Recently, students at my school created clay tiles to make this mosaic, which is hanging in the foyer between the second and third floor hallways.

Mosaic

In the upper right hand corner, I smiled to see this tile:

Elements Periodic

After being frustrated with my students not being able to see all of my demonstrations, I decided to make a demo cam with some of my electronic junk.

The demo cam is simply an old Sony Handicam Digital 8 camcorder mounted on an inexpensive Videosecu Universal Camera Mounting Bracket.

The camera has an adapter that splits into an RCA video/mono audio cable, which I can easily plug into my classroom television.  Switching the input on the TV is a piece of cake, and using the TV doesn’t interfere with the interactive whiteboard.

Here are some of the benefits:

1.  I can project demos onto the television above, so the entire class can see every bit of the demonstration.

2.  The zoom function is quite impressive; I can easily zoom in on discreet parts of the demonstration not easily seen – even by the person doing the demo.  This is made even easier with the use of the remote control.

3.  Safety.  The demo cam allows me to show demos without the need for the students to come anywhere near it; it also is far enough away from the demo so the camera is not damaged as well.

4.  Because I have to use the record function to keep the image on screen, I can easily capture video of the demonstration.  As there is a firewire output, I can easily capture the video with a connected laptop, and share it online (below see video demonstration of adding sodium to water).

Sodium in Water from Brian Bartel on Vimeo.

5.  I can also capture slow reactions over a long period of time, import them to a computer and speed up the video to a shorter time (see video of copper in silver nitrate solution).

Some of the Drawbacks:

1.  The angle is a little ackward because of the mounting limitations.  It takes a little practice not to walk in front of it, and to make sure that the demo is in the viewing area while zooming.

2.  In order to use the TV as a monitor, I have to use the record function.  This requires me to stand on a stool, and manually rewind the tape every hour (it cannot be done with my remote).

My school district has finally been able to distinguish a teacher from a student, at least in terms of their online access.

We recently received an e-mail explaining that teachers would be able to access previously blocked sites (i.e. YouTube and many blogs) for educational purposes.  In order to get this access, teachers will have to sign a form explaining they understand what “Acceptable Use” and “Educational Purposes” mean.

The district is responding to staff requests for increased access privileges. At this time, the district will provide access to the previously blocked resources of YouTube and external blogging. The district will open additional resources that are identified and approved for educational purposes.

To be clear, Websense (our internet filter) will still be in place.  When teachers come upon a site that is blocked through Websense, they will be able to pass through – offering them a gentle reminder that there is reasonable cause to have the site blocked in the first place.

Under the district’s interpretation of CIPA, students will not be granted this level of access.

Finally, I feel like a professional who can make decisions about what should and shouldn’t be used in the classroom.

At the beginning of each year, I usually receive an onslaught of survey material for my students to fill out.   These surveys are not supplied by the school or district, and usually query students about their backgrounds, interests and future plans.

While some teachers diligently have students complete them immediately, others simply use this material for ‘filler’, administering the survey when they have a few extra minutes in class.  The ones addressed to me take a two-step journey to the recycle bin.

I have always been curious about how these surveys are used, and apparently I am not alone.  In fact, the Educational Research Center of America, Inc (ERCA) recently (October 2008) agreed to change its practices for obtaining and handling personal information it collects from high school student surveys, under an agreement reached with the Attorneys General of 36 states and the District of Columbia.  See press release from Maryland.

Wisconsin is not on this list.

Nonetheless, my policy has been to avoid distributing these surveys for a variety of reasons:

1. Administering a survey to my students is clearly a waste of my precious classroom time.  I can think of a hundred curricularly appropriate things to do with 20 minutes than cater to the wishes of a company masquerading benefits to me and to my students.*
2. This information is a marketing tool, and is sold to interested parties.  I believe it is irresponsible to use taxpayer money to facilitate their business model.
3. I am always weary of surveys that collect student information other than for blind research practices.  As we continually preach to students about protecting their online identities, we should model the same practice in school as well.
4. In this day and age, students have many more options available to them in finding information about their future.  The fact that I don’t need to say the “I” word simply illustrates my point.

*There are a few entities that sell ”educational products” and entice educators with freebies and other benefits in the name of education.  The bottom line is that they are businesses whose fundamental goal is to make money; beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Are you tired of empty rhetoric from the presidential debates that don’t fully address your concerns about education?

On Tuesday, October 21, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm ET, Education Week will be hosting a live debate from Teachers College, Columbia University, between Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Democratic nominee Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to Republican nominee John McCain.

The event is being exclusively webcast by edweek.org with generous support from NASSP.  You must register for the event.  A video archive of the event will be available Wed., Oct 22, at noon.

Usually the during the week of homecoming, my Biophysical Science class is just finishing up a basic chemistry unit on the properties of matter.  To keep the kids focused on science, I make sure to obtain a little dry ice to have my students observe a unique phase change known as sublimation.

We observe:

1. Sublimation of dry ice
2. Density of carbon dioxide (bubbles with hover over more dense carbon dioxide – see video)
3. Carbon Dioxide as a liquid (under pressure) as it exists in a gas cylinder
4. Carbon Dioxide as a liquid (by sealing off a pipette with pliers, students can safely observe carbon dioxide liquefy as the pressure increases – see phase change diagram of carbon dioxide)
5. Rapid sublimation of carbon dioxide in water in a sealed Nalgene bottle (see videos below)

CO2 Expansion 2007 from Brian Bartel on Vimeo.

Note the rapid condensation that appears on the lab table once the pressure is equalized.

CO2 Expansion 2008 from Brian Bartel on Vimeo.

NOTE: this demonstration was done behind a Plexiglas screen when there were no kids in the room.  Below is a picture of the bottle before, after, and a piece that was lodged in the ceiling (of which I am quite proud).

Nalgene Bottle Before

Nalgene Bottle After

Piece Lodged in Ceiling Tile

I should emphasize that this rapid buildup of gas pressure can be very dangerous.  In fact, the rapid vaporization of liquid nitrogen in a sealed plastic container is exactly how I once blew up a sink (see About page).  This is why a safe alternative to a live demo is to take an extreme video for future use.

To help kick off your school year, Starbucks will be giving a free tall coffee to all K-12 educators on Mondays during the month of September.  Simply bring in your teacher ID, and enjoy!  Here’s the announcement from My Starbucks Idea (MSI)

It’s not an apple to welcome teachers back to school, but a cup of coffee.  In recognition of teachers, Starbucks is offering school teachers, grades K-12 a complimentary tall cup of brewed coffee on Mondays during the month of September.  Bring in your teacher identification to any Starbucks.  We appreciate the many ideas you’ve shared on MSI to recognize the wonderful work of teachers.

Thanks for the tip, Derek!

As we start a new school year, I challenge all educators to do more with technology in your classroom.  I wholeheartedly encourage you to use online tools that can increase your productivity, join social networks that can link you to other educators, and generally make the most of the hardware and software that is already available to you.  But I mostly encourage you to do what you do best – teach students how to think critically and analyze, no matter what medium they are using to access information.

We need to realize that newer technologies are simply tools that only change the way we interact with how we already live our lives.  That said, technology should not inherently change what we teach, but only how we teach.

While it is easier to dismiss new technologies that threaten to nudge us out of the ruts that we are comfortable with in teaching, the classroom is much more interesting and satisfying when we discover new paths to the same destination.

We will always have distractions in life and in the classroom.  Newer technologies have only merged a wealth of useful information with every other distraction in life.  The bottom line is that we have to teach how to sift through these distractions to harvest what’s useful.  As I mentioned before, teachers are already good at this; we simply have newer tools.

David Wolman summarizes this idea nicely in his article “When Tech Attacks” (Wired Magazine, September 2008)

“It’s naive to think that the digital age will magically remedy stupidity.  We need better schools, as well as a renowned commitment to reason and scientific rigor so that people can distinguish knowledge from garbage.  The web is not an obstacle in this project.  It’s an unparalleled tool for generating, finding and sharing sound information.  What’s moronic is to assume that it hurts us more than it helps.”

If you follow a lot of tech blogs, you’ll notice how a lot of writers talk about how they are frustrated with e-mail. You might wonder why they are so upset about something that has revolutionized how we communicate in the 21st century.

Clive Thompson from Wired Magazine blames the asymmetric nature of e-mail, in that it is “incredibly easy to send but often devilishly burdensome to receive.”

For example, in one minute I can send an email to a thousand coworkers asking them to review a document. Let’s say each recipient spends five seconds disgustedly discarding it. Boom: In just one minute, I’ve wasted 5,000 seconds — 1 hour, 23 minutes — of my organization’s time. Equally insidious is the growing plague of semi-meaningful emails — friend requests, one-word replies from your boss. Email apps weren’t designed to recognize such idiocies, which is why our inboxes become unruly messes, with important messages pushed offscreen and out of mind.

So as you are getting ready for the upcoming school year, make sure you use your e-mail account appropriately.  It’s so easy to send out a mass message to your school and district, but think aboutthe ramifications – will it be a semi-meaningful message, or will it waste others’ time?

In the latest issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Alter discusses education reform in an article entitled “Obama’s No Brainer on Education.”

While making a few sound points (teachers should focus on student learning over job security, assessment can be effective and beneficial, etc), Alter suggests an oversimplified solution on how to fix education in the U.S. – education should be run like a business.  Furthermore, Alter suggests that Obama adopt this concept in his campaign.

Let’s not kid ourselves – education is not a business.  We cannot comfortably indoctrinate a business model onto our educational system if we believe that all children have a right to learn.  Period.

If we can suggest that education can be run like a business, then why stop there?  Why not run schools like we run the military?  Or like our health care system – oh wait, that’s a bad example.

While outcomes do matter in each scenario (schools, businesses, military, etc), the means in which they are achieved are vastly different.  In the real world, businesses fail and wars are lost.  The engine of competition that drives these entities is in opposition to the fundamental ideals upon which universal education is based.

I still believe that teaching is more than just a job.  It’s a calling.  It’s a belief that there is power in learning.  It’s a hope in our future.  In order to retain these sentiment in thousands of educators, we cannot simply treat a school as warehouse or office space.

When Obama revisits educational reform, it would help him to keep in mind the ideals of public education – and not those of the business world.  Education deserves to be evaluated and reformed in its own light.