Ooooh, practical thinkies

One of the things science students always say, no matter who their teacher is, what year level they're at, whatever, is that they want more practical work.

This is awesome, but also a little problematic for teachers. The reason why I am conflicted over it is twofold. First, by the time I get my grubby little scientific mitts on them, students have usually defined what practical work is in their heads and it is a pretty narrow definition. It almost always includes bunsen burners and WORKSHEETS where you fill in things (like the aim and the method) and there is always a defined end point which you know about going in (because, usually, you've covered the topic in class already and so everyone knows that the candle gets lighter as you burn it). Second, they are often woefully useless at self-preservation and so teachers spend an awful lot of time making sure that the classroom is not set alight and that no one tries to drink the acid.

But we have to perservere with this. Experimentation and investigation are essential (the justification for that is a topic for another day). So, right now, I am devising a block of work around chemistry and skin care that will involve enough practical work to satisfy the most demanding adolescent audience. Even better? There is no set end goal. There are activities on the way, but the final golaposts require creativity, critical thought, and actual original experimentation.

Today, I am so happy.

Screencasting again... the not so quick and dirty edition

Ooooh, I completely forgot that it was time for ray diagrams. It's one of my favourite things to teach - part physics, part technical drawing, part maths, it's the one topic I can be sure that (nearly) everyone can do.

Of course, it's also one of the topics that requires PRACTICE. Lots and lots and lots of it. Of course, that means that I have to repeat the same demonstrations again and again and again. So I am working on a screencast right now. I'll post it soon.

Every teacher is a literacy teacher

Apparently, science teachers are the only teachers that take this seriously. Of course, that was the opinion of one person, but I think I can say that my department, at least, takes literacy seriously.

I think, in our case, it's self-defence. We have an awful lot of specialist vocabulary and are so dependent on analogies and models that we need to be really proactive in teaching students how to read and interpret texts, how to read and interpret images, and how to construct their own meanings from texts and images.

That's one of the reasons I love visualisations like wordles, love visual dictionaries, and adore talking books online. But today, we did a classic collage with scissors and glue, with my Y11 class making analogies for cell structures. Another time, I would probably do this using online tools. Today, though, it was nice to get our fingers a bit dirty. And my students came up with some lovely analogies - like centipede legs for pili and baleen (as in whales) for the cell membrane.

The quick and dirty screencast of junketing learnings

So. Still can't use Jing and am exhausting both my patience and possible reasons. But I did find screencast-o-matic, which is the quick and dirty screencast maker of my dreams.

This is what I made to illustrate my learning from my visit to Andrew Douch last week. It is exceedingly quick and dirty, in the sense that it took maybe 30 minutes from start to finish (including taking the photos, making the powerpoint and learning to drive screencast-o-matic) and the sense that I kind of threw the information into it.



Things I learned from this? Well, screencasting is pretty easy if your standards are not professional. Big check yes here. Am I going to use this again? Yep. I liked making it, it was easy to make and talk through, and simple to upload and share. Am I going to do it again? Yep, though I am getting annoyed with Jing. But I shall triumph eventually.

*meepage*

So, I went to Australia and it was all good. Now I have to give PD about it. Since the big idea I brought back from Australia was about screencasting, I am going to make a screencast explaining to teachers at my school about what they are.

First step, collect pictures of me doing boring and repetitive explanations, then show the Magnificent Wonder of Explanations Via Screencasting!!!!

I shall be back with one soon.