Future synaptic interactions

I attended an event last week - Science in the Cafe - an event hosted by SASTA. Dr Martin Westwell spoke about glimpsing the future of neuroscience... electrodes in the brain controlling parkinsons, medications that can aid memory and other medication that can help us forget. He also spoke of the future of synaptic devices, that one day our brains will interact directly with computers with no need for keyboards or computer mouses. In the meantime my son showed me this youtube, a truly astonishing multitouch interface which is just around the corner.

Check out SASTA's new site.

Virtual Field Trip in Second Life

The holidays are approaching and winter is still here. Of course there will be fine days when my family and I can go an enjoy the beach which is on my doorstep, but I plan to have a holiday of a different kind. I hope to start exploring Second Life (SL) with my children. We now have a 1:1 computer ratio in my household (sad really!), and as my six year old has learned to navigate through a game (he now has his own iGoogle page and gmail address too) I thought I may just hijack that enthusiasm and take them for a SL field trip if my broadband allows.

On my "to see" list of the metaverse...

• go to the Exploratorium Island
• visit the "Scilands" a group of science related islands
• go to the International Space Flight Museum
• go into the Mars Impact Simulator
• hitch a ride on a Gemini rocket to the International Space Station
• go to Mars to see vehicles that have landed there
• tour through a giant testicle to watch spermatogenesis

Later in the year we do nuclear reactors with my year 12 physics class and we may just go for a virtual field trip to a nuclear reactor. No permission slips needed and no risk of radiation.

So many more things... be mersmerised by the potential of science education in SL on youtube.

Tag Cloud

Create a tag cloud. A tag cloud is a visual representation of common words in a block of text, a website or an rss feed. This is a tag cloud for my website created in TagCrowd.

being blog called classroom click com comments computer content cyberspaced del document download easy educators feeds files free google http icio map movie page podcasts rss saving school science search second site software students tag teacher tools topic twitter useful video view virtual vodcast watch web world www year youtube

created at TagCrowd.com

Uploading Youtubes

Today was a grey winters Saturday so i decided to do science experiments with my children. My daughter grabbed her cheapish camera, we took some video and some stills. Then we put the files onto my computer. With Windows Movie Maker (proprietary software but came shipped with my machine) and a little editing this is the result. When saving the finished product i selected the lowest "Media Windows Low Bandwidth" so it would be small enough to upload to youtube. Sadly the quality was much better than this originally, but to make it small enough to fit down the pipes you have to compromise on quality.

Then to youtube and selected upload.. and voila, my first youtube. Just click on the embedded product below.

I always pause youtubes at the start as I have sluggish broadband, then wait for them to load to watch in a continuous uninterrupted stream.

Methylated Spirits Rocket...

For South Australian Educators

The annual CEGSA conference is being held on 17th and 18th of July at the ASMS. That's in the second week of the holidays on the Thursday and Friday.

I hope to be taking two workshops - 1. RSS, Pod & Vodcatching and 2. An introduction to podcasting.

A banquet of digital delights for teachers of all persuasions. Moodle, RSS, IWB's, blogging, podcasting, secondlife, m-learning, you name it - they have it.

Detect plagiarism - free.

Plagiarism has become as easy for a student as mastering ctrl V and ctrl C. With these key strokes they can knock up and essay, a powerpoint - virtually anything in a very short space of time, without typing an original word.

Two years ago I participated in a trial of turnitin - a plagiarism detector. It was mesmerising as I watched it correctly identified the sources of a cut and paste, but sadly the cost is prohibitive for most schools.

Recently i stumbled upon plagiarismdetect, a FREE web based plagiarism detector. Just cut and paste the text in their magic box and it searches the web. I tested it with wikipedia and even my blog and it detected the plagiarism within seconds.

Next time I set and assignment or an information search, I will ask students to place a copy of the text in a word document (if it isn't already) in my drop box and will use this.

Tell your colleagues today!!!

Maps a plenty!

I have so far shown you all kinds of Google maps mashups... earthquakes, wikipedia entries and orbiting satellites.

Well make your own! It is VERY easy. You can get students to document excursions, world events - anything - this is only limited by your imagination. Add audio, images or video - your own or someone elses via flickr or youtube. I think my year 10 geography project (as a student) on the Russia steppes or the wheat-sheep belt may have been a bit more exciting if I could have used these tools. To start your own push pin adventures go here.

This map documents the near 30 locations I have lived in my life.


View Larger Map

Wikipedia before your eyes

I am a huge fan of Wikipedia. A user generated, user moderated encyclopedia sure beats the hell out of the A-Z World Book collection in the school library. I have heard many people bag Wikipedia for not containing "real" knowledge, just because the world can edit it. Well it is true that occasionally spurious information gets put up on Wikipedia, but it gets torn down just as quickly. I went back the next day to show the LED page which made reference to LEDs being made from salmon sperm, an obvious rubbish entry - but sadly it had already been corrected by avid policing by the community.
To see how active the community is in editing the largest encyclopedia that ever lived go to Wikipedia Vision it shows a real time map which follows edits around the globe. You can click on the newly made edits to see what people are working on. Fascinating watching!

Hot Science Vodcasts

I am a huge fan of vodcasts (video podcasts), the TV you want to watch, when you want to watch it. You subscribe with a podcatcher (media aggregator) the same way you subscribe to a podcast. I use Juice as my podcatcher, it is a free open source multi platform program, quick to download and easy to use. Many people use itunes...but I try not to use proprietary software if there is an open source alternative. By subscribing you ensure you don't miss an episode, it automates the download and your computer can download all the different podcasts and vodcast overnight while i sleep.

I listen to the podcasts in the car - my current favorite is 60 Second Psych by Scientific American - interesting snippets of research in bite size pieces. I watch the vodcasts when there is a slow night on TV... I have even brought my laptop into the kitchen to edjumcate me on scientifical things when i cook. If there is a something i like for the classroom I just copy it into the appropriate topic folder on the school server the next day.
As I am a science teacher I love science podcasts, but i am sure you can get podcasts of every variety.
These are my favs...

Dr Carson's Science Theatre (small segment quicktimes on science topics)
vodcast feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/ScienceTheater

Ecogeeks (intrepid university students seeking out exotic species)
vodcast feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/ecogeeks

Catalyst (from ABC, very useful if your TV reception is as useless as mine)
vodcast feed http://abc.net.au/catalyst/vodcast_wmv.xml

Just cut and paste these feeds into the podcatcher and you will be subscribed. Browse on the ABCs page for more of their content.

Track Satellites and the Space Shuttle

This tracking map pings your IP address (yes it knows where your children live!) and places a house where you live. Then you can magic up satellites in your area, specific satellites, even get a view of the space shuttle and the space station whizzing overhead. The buttons are a bit user unfriendly, but once you get the hang of it - way cool.

Tag Galaxy

Holy mashups Batman! Tag Galaxy is a mashup that combines tag clouds and photos from Flickr. Put any word into "tag search" and it will display the tag cloud as a series of planets.

Click on the tag of interest and this cute mashup starts retrieving pictures with the keyword and creating a picture mosaic of the planet! The picture planet can then be rotated every which way and you can click on any photo that catches your eye and you have a close up view.

Rock your World!

Teaching geology? Want to see the earthquakes that have occured in the last week? Click here.

Who would have thunk there were so many?

Cloud Chamber

I went to the South Australian Museum on the weekend and there is a new exhibit... a cloud chamber! Watching the decay of unstable particles is mesmerising like watching a waterfall (gravity + water) or flames in a fire (incandescent gases + convection currents). It is the first permanent cloud chamber exhibit in Australia. Downloadable pdf of the brochure available via link.
Go see the cloud chamber today.

Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via the Twitter website, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

When I first heard of Twitter I thought it was inane. However there are some educators that feel strongly that 140chars per tweet can be used for all sorts of educational things. This is what Educause Learning Initiative had to say...

What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Much has been written about the benefits of active learning strategies— using tools and techniques that engage students in ways other than simply listening to an instructor and taking notes. In the same way that clickers facilitate active learning, Twitter, too, could be used in an academic setting to foster interaction about a given topic. Metacognition—the practice of thinking about and reflecting on your learning—has been shown to benefit comprehension and retention. As a tool for students or professional colleagues to compare thoughts about a topic, Twitter can be a viable platform for metacognition, forcing users to be brief and to the point—an important skill in thinking clearly and communicating effectively. In addition, Twitter can provide a simple way for attendees at a conference to share thoughts about particular sessions and activities with others at the event and those unable to attend.

Dipity Timeline tool

Hold the phone... just by adding any RSS feed that you (or anyone else) creates, Dipity creates an instant time line. I have decided I am going to set up my 15 year old son on Twitter (which generates RSS feeds), and Twitter his homework and progress at school. I will subscribe to his feeds, receive them on my iGoogle twitter gadget and create timelines of his school work.

Go look at a timeline of my blog... it took me twenty seconds to make - as simple as cut and pasting my blog URL into dipity! Make sure you try all the buttons... the slide at the bottom and the zoom function.





Also there are some science timelines ... get your students to make one. Click on the flags for more info about the item. Embedded are pictures and youtubes. Mashup heaven.