over the whole year.

Students can hopefully access this themselves if they wish, although I may  print it off for those who don’t have the facilities.

Bloody nice spectrum though innit?

Thanks Conor!

Of course there’s still the bread ‘n butter leaving cert material:

 

The Photoelectric Effect

I have been trying to get this to work for years, without success. And then recently I tried it again and lo and behold it worked like a dream!
Part of the problem was that if the day was even slightly humid the gold leaf electroscope wouldn’t hold its charge.
Secondly it had to be charged negatively, and I was never sure if I was charging it positively or negatively.
Thirdly I didn’t realise that I had to sandpaper the zinc in advance to remove the oxide layer.
Fourtly I don’t keep a list of questions related to demonstrations which I can’t get to work, so I only remember that there is a problem when I go to teach it each year, instead of asking an expert.

And I apologise for stating that this is “the most important least impressive experiment in the history of science”. It is actually rather impressive.
If I do say so myself.

Excellent resource for Power points

I don’t tend to use Power-Point much. ‘Not sure why; guess I can never stay still long enough to give a formal-type lesson. I did however use Education Using PowerPoint a few years back and was very impressed. It’s a very extensive set of resources, put together and managed by Will Richards. A complete set (including resources for Junior Cert) will set you back £50 sterling (€75?). And naturally, having been designed for the British GCSE and A level system, may have to be adapted somewhat.

Still, if Power Point is your thing, this does seem like a useful resource.

If you do end up purchasing, please get in touch and let me know what you think.

Do you teach a modern language? If so subscribe to Joe Dale now!

 

 

There are a whole lot of education blogs out there, but one of the very best has to be Joe Dale’s “Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom“. He gave a presentation at the CESI conference this year and people had to be turned away at the door.

Every subject needs to have a Joe Dale; someone to keep us up to date on best practice in relation to ICT issues, and who you know is a full-time teacher who practices what he preaches.

Here’s my contibution to the ‘Modern Language’ database:
Eddie Izzard – Learning French

‘Course you can’t show this wonderful clip unless you have Youtube.
Don’t mention the war

Is there an equivalent Science / Physics Teacher blog out there?
Patricia Donaghy has done her part; http://edubloggerdir.blogspot.com/ is a registration page for educational blogs where you can go and search by topic.

I guess over time more teachers will get the hang of this sharing lark.

 

Queerer than you can suppose: Dawkins on ted.com

 

I’m not RIchard Dawkins biggest fan (I know; like he’s worried); for someone who holds the Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science he seems to take enormous delight on slighting those he disagrees with – particularly in relation to Creationism.

However it is in relation to extolling the wonder of science that he excels. Consider the following as part of the job description:

The goal is for the public to appreciate the order and beauty of the abstract and natural worlds which is there, hidden, layer-upon-layer. To share the excitement and awe that scientists feel when confronting the greatest of riddles. To have empathy for the scientists who are humbled by the grandeur of it all.

Take any of the wonderful ideas Dawkins speaks about in the clip above and have fun looking for it in a Science syllabus.

Thanks to Peter Kinvara for pointing me in the right direction to find this in a comment on a related posting

The clip is obviously from youtube because for some reason ted.com doesn’t allow video embedding.

Microscale Vacuum Apparatus

microscale-science

This went down well at the ISTA conference in Letterkenny at the weekend where I was demonstrating as part of the Science on Stage team and I promised people I would let them know where I got it, so here it is:
teachersource.com

There is a lot more where this came from. I posted a brief note on the site recently , so browse the entire site. Remember the dollar has rarely been this low.

I will stick a video of the kit in action on youtube sometime this weekend (hopefully).