Relativity Cartoon

I had my students create a cartoon about the special theory of relativity. Many decided to use Pixton to develop their cartoon. Check out this example: http://Pixton.com/ic:xr3t9dai

The Beauty of Collaboration and 1 to 1 Computing

Today was an excellent day for technology integration in my physics classes. As part of our unit on relativity, my students were putting together digital presentations over time dilation and other weirdness.

To expedite the process I took my class to the computer lab where each student had access to a computer. I notice two boys working as a group, but on independent presentations. The idea then struck me...They are using Google docs... I bet they can work on the same document simultaneously. After a bit of exploring we found that one student can create a document, share it with the other, and then they can both simultaneously work on the document.

Both boys sat in awe working together on their project on separate computers!

Cardboard

Inspired by the folks at Google I started the year out by offering my students 20% time. The idea is to allow them total autonomy in learning for one class period a week. What I have found is that many students have never had an opportunity to work on a truly open-ended, self directed project. Many of them defaulted to looking at Facebook or some other type of social interaction. Others simply froze and accomplished nothing. 

Seeing that this was going nowhere, and that the students were not embracing this awesome opportunity I  had given them, I decided to add some structure to the project and hopefully help to guide the students to something they were interested in. Again, this didn't work out so well... most just said they did not "get it." 

Thus, it is time to regroup and reconsider 20% time, yet again. This time, I thought I would give them a project with some structure, but within this structure, they will be able to venture out in a variety of directions. The project: A cardboard chair. I will give my students the task of building a cardboard chair and document the process on Blogger. Hopefully, they will rise to the task because I would love to post some awesome project pictures here!

Thinking Differently

Physics and technology are all about thinking differently. Here is a great video that sums up some ideas that I have been trying to communicate to some folks very close to me. Perhaps we should do some dangerous stuff in school!

Funny

I was looking for some good videos for physics and came across this. I'm really surprised I had never seen it before. This is what I'm trying to avoid...

Super Awesome Student Projects

I have been having my students maintain a digital portfolio in graphic organizer format and publish a blog of their lab reports. I must confess, some of my students' blogs make me jealous they do such a good job. Take a look at this portfolio and Student Blog.

Excitement!

I just received a box full of webcams! I'm really excited as this will allow my students to record and upload video directly from their computer for video analysis. No more wasted time moving videos around only to find out they were corrupted in the process.