Archive for April, 2008

What would be on Einstein’s Facebook?

April 30th, 2008

Physicsbook ProfileMarch 14th was Albert Einstein’s birthday. I always like to do something Einstein related for the day. In the past, I’ve had students write short reports about his life but this year I decide to try something different.

I had my physics students describe Einstein by creating his Facebook profile. Since we can’t access Facebook at school, I had my students create a mock-up of the profile using Microsoft Publisher. I provide the students with a Publisher template, some screenshots of actual Facebook profiles and links to Einstein information to get them started.

I also provide the following requirements:

  • interests, occupations, education and work information must be accurate
  • make up some Groups and Networks that Einstein is in
  • put 10 stories in his mini feed
  • change his status
  • add The Wall and put a few posts on it
  • add two more things to his profile… something he would have in it for fun

Most of my students had fun with the activity and it was a way for them to bring a little bit of their recreational world into the classroom. Here is an example profile.

It turns out that this activity can work for objects too. Right now my ninth graders are creating profiles for the element they’ve been assigned. A few students even realized that their element (a noble gas) can’t have any friends.

Web site blocked? Code your way in.

April 28th, 2008

Tumblr APII love tumblr.com. It’s such an easy-to-use site for sharing things that you find online. So I was disappointed when my school’s web filter started blocking the site.

I can see why our filter has tumblr on its blacklist; tumblr will let you post anything to their site. Students could use tumblr to chat or view inappropriate material.

But we’re not talking about students; we’re talking about me- the teacher.

Our schools roll clips like Did You Know Shift Happens and use terms like flat-world during staff meetings. Yet, they can’t come up with a process to filter teachers that is different from the one they use for students? In one breath it’s, “prepare our students for the 21st century” and in the next breath its, “just don’t do it on a school computer.”

Andy Carvin at PBS’s learning.now put it best when he wrote:

“…for educators who aren’t trusted to use their professional judgment, an important opportunity to teach their students about 21st century citizenship is being squandered.”

However, ranting usually doesn’t get me anywhere (I often feel better though). This time I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Using tumblr’s API and some php scripting I created my own page that can post to tumblr. Since my all the work is done from an approved site, my posts sneak right past the web filter.

I know it’s a small victory but it felt good to gain back some control for a change. (By the way, here is the script if you’d like to use it on your own web site.)

Save paper. Look before you print.

April 23rd, 2008

Today’s Green Fact: The average employee prints 6 wasted pages per day, that’s 1,410 wasted pages per year! [learn more]

I think a lot of that wasted paper comes from people printing pages off the Internet.

Below is a quick video with some page saving tips when printing with Internet Explorer.


Don’t wait. Change your light bulbs.

April 22nd, 2008

I’m a compact florescent light bulb.Here’s a green fact: a 26 Watt compact florescent light (CFL) is as bright as a 100 Watt incandescent bulb and only uses a quarter of the energy. To top that off—the CFL can last 7-10 years longer.

That’s money in the bank. Why wouldn’t you buy the CFL?

Some people are concerned about the mercury in florescent bulbs. It’s a legitimate concern; mercury is a toxin. However, the mercury is manageable. If you break a CFL, get out of house and let it air out for fifteen minutes. When the bulbs burn out, they need to be recycled—don’t throw them in the trash.

The folks at LighterFootsteps.com share five ways to recycle a CFL. They suggest Earth911.org as a place to lookup recycling centers in your area. However, I found more success by calling my county’s local waste and recycling center.

Finally, in case you need a celebrity endorsement to change your bulbs, here’s an interview with Bill Nye that Brian Bartel and I did for the National Science Teachers Association. (He talks about CFLs 16 minutes and 10 seconds into the show.)

This website is going green!

April 21st, 2008

PC Magazine Green CoverageLast month PC Magazine had a Green Issue that featured all things green in the technology world. So in the spirit of Earth Day this website is going green for the week.

To start things off I’d like to point you to PC Magazine’s Green Coverage. Here you will learn about:

Kudos to PC Magazine for its Green Coverage. They’ve put together some great resources that I think are perfect for consumers and work well in the classroom too.

For example, I put their 48 green facts into a slideshow for students to watch as they shuffle into class on Earth Day. Below is the slideshow or you can download the PowerPoint version to use in your own class.


Happy Earth Day!

Don’t turn off the Earth Day shows

April 18th, 2008

With Earth Day just around the corner, several television stations are serving up informative and conservation-friendly programs. Unfortunately, next week is also Turnoff TV Week. (I’ve ranted about this before; I’m not a fan of the cause.)

Find Earth Day Related TV

It appears that the folks at the TV-Turnoff Network have broadened their focus since last year. They’re now calling themselves the Center for Screen-Time Awareness (CSTA). This seems like a step in the right direction but did they have to run Turnoff TV Week at the same time as Earth Day? I suppose that turning off the TV will save energy but you might miss some great learning opportunities too.

So, in the spirit of “screen-time awareness” I like to suggest TV Guide’s website as a way to start “taking control of the electronic media.” TV Guide’s website has an excellent TV Listings page that allows you to customize the view and show only the channels that you want to watch with your children.

Find an Earth Day program that is just right for you. Perhaps PBS or The Science Channel might be a good place to start.

Edit Your DVD Movies for the Classroom

April 17th, 2008

Trim DVDsWhen I was a freshman in high school my English teacher (yeah, it was still called English back then) decided to show us a movie version of Romeo and Juliet. However, the movie had one nude scene that my teacher tried to fast-forward through. But, just as you might suspect, her finger on the controls slipped and the whole class got to see a side of Romeo that we did not expect.

Today we can avoid problems like this by ripping and editing DVDs. Ripping is the process of copying audio or video content from a CD or DVD to your computer’s hard disk. Once it is on your computer, you can trim and edit the DVD’s content down to something more appropriate and meaningful for the classroom.

As a physics teacher, I’ve done this when I wanted to show several clips from several different movies in one class period. It would be impractical to spin up each DVD (especially the ones that have previews that are almost impossible to get around). Instead, I put all the clips I want on one disc.

To get started, you’ll need to first BUY THE DVD. Seriously, don’t steal movies. If you use it for class, then buy it for class. If you copy DVDs that don’t belong to you, then you’re basically telling your students that it is okay to plagiarize, cheat and steal.

Cut out Ben Stein with DVD ShrinkNext, you’ll need to find software that will rip your DVD. Tekzilla, a technology question and answer show, did a round-up and review of DVD ripping software. (Fast-forward to 7 mins and 29 sec to learn more.) I’ve been using DVD Shrink to rip my DVD’s. Not only does it allow you to copy the DVD to your computer, but DVD Shrink also lets you change the size of the files by recompressing the video or removing the extra audio tracks. It even has the option to trim video clips. So when an actor like Ben Stein does something nutty, you can just cut him out when you make a backup copy of your favorite movie. Ahhhh, now I can watch Ferris Bueller again.

Lastly, you’ll need to burn the new files back to DVD. For this you’ll need a computer that has a DVD burner. Of course, you could also put your clips on a USB flash drive and just play them with something like VLC Media Player.

Happy ripping!