Nick Falk

Having experimented with a couple of VLEs, this does seem to be the one students actually like to use.

If it encourages collaborative learning and motivates students - great.

A European internet team has developed a new resource for science education.

The team from Xplora, the European science education gateway, has developed a DVD - Xplora Knoppix - based on the Linux Debian distribution and completely contained on a self-booting DVD.

The Knoppix version is especially mastered for Xplora and contains software applications focused on science education, as well as a number of educational materials from the Xplora repository.

As it is open source software it can be given away freely and be copied as well. The Xplora Knoppix release has a multilingual support in English, French, and German.

More details here

This weekend will see maths and science teachers meeting in Prague to explore ways that ICT can be used as a tool for collaborative learning across Europe. This is one of a series of workshops to support the eTwinning project.

A new community for chemistry teachers has been created on the xlpora science portal.

This may be a useful supplement to this forum. Members can upload and share resources and conduct live chats.

Xplora is the new EU funded Science Portal.

Xplora is the European gateway to science education. It is aimed at teachers, pupils, scientists, science communicators and science educators.

Soon to be featured will be a series of chats with top experts in science and science education.

First chat – climate change

The first chat is scheduled for Monday 20 June 2005. The topic is "Climate change", to tie in to the Green Week being organised by the European Commission's DG Environment.

The chat will be led by Mr. Mika Vanhanen, leader of the ENO-Environment Online, a global web school for environmental awareness. In ENO, four environmental themes are studied within a school year - social, natural, cultural environment, and sustainable living - on a weekly basis. ENO is a strong and active network of schools, running since 2000 and it is administrated by the city of Joensuu, Finland. Mr. Mika Vanhanen will answer all questions from students and teachers about the topic of climate change in English language.

www.xplora.org

Can anyone produce a translation of this?

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Babel Fish translation

The 11 of April (instituído as day of the scientific investigator) we will be entertained by our scientific trajectory, Professor Samuel Finkielman and suscripto, in the hall the Council of the Faculty of Medicine of UBA. Simultaneously, the CONICET, that integral like Contracted Superior Investigator, has denied a scholarship holder to me, with little the subtle argument that I, his Director, do not fulfill the requirements to be Director. That is added to parallel attitudes with other investigators who have shown dissidences with the policy of the Conicet of the last years: to exclude from subsidies, promotions, scholarships and collaborator to the critical of its management. They do not fulfill its own regulations, that contemplate conflicts of interests, inasmuch as in the resolution denegatoria is not excluded that has been judged by suscripto, allowing with it the reprobable regime of retaliation. It does not matter to them that suscripto is one of both Argentine mentioned residents more in international scientific Literature, neither the National Prize of Sciences, that was granted to me in 1999, nor which has received the prizes of the National Academy of Sciences, of the Scientific Society Argentina, of the Guggenheim Foundation, of the Greenberg Foundation, and of many others that it consists to them by my curriculum. There is a policy of established exclusion, that follows effective. The menemistas policies, analyzed by your journalist Andrea Ferrari, are alive and funcionantes in scientific areas.

Can anyone produce a translation of this?

Girls / women are consistently at the top of my classes, too, and the 'only thing' they need for that is a different kind of explanation all the way through.

Chemistry in my school has been fortunate in having equal proportions of boys and girls post 16 and performance in examinations have not been dominated by one sex. I agree that styles of learning are different and this requires a different approach but is this difference due to genetic differences?

We are aware that students learn in different ways. Is it an artificial divide to suggest that these different learning styles are sex based?

I have registered.

Toby

ActiveScience is now an impressive looking site.

Forums in school can be a problem. I have started two - both after functioning for a few weeks were blocked by the web filter.

I also tried to access your forum from home but had problems therefore could not leave a message.

Keep trying.

John writes:

"Although I did attend one meeting in Sweden where the organizers tried to insist we all had a mixed sauna. Nick Falk and myself, being typical Englishmen, declined the offer."

I had heard that Vikings had big 'choppers'

I am a bit late to this discussion having just rebuilt my PC. Although the Virtual School had as many weaknesses as strengths, I feel that those involved can reflect on the experience as one that has enhanced their own peronal and professional development.

It probably is time to move on and explore and create new opportunities for collaborative learning.

As a member of the VS chemistry department I have spent much of the past few months looking at ways that the individual science departments of the VS can work together. Comenius?

I should be teaching my Y13 ICT class but while looking for resources for collaborative learning I have stumbled on this impressive looking site.

http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/educ/cu...m/launcher.html

Is there room for this in the curriculum? - I hope so.

I would very much like to work in Richard's school in Toulouse - or one similar - where ICT is embedded in the curriculum, where I don't have to book the facilities a week next thursday! Until that is the case then it will always be difficult to use the full power of ICT effectively in lessons. I would also like pupils to be properly computer literate, so I could spend lesson time teaching history using ICT not teaching ICT! I would also like to see an intelligent search engine. They can develop intelligent 'anti-spam' programs - the more I use it the more it successfully filters out the rubbish in my emails. Why can't my search engine work in the same way and filter out the useless websites from my searches?

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There a lot of valid pionts being made here but the one about intelligent search engines is the one that started me thinkng about the thought processes being replicated electronically.

An attempt at this can be found www.webbrain.com

WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through long lists of text. The search engine lets you browse the Web and discover what’s out there. WebBrain aims to use the so called TheBrain technology to enable effective use of knowledge on the Web, the corporate intranet, and even your personal computer. There is a download that allows users to explore their own PC in a similar way.

Urgent call for participation

The European Commission and the European Space Agency have decided to

prolong the Earth & Space Week Competition until

January 24 given the high demand of schools that would still like to

participate. More pupils will now be given the

chance to submit their designs of "A Flag for Planet Earth". The flag

should depict both Earth and Space dimensions and

show their views of how Earth Observation and space sciences help to

improve life on planet Earth.

The 3 winning and the 6 finalist designs will be exhibited in Brussels

during the international Earth & Space Week Expo.

?The winners and runners up will have the opportunity to come to

Brussels for the award ceremony of the competition.

During their stay in Brussels, they will attend the official opening of

the Expo and meet European Commission Vice

President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry G. Verheugen,

European Commissioner for Science and Research

Janez Potocnik, European Space Agency Director General Jean-Jacques

Dordain and other senior officials, dignitaries and

astronauts!

A picture of the 3 winning flags will be taken to space with the

European astronauts, autographed and then offered to

the winners. The pupils will also receive a real size flag with their

designs.

Nowadays it is so important to keep an eye on our planet to understand

it and possibly talk about how to protect it, so

why not get your classes to draw the flag of planet Earth, and your

pupils may win a chance to meet high officials, feel

the intensity of the Earth and Space week in Brussels, and have the

great honour to see their drawing turned into an

offical flag.

Go to:

http://www.esw.eun.org/

"The Lab in a Lorry is an interactive mobile physics laboratory staffed by volunteer practising physicists and engineers. Young people do experimental physics in the way it actually happens, while experienced scientists provide guidance when experiments fly off into new arenas. Lab in a Lorry is rolling out in your community because the Institute of Physics and the Schlumberger Foundation have partnered to launch the programme."

An Institute of Physics/Schlumberger project.

The key asset of the Lorry is that it attracts busy physicists and engineers to share their excitement and knowledge with others. It aims to make physics and scientific careers more attractive. The Lorry itself is a metaphor for the freewheeling and unconstrained thought that characterizes scientific creativity. Its vision is to share this approach with others.

This sound great - can it contribute to the continued success of physics in schools

I was taken to a concert in Southampton by my older cousin when about 11 years old.

Highlights

Kinks

Yardbirds

Ronnettes

Cliff Bennet and the Rebel Rousers

Other concerts worth remembering

Van Morrison at the Rainbow in 1974

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band At the Dome in Brighton 1972.

(Got detained by the police after this event on suspicion of robbery with violence - held for a while but released after the sory of wher I had been was checked out). The policeman enquired was Capatin Beefheart anything like the Beach Boys.

To me Chemistry is the only real scientific subject because it is the only one that involves reasoning and logic as opposed to regurgitating facts (biology) or plugging numbers into formulae (physics). This is of course why kids find it difficult - because its one of the few subjects where they really need to use their brains and THINK!

We have the choice of either breaking chemistry down into such bite sized chunks that the students find it palletable, or selling it for what it is - a really interesting challenging subject that you need to work hard at to pass.

Rowena

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Does this mean that chemisty as a subject should only be offerred to the more able students?

Has watering the subject down made it seem trivial and therefore less interesting to the students who could be the future chemistry graduates?

Back in the news again – the demise of chemistry

What are we chemistry teachers doing wrong in schools?

Is it our fault?

Live365.com provide a relatively inexpensive and easy to use service for those wanting to produce their own audio programmes.

This one always goes down well in the teaching the Periodic Table

http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html

The Elements of the Periodic Table song - now with Flash animation

Wasp up the trouser leg.

Teaching a low ability class science – the creature made it to my kneecap before detection.

The jumping, dancing and attempts at squashing the insect through the material before it stung again went unnoticed by the class.

The technician was highly amused.

CASE – cognitive acceleration in science education

It was quite a few years ago that I attended an introductory session on CASE. Two schools in the locality have used the material designed to aid cognitive development for a limited period.

Colleagues in my own department are now keen to integrate the programme into the material being taught at Key Stage 3 claiming that evidence suggests that exam results will improve in science and other curriculum areas.

Have any other schools used CASE?

Is there any evidence for improved performance?

Chemistry teachiing has been the main thrust of my teaching career but over the last few years I have migrated into the world of ICT and I am now my schools ICT Co-ordinator and Head of ICT.

I am a member of the planning team of the EUN Virtual School. The Virtual School is part of the European Schoolnet, and encourages collaboration between European schools and the teachers..

Another role is that of the UK administrator for a multi-lingual chemistry project funded by the EU and an industrial partner. Molecool is an on-line chemistry game which allows students from different countries to compete against each other in their own language.

Other activities:

Advisory role to European Commission for the Environment. http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/youth/index_en.html

Editorial and content advisory for the chemistry section of the Royal Institutes - Science Inside Out website. http://insideout.rigb.org/insideout/

Production of material for publication on the BBC educational web guide. http://www.bbc.co.uk/webguide/schools/

Content provider and freelance consultant for learn.co.uk. Their 'Topical Lessons' project was nominated for a BETT award. I was commissioned to produce the framework on which all lessons are based.

Inspiration Software (Portland, Oregon). Advising on the alterations to software product prior to release on the European market.

Member of the West Sussex Grid+ team.

My own website www.science-active.co.uk has received numerous recommendations including the highest rating from www.schoolzone.co.uk and an excellence award from Topmarks.

I am particularly interested in creativity in the curriculum with ICT and to this end have explored the use of Flash as an educational tool.

It has been featured in articles in the following journals

The Teacher

Chemistry (University of York)

Can We Learn Digitally? Technology to enhance teaching. Published by IDG Global Solutions in association with Apple Computers

HOWEVER in my last 7 years of teaching I'd changed to Salters Advanced Level Chemistry and although the recruitment did not improve dramatically the drop out rate became minimal. They loved the applied nature of the course (except the coursework - VERY demanding, but good for university entrants), the 'weakest' students hung in and 90-95% of all students passed and the biologists appreciated the 'biochemistry aspects' from Aspirin to enzymes to DNA.

I am interested in the improvements attributed to a change of A'level Chemistry course. When I first joined the chemistry department of my school I persuaded the then Head of Chemistry to introduce the Nuffield scheme. Within 12 months we had doubled the number of students taking the A'level Chemistry option. This effect continued for number of years.

Over the last few years the numbers opting have slipped to near those prior to the change of course.

We now have a new Head fo Chemistry who is going to introduce the Salter's scheme to the school. I look forward to the results and the challenge.

Will it be a case of change bringing about new vitality to the department or is the new course significantly better than alternative options?

I am an ICT co-ordinator and Head of Department in a comprehensive school. For the majority of my career I have taught Chemistry. I endeavour to find ways in which ICT can be used to promote learning in Science.