video

Hi Speed Video Camera

I’ve studied video as learning tool in science and physics for while, and I’m convinced that digital video can placed at the upper end of useful technologies used in education. I don’t necessarily mean for making screencasts, but using video as an analysis tool. Frank Noschese has shown several examples of using video on his blogs, including these hi-speed videos found on Action-Reaction and Frank’s Posterous post on colliding carts. As well, I wrote a paper on this topic and if you’re a glutten for punishment you can read it here on Scribd.

Physics 12 and Peer Instruction

I have been reflecting on how I taught Physics 12 last year, and I’m not super happy with how much lecturing I did. In the big picture it probably wasn’t too bad and I didn’t give a lot of notes (which is a good thing). I used peer instruction from time to time, and I liked how that turned out. In contrast to this, Physics 11 is much more inquiry based course, which is great.

DimDim example via Screencast

I was checking out some math, physics and standards based grading educational blogs when I came across a screencast of a teacher who used DimDim. Check out the screencast here and see how it went. More info from the lesson is found here. I found the DimDim to be a bit slow paced, but maybe that’s just the nature of the beast when trying to broadcast live video. Dan, the teacher, also lamented that he found formative assessment very difficult.