iBooks Presentations from #MACUL13

I think I may have finally recovered from the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning annual conference. As usual I was pretty busy. I ended up being involved in two different presentations, which always take a lot out of me.

Both of the presentations I was involved in were focused on the use of iBooks Author to create textbook replacements. Yes, I understand this limits me to the iPad only, but really, I don't care. I thought I'd post a quick summary including links from both talks.

Innovating with iBooks Author and Pages

This was a talk I gave with my very good friend Serge Danielson-Francois (Library Ninja). Serge and I complement each other perfectly. I tend to be frenetic and get going on an idea with a focus that can sometimes get me way off agenda. Serge on the other hand always has the long view and can help keep things moving in the right direction.

Anyway, I typically don't use PowerPoint or an alternative. I tend to present from an outline and jump between webpages and applications. You can find our complete outline and all of our links on the Google Site I set up for the presentation. When we both started the year we had a vision of how we'd use iBooks Author and what our "textbooks" would look like. This really became an exercise in reflection on our teaching. We shared our original vision and then how this has changed over the course of the year. If you'd like to see the original vision you can check out an article we wrote for the MACUL Journal, look on page 26.

Serge's vision changed the most. He originally envisioned having his journalism 2 and 3 students create a textbook for his first year students. Awesome idea! However, he's learned that journalism today is a moving target and those things that don't change rapidly are things his students would have difficulty teaching. Things like avoiding the easy headline and digging deeper to the real story. In short how to think like a journalist. He now sees his students creating a portfolio of how stories were covered this year. It will be more of a resource for the future editors of the school's online paper.

Join the iBooks Author Collaborative

I was a co-presenter with Tony DiLaura, a great guy from Zeeland Public Schools. This was the kickoff session for the upcoming iBooks Hackathon! In June we will be inviting teachers to come and learn iBooks Author and hopefully partner up with other educators to create high quality resources for use by students around the state (and beyond). We will be running basically the same session on both sides of the state. On the west side of the state we will be hosted by Kent ISD and on the east side by Wayne State University.

What we really want to do is get teachers working together collaboratively to create pieces of iBooks. This could be good text, graphics, interactive widgets, videos or other cool stuff I haven't thought of. All of these pieces could be then archived in a way that other people could take them and create custom books for their own students. However, we're running this as more of an edcamp like idea, so if our participants have a different vison then we'll go in a different direction. The big ideas are:

• Create resource to support the way individual teachers teach
• Collaboration: "Many hands make light work"
• Collaboration: Lets learn from each other. I would love to find someone who could teach me new skills or offer me better ways to reach my students.
• Share what we've made: If what I do will help other educators that would be great. I know I have skills that others don't. If I make my stuff available then they don't have to have those skills.

Interested? Wondering how you can get involved?

1. Goto our Hackathon Website for more information and to register. We are charging $30 because the number of people we can accomodate is limited and we want to help ensure those that register actually show up. (plus we're providing lunch)
2. Join our Google+ Community. We currently have people from around the state and as well as other people who've found us.

21st Century Learning Symposium

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the 21st Century Learning Symposium hosted by Saint Clair RESA at Marysville High School. I had a great time and I got to talk with a lot of great people. The week before was grueling as I was preparing both for school and the two sessions I ran. So, I'm finally recovered enough to get to posting the links to my presentations.

Before getting to my links I wanted to mention the Be Very Afraid Extra that was going on during the conference. Stephen Heppell has been running Be Very Afraid events in England for the last ten years. The original intent of these was to show how all of the money that has been spent on educational technology has paid off. Students showcase what they do and what they've learned with technology. One of the main ideas about these events is what they've done for themselves rather than what their teachers have done for them. The Be Very Afraid Extra on Thursday was the first of these to be run outside of the UK. There are already other such events scheduled for around the world later this year.

Unfortunately I didn't get to meet all the students, but I did get to meet many of them. Among my favorites were a group of middle school students who have become evangelists for Prezi. They're seeking to teach their own teachers how to use this cool tool while highlighting the advantages it has over PowerPoint. Another group consisted of an artist, a composer and a programmer, who together are creating a game for the new Windows Phone operating system. Leveraging the strengths of each to get the job done.

This sort of event highlights the possibilities technology offers our students and how those possibilities can be leveraged into learning and the beginnings of a career. The, "Be Very Afraid," is there as a message. Students often learn all of this stuff without the input of their teachers or the standard educational system. Most of the students presenting taught themselves the bulk of what they needed to know. Learning more from online forums then their teachers. Personally I think this is awesome!

Now, lets talk about me. I led two sessions. One on the creation and use of video and the other on pseudoteaching. My talk on videos and all of my links can be found at video.flosscience.com. There you will be able to find my collected wisdom on how to create videos and how to use videos to enhance what you do in the classroom.

My second presentation was on Pseudoteaching with Technology. My main goal in this talk was to get teachers thinking more about how they teach while focusing less on what tools they're using. Conferences like this one all to often focus on the "T" in "TPCK". I wanted to shift the focus more towards "PCK". You can find my presentation below. I have the feeling that my Prezi without me talking won't make much sense, but you can at least find all the links I gave out in my session. I may try to record a quick summary screen cast of the high points this afternoon. If I do, I'll post it to my blog.

Pseudoteaching with Technology on Prezi

Cross-posted from FLOSScience.

Preparation for MACUL

As you know, the annual meeting is just a few days away. I was starting to get ready yesterday and I thought I would share my geeky preparation with you. The first thing I did was dust off my Twitter client. I don’t really use Twitter as much as I should. I mainly use it when I’m at conferences to see what’s going on in the back channel.

I use Tweetdeck to check Twitter. The first thing I had to do was clear out the search columns I’d created for the last conference I attended. Then I set up my MACUL search column. #MACUL10 is the tag of choice. Now as geekery goes that’s pretty pedantic. The real geekery came when I found a way to get the MACUL search feed to show up on my desktop.

I saw this over at Mac OS X Tips. They used this technique to have the feed fromFaceBook show up on their desktop. I only had to modify the process a little to get the #MACUL10 Twitter search to show up. It relies on the instillation of a new preference pane called GeekTools.

I just followed their full instructions and then used TextEdit to modify the files they already created to replace their FaceBook feed and files with my MACUL ones. The whole process really shows some of the power in OS X. It relies on Automator actions and Shell access. Luckily someone else has already did all the heavy lifting for me. If you have any questions about the process I might be able to answer them. No promises though, I barely understood what I was doing.

Anyway, that’s my first step in getting ready for he conference. Now I need to go over to the online planner and figure out what I’m going to see.

Crossposted from macul.edublogs.org

MACUL - Student Technology Showcase

So, tomorrow I'll be bringing a small group of students to the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning. They will be participating in the Student Technology Showcase. Come down and see us and all the other students between 11:00 and 1:00.

They will be showing off what they've learned about electronics and programming with the Arduino. Here's a capsule description:

Physical Computing - Electronics with Arduino

This is the beginning of an ongoing project focused on having students investigate and learn about electronics and programming in through inquiry and project based learning. Students are encouraged to push the bounds and learn what they need to solve the problems they face while they are facing them. In some cases they learn more about certain aspects of the material than I, their "instructor", know.

As students learn they share what they've learned on our class wiki, hosted through Google Sites. In this way they actually provide instructions for other students in the class or for future classes.

Arduino is an open-source platform that incorporates an Atmel micro-controller. It is programmed with the Arduino programming language (which is based upon C++). Students learn to use a variety of sensors to interact with their programs.

Our Wiki:
http://sites.google.com/a/divinechildhighschool.org/electronics/Home

More Information on Arduino:
http://www.arduino.cc

Detroit Metro-Area Physics Teachers Meeting 2/3/09

The next meeting of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers will be Tuesday, Feb. 3rd. I will be hosting at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, MI. We'll get started with dinner (probably pizza) at 5:30 with presentations beginning around 6:30.

The focus this time will be technology in science education. If you read my blog at all you already know this is what I do for fun, so it goes without saying that I will have a lot to share. But, there will be others sharing as well. So far I know there will be presentation on:

• Vernier and Pasco sensors
• Video Analysis of motion (with LoggerPro and a Free way)
• Free Software for teaching sound
• Moodle
• Google Apps
• Searching for SuperNovae with small Telescopes
• Interactive Physics
• WiiMotes as accelerometers and Interactive White Boards
• Jeopardy PowerPoint game
• Podcasting
  
• Whatever else I can think of between now and then.

After the presentations I will have a number of stations set up to give people a chance to do some of what we've been talking about. I'm also planning on something new. I will set up a camera and broadcast a live stream to the web. Just goto dmapt.org for the live feed.

Below you'll find a series of previews I've been slapping together. They are done in one take and uploaded, so they're a bit rough, but they will give you an idea of what we're doing. Hopefully I'll get another one or two done over the weekend.

Videos in Science Class at the MDSTA

Yesterday was the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Detroit Science Teachers Association. I always enjoy this meeting. It's a good size for a local meeting and the talks are good even though the conference is relatively small.

I presented on the use of teacher created videos for instruction. Everyone assumes video is really hard and really expensive. If you want to make TV or theater quality video it is. But if all you're trying to do is get a little extra teaching done and you have access to a computer, then its free and easy. If you don't care so much about the production value it is also not as time consuming as people think either.

You can find my digital "Handout" on the Flosscience Site. This page will be growing as I go along. The professional development series I've volunteered to run at school this spring will focus on podcasting (I draw no distinction between audio and video podcasts). Additionally, I submitted to present basically the same material at MACUL this spring. I suppose if they don't accept my presentation I'll do it as a Guerrilla Session.

(cross-posted from www.flosscience.com)

Google Teacher Academy, Non-Tech Tips

I blogged about my impressions on Google Corporate Culture after my day at the Google Teacher Academy. For me this is still the biggest piece I walked away with. But I did pick up some good tips/tricks. I'll share them over the next few blog posts unless I get distracted by something shiny.

We started the day by breaking up into small groups to share our favorite non-tech lessons. These could be ones we've done or ones we've seen. Then we came back together and the best one from each group was shared with everyone. Here were my favorites:

• Use a large whiteboard as wiki training wheels. Many students, particularly younger ones, have a hard time understanding how a wiki works. The facts and framework for a concept can be put up on a whiteboard. Over time the information and layout can be modified as new things are learned.
  
• Six word stories graffiti style. Students write six word stories about some subject. The best ones are then turned into graffiti style art that is hung on the walls for all to see.

Now, I know many people out there don't have an extra whiteboard that they can dedicate to a long term project, but you might be able to get one cheaper than you think. You can get shower wallboard for pretty cheap (under $30) and it comes in 4'x8' sections and makes perfectly acceptable whiteboards. This would also be a perfect way to display the six word stories.

I'm already planning on getting a couple panels for my classroom. I'll let you know how they work out.

Disruptive Conditions

I was just catching up on some of the blogs I read when I came across David Warlick's 2 Cents Worth. He's starting a discussion on one of his upcoming NECC presentations over at the NECC Ning site. He asks:

What do you believe are the fundamental disruptive conditions that are demanding a new kind of education institution?

This question hit me and has given me a lot to think about. I always think about how to make myself a better teacher, find better ways to reach my students today. However, this question hits me and makes me realize I need to rethink my approach. Without really having thought about the underlying causes I won't be able to come to any real solutions.

So, what do I think makes learning different today? Technology. Technology underlies the way our students access the world today. I'm not going to invoke Digital Natives, because I think it is a spurious argument. However, technology is changing so fast most teachers simply don't keep up. Our students have more time to spend with the changing face of technology and so often outpace their teachers. This leads them to be unengaged

Delay and distract environment they're looking for ways to distract themselves. The consume content in small chunks. They don't value HS education they see that a HS diploma doesn't really lead to anything. Students now how to learn what they're interested in, but if they have no interest... Our faculty often has the same problem.

Another disruptive condition: We want all of our kids to go to college. Today it is getting to the point that a Bachelor's degree is not even enough. Students don't have dreams/ambition. They're in school to make friends and because their parents make them come here.

The World Beyond Essays - Digital Storytelling with Jason Ohler

So, I read the description for this session and thought to myself that this will either be really good, or I'll leave in the first five minutes. I stayed through to the end because it was outstanding. Jason talked about media literacy replacing our outdated definition of literacy that only involves text.

When we use our old definition of literacy we say you are literate if you can read and write. Today we have many more ways of expressing ourselves. Ohler talked about the "Media Collage" that we see on most web sites today and that not only do your students need to know how to extract meaning from these sites, the must also be able to produce this media or they're not really literate in modern society.

Jason stressed that you don't have to have lots of expensive equipment or software to create a compelling digital story. In fact all you need is a computer. He shared an engaging story created by a student using still images in WindowsMovieMaker (free if you have Windows). It's the story that matters, not the toys or effects.

He also spent sometime discussing what a story is and what it isn't. It is often tempting to have students create multimedia reports, but when we can have them create stories than they are more engaged with the process and the material. For a story we some sort of problem and a resolution of that problem. That can often simply be the misconceptions or misunderstandings the student had along the way and how they resolved those misconceptions. i.e. What was the learning process.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to walk into this session. I may even buy his book. You can find more information at:

http://www.jasonohler.com

or for information on the session go to:
Web 2.1 and the World Beyond Essays - http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/beyondwords.cfm

Detroit Metropolitan Educational Technology Users?

I love using the internet to meet and interact with other like minded educators. However, many educators do not participate in online resources or may simply be lurkers. Many of these educators may be interested in using technology in their classrooms, but they are simply intimidated. Personally, I have no problem with online interactions, but I still find face to face to be much more powerful. Additionally, face to face offers educators who are intimidated by technology a way into the conversation. So, where is an educator to turn if they want to attend educational technology conferences and meet like minded individuals? In Michigan we have the MACUL annual meeting and a few other regional conferences. In many cases educators would incur some expenses for travel as well as need to pay for the conference (not to mention the fees for their professional affiliation).

Currently, in Michigan, we are loosing funding for schools. There is a fear that schools simply can't afford to send teachers to meetings and if they can it is only one or two educators at most. So what do we do? Even if we have the money to get us to conferences there are really only a few opportunities every year. Before we get to the main point of this post I need to describe another group of dedicated educators I belong to.

I'm a member of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers (DMAPT). As near as we can figure, this 2007 marks the 50th year the DMAPT has been meeting. Some of our current members go back nearly to the beginning of the organization. They have long since retired, of course, but continue to attend meetings because they have a passion for teaching and they've made many life long friends through the organization. We try to meet every month during the school year, although we never quite make it that often. Meetings are held in the evening during the week. Experience has shown this to be the most popular time. Typically we are hosted by one of our members and meet at their school. Often we will be invited to meet at one of the local colleges. Last year we had one meeting at Wayne State and another at the University of Michigan.

Typical meeting agenda:

• Eat pizza (every one tosses in $5 or so and the host picks it up)
• Chit chat with like minded educators while eating dinner
  
• Do a quick round of introductions
• Cover any New/Old Business
• Then we have Presentations - Members volunteer to get up and share lessons/demos/labs they find useful. Occasionally a member will share an idea they had and seek additional input on how to execute it effectively. The presentations are often, but not always, grouped around a particular theme.

All in all, our meetings are very informal and a lot of fun. I always come away having learned a lot. Our dues are a very affordable $5/year and the only meeting fees we have are used to cover our dinner (if you come in after dinner or choose not to eat, the meeting is free). The dues are used to cover any dinner expenses that go beyond the typical $5/head and very occasionally pay a speaker. All in all it has proved to be a very successful model for a grass roots educator association.

So, what's the point of all this? I've been wondering if there might be any interest in forming this sort of organization around technology integration. Originally I'd thought of proposing it as a MACUL SIG, but then I changed my mind. We could look at being MACUL and/or ISTE affiliates, but by being independent, the only cost to join would be our own membership dues.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. I think you should be able to get the idea of what I'm talking about. If anyone is interested in forming such a group (or a similar one following a different model) please email me, comment on this blog, or start a forum discussion. Or I suppose you could do all the work of forming a group and send me an invite to your first meeting ;)

Cross posted to maculspace.ning.com

Summer Meeting Postmortem

If you read my blog you'll know that I went to and presented at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) earlier this summer. A couple of my posts this summer were about my own session and I did manage to post about a couple of the other sessions I attended. In addition to the NECC I also got to go to the Lemleson-MIT Inventeams Odyssey. At both of these events I learned more from the conversations I had with other educators than I did through any organized activities. Don't get me wrong, I also learned a lot from the sessions I attended and from talking with vendors, it's just that I leaned more through informal interactions.

The main reason this post didn't happen right after the NECC is that I've been spending time investigating the resources I learned about in my conversations with others. So, what did I learn:

In Boston (at MIT):

• I met, Stephen Scannell, the president of the Oregon section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and we traded emails and lesson ideas. We'll be sharing more over the years to come I'm sure.
• I also made a contact with Steve Meyer, who is a teacher and a distributor for the PICAXE micro-controller. The PICAXE is an inexpensive, easy to use micro-controller and is perfect for a lot of really cool electronics projects. Until recently, the only distributors I knew of were located in Great Britain.
• I also learned about Project Lead the Way. I need to spend some more time looking at this to see if it might be right for my school.

In Atlanta (at the NECC):

• I had a great, although brief, conversation with Carolyn Staudt from the Concord Consortium. They have some truly great stuff. They develop research based lessons and lesson plans and then do the research to determine the efficacy of their stuff. If you teach science or math you really should spend some time going through their site. They have lessons and resources that can be used by educators at every level. My favorite is a collection of tools for DIY probeware.
• My table was right next to the Vernier table at the Math/Science Playground so I got to talk with Rick Sorenson, their representative, quite a bit. He pointed out some different ways to use LabPros so that the LoggerPro software doesn't do all the work for the students. By default, LoggerPro sets itself up in the most user friendly way. This is often not the best way to ensure students learn, however. I find students learn more when they have to think about and analyze the data for themselves. By default LoggerPro does most of the analysis for you making it easy to run through a lot of labs very quickly, although in a very superficial way. After talking with Rick I learned that it doesn't have to be this way, apparently I can have my cake and eat it too.
• As a presenter I had access to "Presenters World". It sounds much cooler than it was. It was a room with tables, internet connections, available plugs, and a printer. We could also store stuff so we wouldn't have to lug it all over the convention center. While spending a little down time recharging my laptop I met Scott Garrigan. He had run a workshop on free/opensource resources for education. So, I asked him for the 5 minute version of his session. He pointed me at:
• Breve - An opensource 3D simulation program for creating artificial life. He recommends it particularly for its potential to teach concepts in evolution and genetics.
• Teragen - A free landscape generator. You can use this to create photo-realistic landscapes. The you can then cause erosion to happen and talk about how land changes over time. It is also possible to take topo data of real places and create them.
• NetLogo - This is what I was looking for last summer. I will be spending much of August playing with this to see if I can use it in my classes. "NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment." There are lots of great models out there already, including some that I would use to replace EcoBeaker (assuming I every teach Environmental Science again). I will be spending time see how I can create new models or modify existing ones to teach the lessons I need to teach.

Now I can Relax

Well, I survived my marathon presentation today. I was at the Math/Science Playground at the NECC from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. It was a long day, but I met lots of great people and made some good contacts, which is what this is all about.

Here are the links I promised people would appear on my blog:

• My stuff on instructables.com
• My stuff on the ISTE - NECC site
• Visual Analyser - Free Oscilloscope
• Audacity - Free, audio recording program that I used as a recording oscilloscope

I'll try to put up a more comprehensive posting tomorrow. I'm wiped out today.

Web 2.0 at MACUL

OK, Steve Demob is going to be another one of those speakers I look for at these meetings. Steve went through about 20 or 30 different websites while highlighting his Top 10 Free Web 2.0 Sites. All his links are available at 10freesites.pbwiki.com, so I won’t list them all here.

Here are some of the cool new things I learned:

• Jumpcut - A free online video creation/editing site now allows you to do the Ken Burns Effect with your photos
• Picnik - This is a free online image editor. I’ve heard of it before, but I’ve never used it. I will now. It does all the basic editing you need. You can upload photos or you can pull them directly from the web (including your Flickr). When you’re done editing you can save them, email them, dump them to Flickr, or send them to a number of places that will print them out for you.
• Vyew - Webinars free on the web. You can use your browser to host a webinar. The participants, who only need a browser, can watch your presentations or you can share a real time screen cast. There is a chat window available and you can share audio by having participants call into a phone number. Up to 100 people can call into the free version!

Steve talked about a lot of stuff more than I will mention here. His list of 10 Free Sites is great and you should give it a look.

Me at MACUL

This year I presented. I ran a hands-on workshop entitled probeware with almost no budget. My handouts are on my wetpaint site, as usual.

Abstract: Learn how to make your own probeware for under $10/station that will allow you to do multiple labs in physics/physical science and how to use the free software to make it work. You will use homemade probeware to analyze sound, investigate gravity/acceleration, and periodic motion.

Even given a minor snag or two, it went better than I could have hoped. We managed to cover all the topics I'd planned plus one or two extra. All the participants got to make and take their own solar-cell based probe and nobody burned themselves with the soldering-iron.

More MACUL-Video Tutorials

Dale Rogers presented how he uses video tutorials to help teach complex software. He focused on two programs HyperCam and Camtasia Studio.

Both programs allow you to very easily capture everything you do on the computer while doing a voice over narration. Camtasia has a lot more bells and whistles but it has a much higher price tag ($299). HyperCam can be downloaded and used for free, but you get a “Unregistered HyperCam” in the upper left corner of your finished video. If you want to buy it it is only $39.95.

Both programs looked pretty easy to use. Dale also talked about how having dual monitors set up is incredibly helpful when using video tutorials. Students can work on one monitor while running the tutorial on the other. And to be honest how many of us have extra CRTs gathering dust? All you need is a second cheap video card and you’re ready to go.

My Notes:

I've played around a bit with this myself. I've used Camtasia, which I was lucky enough to be given a free copy of (a colleague won it at the NECC) and iShowU, which is a Mac only program. I've also played with another free program called Wink. The learning curve is a little steep, but if you're interested in putting together a lot ov computer tutorials on the cheap it is definitely woth a look.

Will Richardson at MACUL

I went to Will Richardson’s first talk this morning. I almost didn’t because I’ve seen him talk many times before, but I’m glad I did. He is one of those speakers you should go out of your way to see. He helps me to remember why it is important to keep pushing the bounds of technology. I really needed that this morning after spending way to many hours trying to do something that should have been “easy” with my relatively new MacBook. I was able to get it done after much gnashing of teeth and two different work-a-rounds.

Richardson spent quite a bit of time talking about how he has learned more from the internet and the interactions it makes possible than he ever learned when he was a student. He highlighted this by showing the ClustrMap of the people who visit his blog. They come from all over the world as they do for all blogs. We end up in an environment where every one is as passionate about the same things we are. They come to our blogs because they are interested in what we have to say and so they will often interact with us and we end up learning more.

This extends into teaching in two major ways. The internet and the read write web makes interaction so easy. We don’t have to be the only content experts in our classrooms anymore. We can “invite” others in by simply highlighting great web resources or by facilitating conversations with real experts out there in the real world. The tools we have today make this much easier than ever before.

Additionally, many students get involved in online communities where they can share their passion with others. In one example he showed a fanfiction site that has hundreds of thousands of user generated stories. Many of these stories were undoubtedly written by our students who were writing for fun and learning at the same time. They do this not for a grade but because they enjoy it. They will learn a lot from this, maybe more than they will in their English classrooms.

One of Richardson’s recurring themes was that there is a wealth of information and tools for building information available on the web today. We need to be teaching our students how to use these tools effectively, not simply blocking them because the tools have the potential to be used inappropriately.

I could write volumes on everything Will talked about, but there’s more great stu. You can see his outline and talking points on his wiki handout. Now I’m off the the Apple booth to see if they can help me with my iMovie beach ball of death issues (the reason for the teeth gnashing I mentioned above).

Two Years Down!!!

I'm nearing the end of my second year of blogging. I started after the annual MACUL meeting two years ago. I've been a bit distracted lately, so I haven't posted as much as I would like, but I have lots of good stuff just waiting for a chance to hit the blog.

This year I was asked to be an official MACUL blogger. So, I'll be posting several things from the conference over the next week or so.I'll cross post everything here as well as on the MACUL Blog.

This year marks my first foray into presenting at MACUL. I signed up to run a hands on workshop. Unfortunately I didn't realize that it costs $60 to attend hands on workshops when I signed up. Otherwise I would probably have signed up for a regular presentation so I might have a chance to share my stuff with more people. Oh well, you live an learn. If you're interested in learning about Probweare for teaching sound or motion on the Cheap check out my session from 3:30 to 5:30 on Thursday.

CD Diffraction and quick fun bits for teaching light

Well, the FOCUS Workshop/DMAPT Meeting was Awesome!!! I learned lots, and have probably already forgotten some great stuff.

I presented CD Diffraction and there was a question about how to remove the label from the back of a CD. I've never been good at this, and said as much. Some people just have the knack while most don't. One of the audience members came to my rescue. He is one of the editors of ArborScientific's Cool Stuff Newsletter (which is great btw). In Newsletter 22 they covered CD Diffraction and the used packing tape to remove the label.

Apparently you can just wrap the tape, sticky side out, around you hand and then just press down on the label and the tape will peel it off. Brilliant!!! The added bonus is you aren't left with little foil bits scattered around the classroom.

More Diffraction
Find the diameter of a hair.

1. Point a laser pointer at a hair. You will see a diffraction pattern on the wall.
2. How do you line it all up? Tape the hair to the laser so that it is draped over the front.
3. Measure the distance to the screen and the distance from the laser spot to the bands.
4. Plug the numbers into the same formula from the CD Spacing activity from my last post.

Model DNA X-Ray Diffraction.

• Same instructions as above, but use a 2-ply thread instead of a hair.
• The 2-ply thread is a double helix
• Shine on a screen or piece of paper
• You should see a pattern similar to the X-Ray Diffraction picture that led to the discovery of DNA's structure.
• The picture to the right is Rosalind Franklin's picture that was used by Watson and Crick.

I'll try to post more stuff from the Workshop over the next few days.

DMAPT Optics - CD Diffraction

The Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers will be meeting at the University of Michigan today (Feb. 3, 2007). We are being hosted by the FOCUS Center.

As a part of the meeting we, the physics teachers will be sharing our own tips, labs, and demos with the other teachers as well. I will be sharing a cool use for old CDs. You know, the ones you used for backups and don't need anymore or ones that didn't burn correctly.

CDs use a diffraction grating to align the laser with the data on the disk. This is why we see rainbows on the bottom of the disks. You can use this property to make a simple spectroscope. A spectroscope allows you to see the spectrum of light you're looking at. You've probably seen a demonstration of a prism separating white light into a rainbow of colors. A spectroscope will do the same thing. The fun part is that all lights do not give off the same spectrum. You will see distinct bands rather than a continuous spectrum.

There are several links on the web showing you how to make a CD Spectroscope, my favorite is one by Alan Schwabacher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I've but a few of these together. In general the more time you spend the nicer it will look, but you only need about 5 minutes to make a functional spectroscope capable of illustrating the differences between incandescent and fluorescent lights.

Another fun thing to do with old CDs (or DVDs) is to experimentally determine to groove spacing. Diffraction Gratings work because they have a series of fine grooves, too small for us to see. CDs are not truly diffraction gratings as they have no grooves, but actually have lines of pits that effectively act as a grating. The colors are separated due to interference. At smaller angles the shorter wavelengths of light will constructively interfere so we see violets and blues while at higher angles we see constructive interference in the longer wavelengths.

In order to determine the groove spacing you need only an old CD a single point light source (light bulb) and a ruler. The whole activity is outlined in a guide put together by General Atomics. You'll want the section on the Electromagnetic Spectrum, specifically lab 3b.

In the basic setup you want the light behind you. You hold the CD up and try to center the reflection of the light in the center of the CD (i.e. in the hole so you can't see it). Then while keeping the reflection in the hole you slowly bring the CD closer to your eye until you see a circular rainbow extending around the whole CD (you have to get it pretty close to your face, so your head may obscure part of the light). You then simply measure the distance from the CD to your eye and the distance from the center of the CD to a band of color that you know the wavelength for. In the General Atomics activity they use 450 nm for violet. I will often use red (620 nm) as well. You then plug the data into the formula and you get your answer.

Another way you can do this activity is to peel the label off the disk. I'm not very good at this, but I know it can be done. You can then look through the CD at the light. Again, you center the light in the hole and bring the disk towards your face. Sometimes when you buy a stack of CDs they will include one with no label. The picture below was taken through one of these.

You can even see where there are some scratches on part of the disk. Interestingly the violet band does not show up in the picture. I could see it, but the ccd in my camera failed to capture it.

k12 Online - Week One

The k12Online Conference has been going on for about a week. I wonder how successful it has been . The idea was to have a virtual conference in cyberspace, via podcasts, video casts, and or screen casts. Presenters also have their show notes on a blog or other web pages and David Warlik has set up a Wiki for "attendees" to keep their notes in.

I don't know if its the time of year (grades are due Monday) or the structure of the conference, but I haven't been able to get excited about k12Online. When I first read about it I was intrigued and certain it would be great.

So far I've been a bit underwhelmed. Maybe I know too much, but most of the presentations I've "attended" have been like preaching to the choir. Maybe this is just how things have been schedualed and they're putting the really basic stuff first. Next weekend I'll try to comment on the whole conference.

The second impression I have about this conference is one I didn't really think about until Ben over at the TechSavvy Educator mentioned. One of the things I really like about conferences is meeting people face to face and being able to talk about and share impressions about the sessions. I know there are "fireside chats" on the adgenda, but his is not the same. These seem more like the question answer period at the end of a talk and are not the one on one spontaneous conversations that occur after (or durring) a talk at a traditional conference.

I like the idea of a conference that can be attended by anyone in the world without having to spend lots of money to get and stay there, but this feels less like a conference and more like a collection of resources for educators.

Now, to the positives. There are, of course, some benefits of pre-recorded OnDemand sessions. You get to view/listen to them anytime you want. You can fast forward through the bits you're not interested in or even leave a talk without distracting anyone. You can also pause them to give you a chance to take some notes or look up something to enhance your understanding.

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