Paul's+space

Assignment one presentation on Qualitative Chemistry for Year 12s:

As I mentioned I would try do here are the two parts to the London School of Economic's Lecture by Dr Hasok Chang about the history of temperature. The first part tells the story and is really interesting. The second part is a wider talk about the history and philosophy of science and is quite good.

media type="file" key="Inventing Temperature Part One.mp3"media type="file" key="Inventing Temperature Part Two.mp3"

Evidently I can't simply put the file up (wiki seems to have an inbuilt player so you can listen to them but not download them). If you want to try download it, it's under April 2007 of LSE's Podcast directory [|here] and called Inventing Temperature (scroll down a little bit). I recommend checking out some of the others. I'm trying to work my way through a few of them but there's so many! I've subscribed to the podcast via iTunes which makes it a bit easier to sort through.

Also here is a sight of some of the world's best and brightest giving talks about their ideas or research [|TED Talks] There are some really cool science ones that would be good in the classroom (not just chem). Again it's useful to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

I downloaded this freeware called ChemSketch. It's a powerful piece of software and makes drawing molecules really really easy and can do so much more. I used it to make these flashcards for naming simple organic molecules and grouping structural isomers (feel free to use, just print back to back, perhaps on A3 if poss as they were a bit small). You can get ChemSketch [|here].

Oh one last thing for now. If you've got some spare time after all the chemistry assignments and work... I heard of this a few months ago which is a cool little "game" where you fold proteins up and it helps out scientists figure out the form and function of proteins they're working with. It's called fold it and you can get it [|here]. Give it a go yourself and perhaps let your students know about it too. Apparently the world's best person at this is only 14! You don't need to know a thing about proteins it's all about playing around.

I'm putting someother links to random loosly science/chem based stuff on [|delicious]. Find me: PFalloon. 11/5 My you have been busy Paul! I will listen to the pod cast when I am next travelling in a Massey car. Yes Chem sketch is good value and worth downloading. The fold it site looks interesting and could be a great extension activity for some students on your next TE perhaps? Must see what else you have on delicious. Kathriona

12 May 2009 Yes, I have found a lot of interesting talks on Ted.com. They cover all types of subjects with many having an overlap of topics, and so make good integrated topics to use occasionally. Some of these would be good extension starters to get students thinking how to apply their knowledge. Graham

28 July 2009 Effective Pedagogy I think this means making good learning and understandings amongst our students. To some extent I think I carry out most of the suggested methods unconsciously. It would be benifitial to study these pages again in a more determined fashion on my next TE. I think the one that will be hard to master is 'providing sufficient opportunities to learn' because time and resources may be out of our control. This might be battle against the system to make gains in this area.