never mind the optics

We’ve been told that the new S1 will experience the CfE outcomes when they join us after the summer holidays.  In most cases, there are strong links to existing materials used in the context of the 5-14 guidelines that we can draw upon.  However, there are clear gaps in our resources.  Draft outcome SCN 307E is one example;

I can use my knowledge of the basic needs of humans, and the bodies of our solar system, to put together a reasoned report on whether we can colonise space.

My S2 class will start work on this topic on Monday.  The question I have is where this sits in terms of the sciences.  I can see the topic develop in terms of physics or biology.  Either way, we’ll spend Monday’s lesson exploring the solar system and getting to know the names of our planets.  I’m going to use a package called Celestia for this.  There’s also OSXPlanet for apple users, this runs the simulation as a desktop background.  It looks really nice but I just can’t work with a clean desktop on my macbook and that spoils the view!

Here’s a screenshot of Saturn as seen on Celestia.

Cool, eh?

I finished my book chapter today and have emailed it in to the editor for review.  I’m not going to say much about the content just now but you can get an idea from this wordle I made from the text (just under 8000 words).  I started out using PBwiki but ran into difficulty with a ropey internet connection at school.  I decided to give Pages a try as I had forked out £50 to get it preinstalled on my mac.  My verdict?  It’s quite good!

Louise Jones, Health & Wellbeing supporter for Highland Council, was on the local news last night when STV covered an Internet Safety Awareness Day at Crown Primary School in Inverness.  This was part of Safer Internet Day 2009, which Louise is leading in our council area.  You can follow other safer internet activities on Louise’s blog.  Watch the whole news story by clicking on the picture above.

The int1 electronics class is now well into the project phase of the course.  This final stage is assessed by a combination of internal and external moderation of a project set by the SQA.  In my first year of running the course, I opted for the alternative cycle lights project as it is the simpler option on offer.

We’re all at different stages of the project and there has been a steep learning curve, not least for myself.  I’ve discovered the limitations of some equipment I had allocated for this course way back in June.  This means my empty budget has had to find cash for a whole load of items necessary to complete the projects.

As those in front have moved from design to prototype to laying out on stripboard for soldering, I thought I would share some of the pictures we have taken over the past week to mark these milestones.

I like this course, the idea is sound even if I have issues with the way it has been implemented.  Some of these problems may be resolved next year, although staffing within Physics may result in the course moving to the Technical dept. for a year or two.  Recently, we’ve explored problem-solving techniques that are more advanced than simply checking for loose connections.  I wonder how many of these pupils ever anticipated learning how to use an oscilloscope to measure the pulse frequency of a timer chip?  

This is a skill that many in my Higher class have yet to master.

I’ve been looking at the entries for Dan Meyer’s 2008 design competition and I’m really taken with the 2nd of his personal picks from the entries.  The design was submitted by Sam Shah and the physicist in me just loves the unaligned tabs below the bar chart.  They remind me of the ticker timers and ticker tape analysis we used to have in school physics before the arrival of dataloggers and light gates for speed & acceleration measurements.  

Sticking little strips of narrow paper on to sheets of coloured A4 allowed us to build up a Blue Peter version of events and undoubtedly contributed more to understanding of speed-time graphs than inspection of the “here’s one I prepared earlier” datalogger graphs we use in school today.

ticker tape photograph by things11change

With the decision to stop using Edublogs, I am left with the question of what to use instead.  This isn’t just a decision for hosting of my own blog, that’s done and dusted now.  The problem is that I am not sure where to point others who are looking for a blogging solution.  In particular, I’ve been charged with providing blogging training after Easter for staff at my own school and will need to have something for these practical sessions

I had heard of WordPress multi-user before when I had exchanged tweets with David Gilmour, who administers the East Lothian Edubuzz.org blogging system.  Then we had a brilliant session last Sunday on EdTechRoundup, when we had several people join us to talk about WPMU.  In the main meeting and background chat room, we covered the rationale for using WPMU over the established vanilla-flavoured WordPress solution, moving on to cover the set up and maintenance of WPMU.

Feeling enthused by the discussion, I’ve downloaded WPMU myself and had a go at installing it.  There are ongoing teething issues.  For example, my web hosting company will not allow me to use wildcard subdomains (you’ll know what that is if you read the installation documentation) and issues with too many redirections (stuck in a forwarding loop between the login screen and the admin dashboard screen) amongst others.

All of this makes me agree with comments made during the week on twitter, where Stuart Meldrum and others voiced the opinion that the biggest problem with maintaining WPMU was having the time to do it.  In the mean time, I’ve had a blog comment from Jim Henderson suggesting that there may be a server coming to Highland at some point, giving is all access to a centrally-maintained WPMU installation.  My fingers are tightly crossed now because I can’t wait for that to happen!