Physics of Cats

There has to be a lesson in this someplace! Meanwhile I need to keep the link handy.
How do cats land on their feet and other marvels.

Imperial Lane in the CBD has great coffee and free WiFi ... ANZAC weekend done and dusted, I can start plowing through the 1st assignment.

This is a unit plan - I could just write one from scratch but it may work out more efficient to annotate one someone else did. Hunting resources:

PamHook has a bunch of SOLO resources from all over. Looks like commercially sourced materials.

There is always stuff like: Info.com agregating overseas lesson plans to pour over.

I kinda like the idea of a practical unit like the egg drop lessons - the link goes to a 3-lesson plan for US students. May be a bit short - but can be extended to multiple trials to refine the designs. I was sketching out one of these in class as the assignment was being explained.

Weekend...

Going over the materials from the last week and making hand-written notes for the 1st assignment. Bioclock woke me up at 6:20am...

TER: Day 5 Reflections

Last F2F Day at Epsom;
Activity: Bus stop ... getting kids to draw on each other's posters still feels like something for the more disciplined or I risk a cock-n-balls on everything, or tagging. Found:

... maybe year 10+ or where more than one teacher is available or when I can film the students.
The TKI lesson plans look like that to me.
http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Media/Files/Module-6a-Workshop-activity-15-GEPRISP-Bus-Stop-Activity
... "divide the teachers so there is at least one per bus stop".

Mini-Simon make things go boom!

What I used to get up to in High School ... I think this was 1984.
This was pretty much on the edge then and probably illegal now. I didn't get any assessment credit either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x0CoyeFbrXE

TER Day 4: Reflections

I am slammed. Outside life keeps demanding attention ... I have to get this sorted before practicum starts and deal to the first assignments, which I have yet to work on outside class.

Lots of time setting up IT systems - interacting with IT help staff was interesting exercize in communication... they know about the servers and the network setup, but not gnu/linux. Considering digital divide issues in many schools, and the use of free/open source in addressing this, it seems surprising but still... once tech support understood that expertise could be shared, we were able to collaborate to something of a solution. I'd like to do this faster but without scaring people so much.

It's been a while since I looked at the software re learning. I know a couple of strong MS advicates are in class ... I heard that a basic licence for windows and the basic tools for students (word, excell etc) comes to about $400 ... to be paid periodically in most cases (unless they have access via work).
Since many schools don't seem to directly pay for their IT this could be a hidden impact on students later.

However, commercial products should be seen as the alternative to free/libre offerings ... and many schools around Aotearoa/NZ (practise official language) are seeing things that way...
http://www.catalyst.net.nz/news/new-zealand-open-source-software-now-used-1000-nz-schools-myportfolio

TER day 3 reflections

Inquiry approach applied to teaching... most people followed something like this.
I feel this sort of thing is a strength - after all: it's scientific method with less rigour.
I have a few examples of the others, where they differ, which I'll upload later.