Nick Falk

Having been a Chemistry teacher for many years I have now immersed myself into the educational ICT world. I am Head of ICT and ICT Co-ordinator in an 11 - 18 comprehensive school in Sussex. I still teach some Chemistry and I am a member of the EUN Virtual School Chemistry Department. My own website Science Active supports the secondary curriculum. In addition I have produce materials and reviews for BBC educational webguide, Learn.co.uk and Royal Institution website - Science Inside Out.

Any reaearch with Paul Black involved is always worth reading.

Still a rebel then Derek

I would like to see this work and I may even purchase a few tunes but as a purist when it come to listening I find more traditional formats superior. For some free listening - Music Active has a new show for those wanting a little sophistication combined with a few old favourites. Keep listening http://www.live365.com/stations/285707

Sackville school in East Grinstead achieved the status of being an ENIS (European Network of Innovative Schools) school earlier this year. Funding has been provided to support collaborative projects with other European schools. The aim is to share and learn about innovative educational activities. To this end Sackville staff spent some of their half term break forging links with two schools in France. The International School of Toulouse is an establishment in which extensively uses networked laptops to support learning. All students are provided with a notebook and all classrooms have multiple network points. Students are encouraged to use the available technology in creative ways with electronic submissions being the norm. The Lycèe de Bagatell in Saint-Gaudens is for students who are undertaking the Baccalaureate programme. Sackville staff met with the school’s headteacher who expressed an enthusiasm for international collaboration between schools. He is particularly keen to welcome Sackville students and staff to his school.

Hi Gil - yes that is the ONE but not forgetting Revolution Will Not Be Televised You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother. There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 or report from 29 districts. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be right back after a message bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live.

I first visited Berlin at the age of 14 years in the 1960’s. My family had just purchased their first ever car, an 850cc Mini. This was used to travel across Northern Germany (West) to the then DDR boarder. An epic trip for the time. Travelling by land across the DDR to West Berlin I remember seemed to be made as difficult as possible. Lots of forms, long queues to collect and then return the forms. My father being questioned as to why he had stayed in England after the Second World War and not returned home to Berlin. What was England like? Stopping in lay-bys to picnic and being watched by black leather clad East German motorcyclists. People working the land by hand gesturing for cigarettes. Being stopped for speeding – West Berliners thought we were luck not to have been arrested for this. We had actually been asked to catch up some US citizens who had left their passports behind. Finally arriving in West Berlin and spending much of the time visiting the Wall and being surprised by the amount of bombing damage that was still visible in the streets. Being viewed by East German guards with binoculars. Seeing my Grandmothers larder stocked with food preparing for the next Berlin blockade.

I agree the clouds of nostalgia distort the reality of the past. We must be living in 'the bottle' The day Reagan was first elected I remember seemed a gloomy day for all. All these years later the view doesn't look much better. Just another 'Winter in America' 'See that black boy over there, runnin' scared his ol' man's in a bottle.'

Feedback from moderators for simulations. None yet I submitted material using Crocadile Chemistry software for a neutralisation investigation last year for the first time. Incidently, I have noticed that the students skills in using the real thing seem better aftera training session on the simulation.

Can we resist being the architects of own destruction? Other species have perished due to catastrophic environmental change. Life goes on………

I hope to help co-ordinate a joint project from the biology, chemistry and physics departments. I will be at the next biology depatment meeting representing chemistry. Hopefully someone from physics will also attend.

Andy - this sounds a good idea. I have suggested to the History department at my school that they encourage the student to interview grandparents and produce a section on the War in East Grinstead. Nick Keep listening!

Maggie I've been too busy having fun (and marking) Here is what I have been up to http://www.wsgfl.org.uk/schools/sackville_...ckville/ICT.htm Incidently the website is still under construction i.e. some blank sections. More developments to come.

As promised in an earlier submission I have created a webpage with embeded recording of recollections of Second World War event. At the moment the sound files are .wav but small enough to work with broadband. They are personal accounts of bombing raids on Southampton. They can be found here http://www.wsgfl.org.uk/schools/sackville_www/Hist/

Oral history As Ben has suggested the best medium is probably sound. I have some of my mother's recollections from the blitz as sound recording on my pocket PC. I will try to convert these to a suitable format for the web and post the URL

Richard Is learning in History different to Chemistry or Physics? I am interested in seeing and how students use forums to explore and build concepts. I want to move the experience on from the forum being just a message board. Students will ask questions but science students being a conservative bunch need encouragement to supply answers. They need to feel confident about the answer. While sharing a forum with students from another school my top set who are studying separate sciences assumed they were less academic. I want them to be willing to take a risk – exposing they conceptual framework to their peers and teachers. The responses from fellow learners have the potential to modify their framework and move them towards greater understanding as well as creating debates. I also, as I have stated elsewhere in this discussion, that a sense of ownership is important. The most used forum is run by the students (I am a moderator).

Rock 'n' roll has been used in blues records to describe lovemaking long before it came to signify a dance beat. By 1948 it was used in a number of songs to suggest lovemaking and dancing: Good Rockin' tonight - Roy Brown Rock All Night Long - Ravens In 1951 Gunther Lee Carr used the term in 'We're Gonna Rock' this time without the sexual implications. From 1954 to 1956 there were Five distictive styles of rock 'n' roll Northern band rock 'n' roll - Bill Hayley New Orleans dance blues Memphis country rock (rockabilly) Chicago rhythm and blues Vocal group rock 'n' roll Although completely independent they became collectively known as rock 'n' roll. All five styles use dance beats based on contemporary black (Negro) dance rhythms. CAN WHITE MEN SING THE BLUES?

Science – fun, interesting, challenging. It would be great if we could science fun, interesting and challenging but science concepts are often involve more of the latter. The three part lesson we are told can start with a fun activity to promote interest and challenge our students. I agree with Adrian that flashy activities that fail to relate to what a student knows are in the most part pointless. If the fun element of an activity detracts from learning then it is probably meaningless! Like Rowena I think chemistry is great and if a student is motivated to ask why something happens then I think I am probably doing my job.

I spent some time working on a project to produce an in online game for chemistry students. Most of this time was spent producing questions and then translating them into most European languages. The result is a professionsal fun game that has the great advantage that students from across Europe can compete against each other live in their own language. The game can be found at http://www.molekult.no/intro.swf A rather large download is required to play but it is worth the trouble

Andrew you as always maintain a positive outlook. In the Radio 4 interview. Harry Kroto seemed a lot less optimistic about the future of chemistry. He did stress the importance of chemistry to the economy and suggested intervention measures to encourage take up of the subject.

Aviation – where next? The next phase of the projects development will be an increase in the number of learning objects and content. I intend to create an interactive feature on the theme of the molecules of flight. Perhaps more important is that we should consider ways of integrating the material form different curriculum areas into common themes were possible. The Virtual School site can host the learning activities with these drawing on the material created. This could be an expected outcome of the next Aviation project meeting. Nick Falk Virtual School Chemistry Department

Co-ordinators meeting – Content management tools workshop Chui introduced the co-ordinators to the new Virtual School website. The opening page will provide not only the gateway to individual departments but will focus on the principle theme for the production of educational material. This year’s theme is the Olympics. Many Virtual School members have in the past expressed the wish to have more direct control over content. To this end the workshop at Fontys – University of Professional Education was an opportunity to learn to use the newly created content management tools. Departmental co-ordinators and department members will now be able to populate their own areas using the online tools. In fact this will be essential as much more responsibility is being devolved to the virtual school members. The tools require some technical knowledge but will need little more than practice for those used to webpage production and FTP usage. The control of page look will still be limited but links to material on external servers will still be possible. Future developments will include the integration of more interactive applications e.g. flash. The use of the tools will probably be a feature of future departmental meetings. The new site should be live at the end of May. While at Fontys we also so some of the work being done on new approaches to classroom practice, include was ITALES (Innovative Teaching And Learning Environments for Schools). Further details can be found at http://www.itales.ltscotland.com/itales_frameset.asp The free authoring tools used to create 3D learning environments look promising especially in the context of the Olympics project. Fontys itself is a specially designed learning environment of minimal physical barriers. The open surrounding support the thematic approach to learning. Laptops and the availability of network points throughout the establishment further supports this approach. A productive weekend with only some frustrations associated with an unexpectedly slow server in Brussels. This should be sorted out soon. Thanks to Anne Gilleran (European Schoolnet), Wim Diddeeren (Fontys University) and Chui Hsia Yong (European Schoolnet). Nick Falk Virtual School Chemistry Department

Professor Harry Kroto, 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry believes that “British Chemistry faces extinction” Is chemistry a dying subject? UK universities are not attracting enough students to study chemistry. Some universities are closing their Chemistry Departments. Chemistry teachers are becoming a dying breed. What is going wrong? Is this just a UK problem?

Hi I stumbled across Live365.com in its early days. At that time the service was free. Now the cost are relatively small for the basic service. This limits the listener numbers and the programme will loop continually. Check the site for the costing of more advanced services including live broadcasting. I have not found any other provider of this service but I am investigating whether the local education authority server could be used to host this type of service. They may need some persuading.

Thanks and much appreciation to Richard who organised the events in Toulouse. We all came away inspired and ready to push the project forward.