Month: September 2010

Don’t blame the free WiFi for your runny nose

Dale 1 Comment

Good news everyone! My school just got Wi-Fi throughout the building. However, I think it’s only a matter of time before someone asks, “what’s all that Wi-Fi going to do to our bodies?”

Some people take the question even farther and claim to have electromagnetic hypersensitivity or EHS. The ‘victims’ of EHS claim to experience all sorts of symptoms from headaches to skin rashes to nausea. However, the connection between the symptoms and the radio waves have been difficult to detect.

…not one of 46 blind and double-blind studies of EHS has identified a credible correlation between the ailments and any radio wave or magnetic field.

Psychiatry researcher James Rubin refers to EHS as a “nocebo effect.” Without evidence, people worry that something new will cause problems and they begin to look for those problems. It’s starting with something to blame and later finding a reason to blame it.

The trouble is that this sort of logic doesn’t require evidence to start pointing fingers in our school. Congested? Blame the new markers. Headache? Maybe its the new volleyballs in gym class.

If we have to blame something that ails us, I say we pick large class sizes. 🙂

Nobody gave Spock a hard time

Dale

Spock was always messing around with his Tricorder when the Enterprise crew explored a new planet but everyone knew that it was a tool that could help the crew learn.

tricorder spock
It would be "illogical" to go without it

Just imagine if Spock’s Vulcan school had restrictions like our cell phone bans when he was growing up.

We’d all be speaking Klingon!

My digital textbook wish list

Dale 1 Comment
"Principles of Physics" from Kinetic Books

One study suggests that tablets, e-readers, online learning, and pricing are leading a shift that will make one out of five textbooks digital by 2014.

My physics students gave up the old paper books in 2008 when we switch to our new “text” from Kinetic Books. I’ve been quite happy with the product. The new system still provides students with traditional text but it also includes narrated animations, interactive problems, virtual labs and online assessments. Our digital text provides content in a variety of ways by helping each student learn new physics concepts in a style that works best for the individual student.

Even with their multimedia capabilities, digital textbooks have a lot of room to grow. Here are a few things I’d like to see:

  1. A system that starts with an interview of each student. It finds out what the student’s interests are and generates the book’s content around this profile. If the student plays the saxophone, then his unit on waves will feature music. Another student who likes to fish might see ocean waves as the focus of her waves unit.
  2. Open the books up for socializing. The digital books should allow students to see what other students are saying about the material as they move through a unit. Students vote up what they liked and found interesting. A student could highlight parts of her text and leave comments about that section for her teacher, just her friends or study group, her entire class or all the students in the world using the same digital book. No earthquakes in Wisconsin, that’s okay. Your friends in California can give you some perspective.
  3. Allow students to add content. Now your text comes with the stock photo of a hailstone along with the other five that were submitted by students.
  4. Collaboration is a must. Imagine laboratory investigations and projects that allow your students to have partners in another part of the world.
  5. Access the digital book anywhere. The worst thing is five digital books that run on five different platforms. I want a digital textbook that wants to be everywhere- much like magazines that have successfully gone digital. You can get content from Wired magazine via your computer, phone, iPad and TV. Textbooks should offer students the same flexibility.