for no real reason

It is a little strange this post, I’ll freely admit it.

Today has been a deeply interesting day, I’ve had my first exposure to the mac, I’ve been introduced to a hundred new things to do with a computer, my head is buzzing with ideas and I need an extra bunch of hours in the day to get all of them done.

So today I’m blogging, on well, none of that.

After a long time staring at a computer this afternoon, I needed a lie down and went to bug my housemate because he has better stereo in his room than I do. He is obsessed with maps, loves them, really truly loves them. I’ve never seen anyone derive as much pleasure from an A to Z as this gentleman.

So much so he subscribes to the blog of strange maps. The one he was looking at today was the Amnesty International map of war. I liked the look of it very much so made him email me the link. further inspection was quite impressive, there’s a wealth of information associated with each map, for the one I’ve mentioned there is a heap of interesting quotes and statements and this would be a great start for a discussion….

While this doesn’t obviously link to science there’s some maps in there that would, in the very least, kick start a conversation or give an interesting perspective. You’ll Never Moonwalk Alone for example. I think with a bit of exploring there might be something in there for a lot of subjects.

In conjuction with that I’m also adding a link to a site I’ve been using recently for display work called Block Posters. It’s a simple little tool where you upload a photo (up to 1 megabyte) choose how big you want it (four landscape pieces of A4 wide or two pieces of portrait A4 wide or however large you need for however big a space you have to fill really) and it outputs it as a paneled poster in PDF that you put together like a jigsaw.

I might make my housemate a giant map. I think he’ll like that.

I’m not sure if that’s the best way to enlarge posters like that, so if you know of a slicker technique, please do tell me!

Why blog, why?

I’ve been playing around with blogs for a little while and have tried to use them in different ways. Moving from personal to educational blogs was an interesting transition and the first steps in this direction were in setting of cover work. The students were given the link to a blog which outlined the detail and information of whatever cover work they needed to do. This was ideal for those last minute illnesses because I could email the link from my sick bed.

 As I’ve gotten more used to them I’m getting a bit more confident. The BTEC students  had their own blogs for a Chemistry assignment, they were meant to be more informative than anything and were met with mixed reviews. Some students took to it like a duck to water, from others I’ve had the odd You Tube video posted and little else. We have a department blog that is meant to inform parents, students and the local community what exactly it is that we are doing on the science floor, and we have a number of revision blogs set up for the A-level students.

In terms of the work I’d like to do with students, I hope that at the start of the new academic year to set up individual blogs for the students so they can reflect on their progress and collaborate on their ideas through the comments system. Maybe not strictly for submission of work, but also to vocalise some of the frustrations and triumphs of the course, and summarise their learning. I see some good potential here with the coursework that the A-Level students will undertake next year.

 In terms of obstacles, blogs can sometimes be limiting for collaborative work, the comments and action on comments system is good in terms of feedback, but in terms of project collaboration I haven’t yet seen an easy way to do it through blogging (as opposed to say a wiki). I’d also be concerned about those students who just don’t have access at home,

I hope to continue with the departmental blog, set up class blogs for students and encourage them to keep their own blogs through the next year.

Learning to edublog

I’ve used blogspot for a while now, but hitting F5 on the school computers in a desperate attempt to bypass the sporadic internet filter has gotten boring so edublog looks like a quite wonderful alternative.

It’s quite slick looking too. See, I got a birdy