Data sharing

I have been looking for a way to gather and share data about the use of electricity. The purpose is to provide a data set for classes studying electrical energy to use, either for interpreting and graphing activities or for comparing with calculated estimates..

I spent a while going through a few possibilities, including a google site, a blog and a wiki. In the end, the easiest and clearest presentation seems to be just to publish a google doc with the data in. This is simple and clean for me and gives direct and transparent access to the data.

Seems obvious really now that I think about it. Sometimes it seems I try and make things more complicated than they need to be.

Here is the html display for sharing.

I have also been putting some more questions on to Quia. This time I have been adding IBSL Physics questions. I have learned here that thinking through the choice of labels is important. I used some for IGCSE (e.g. mechanics) that overlap with the IB ones so that they can get mixed up in quizzes. I have now started using labels like ‘IBSL_Mechanics”. Overall this seems to be a useful addition to the resources and a good way of leveraging the past paper questions for the students. If I could think of a way of doing paper 2 questions, that would be great.

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This links to a recent PhD thesis that suggests that the cognitive load needs to be high to facilitate long term learning. This means it is important to include misconceptions.

Does the same apply to student created content? Is it valuable to create? Does student created content need to discuss misconception? How about with shared content – like subject review wikis?

Do things like the heart voicethread project have a high enough cognitive load? Could this be extended?

Forums and 1:1

I was searching for a set of solutions to the IGCSE Physics text that we use and came up blank. I thought to see if the CIE forum would provide an answer so I have posted a message. Looking at past posts on this site I am not optimistic. It seems like such professional communities should work, but it doesn’t always seem that they do. The IB one is good, so I wonder what the difference is.

If that doesn’t turn up a result, then I should look at creating this. Hamper’s approach of doing this on paper and scanning it looks like it might work – maybe with evernote. Otherwise a typed wiki might do it, though the time to type answers clearly might be a problem.

A 1:1 working group is going and I am involved with that. I think the group I am in is just some kind of discussion thing, but we will see. It makes me a bit nervous as it looks like a road it is hard to come back from. Sharing of info goes on through GoogleDocs.

Another wiki

I am going to start up a new wiki to support review of the IGCSE Physics syllabus.

PBworks makes this easy to set up and I have made base pages for the sections of the syllabus covered so far. Because we are near the beginning this has been split into 6 sections, so this will require people to work in groups on this task, which is not really easy.

Some criteria for success:

• Things get put up in a small time – not too much time wasted on tech or password issues
• Things put up are good – clearly connected to the syllabus but adding something
• Things get used.

We shall see…

Keeping up to date

An update to summarise recent IT to try to keep this current.

Googledocs: a couple of hiccups with this with some unexplained unavailability issues. So far the restore function has got me through this, but I wish there was another backup.

PBWiki: the advanced physics one resurfaced and got some mileage. It should be now that this starts to pay off as it has gathered together quite a bit of their work. I need to tidy up the front page and also think about a wider audience.

Brainpop: A good thing, but do I overuse it?

Hardware: The computer I use showed signs of cracking recently with startup and kernel panic problems. This prompted a backup, which is always a good thing. It seems stable now.

Google docs

I have transferred all the whiteboard stuff to google docs and it is seeming reliable enough. I am not using any of the sharing yet really. I think I would like to be confident with content first.

I put OMP questions up to, which seems handy.

A concern about this is that it is possible that I can spend too much time talking through the computer or adjusting documents instead of interacting with the students. I should review this

The advanced physics wiki continues to fill up. Finishing entries can be an issue here and students would sometimes benefit from some guidance – something to think about. Also – publication to a wider audience?

Pros: gets some more feedback and fact checking, gets a sense of pride for work done, gets more input, takes peer review to a new level

Cons: feedback needs monitoring for abuse, some parts are incomplete so looks a bit poor, may spend too much time on this in comparison with the learning

Conclusion?

Advanced physics wiki

Today I will try and get some more use out of the wiki that various IB classes have contributed to about IB physics.

PB Wiki is easy to use for me to set up and administer, which is nice. There is starting to get  to be a lot of information on this site – it may need to have some things removed. (note, should check storage limits)

From previous use I think the important thing is iteration. The page should be made, then checked, then improved.

I think the criteria for success would be if students were to independently use this as a resource. I am not sure how to check this. People are starting to see other people’s material. I am not sure if this is a positive or not and should look for signs