If you can’t attend a conference, fire up twitter!

I recently leveraged the power of twitter to attend a conference vicariously through some of its attendees.

An organization called the Western Regional Computer Advisory Committee held a conference in London, ON yesterday.  To my chagrin, I was not able to attend.  One of my colleagues, Doug Peterson was the main organizer.  Visit his blog, he has, as of the writing of this blog post, two (1 and 2) interesting posts about his experience at this conference as its organizer.

Knowing that Doug is one of the most connected people I know (he was my inspiration to start my journey into the world of web 2.o applications), I was pretty sure that he, and his attendees, would be using twitter [among other technologies] during the conference.

I know, I’ve spoken about Twitter many times before.  What I haven’t said about it before is how it is often used at conferences by its attendees.  Now that being connected to the net is so easy just about anywhere you are, conference attendees are staying connected during the sessions that they visit.  They will often ‘talk’ about the sessions they are attending using a variety of web 2.0 applications, Twitter being a common choice.  Talking like this is often called using a ‘backchannel’.

So, how do you find the ‘tweets’ of people that are attending a particular conference? In my particular case, I follow about 290 different people (twitter has several million users to date).  Since I follow many local educators, likely there are a few that are attending the conference.  How do I find the others?

Doug made it easy.  He knew in advance that many of his attendees would be using Twitter.  He used a twitter technique that more and more conference organizers are using.  He encouraged his attendees to add an identifying mark to their tweets called a hashtag, in particular, “#rcac09″.

This makes it easy to find tweets from those attending the conference, I simply search for tweets that have ‘#rcac09′ in them.

I use a webservice called tweetgrid to search all twitter tweets for particular content.  (There are dozens of websites and clients that you can use to interact with the twitter service.  I use a client called tweetdeck [instead of twitter's own webpage] to follow the tweets of the people I follow.)  Here is a screen shot of a search for ‘#rcac09′ that I did yesterday using tweetgrid:

Following these tweets had two direct benefits for me: 1) I was able to follow along with some of the presentations and workshops of the conference through what the attendees were tweeting about. 2) I found many other fantastic educators to follow using twitter by reading tweets from those I hadn’t been following before.

So, the next time you can’t attend a conference, fire up twitter!  I know I will be doing so again in the future!

Been away, but I’m back

I’ve been away for some time from this blog (you may have noticed if you looked into the history of my posts, a few months of ‘dead air’).

The reasons are personal and medical, and I tend to stay away from those topics in this blog; however, I did want to say something about my absence.

I haven’t abandoned my blog, just ‘forced’ to take a hiatus.

But I’m back, and I hope to be back for some time.

A great Organic Chemistry Nomenclature activity

Okay, so I know this is not the most riveting topic for an educational blog, but organic chemistry is what I studied and what I’m passionate about teaching.  I’m always looking for ways to make this subject more interesting for my grade 12 students.   I think I hit the nail on the head with this one.

***** Warning: Organic Chemistry Content! *****

For the chemistry teacher who may be reading this:

I’ve taught my students how to name alkanes, alkenes and alkynes, as well as their cyclo derivatives.  They can name chains and groups up to 12 carbons long.

Here’s the setup: I have the students group themselves into threes or fours.  They are to come up with a challenging organic structure that is nameable using the naming rules they have been taught to date.  As a group, they must also name their own molecule, making sure that everyone in the group agrees with the name they have chosen (this is to help minimize mistakes in names, as the rules can get fairly complex). The next day, they will be paired up with another group.  They will try and name the molecule that the other group gives them.  The group that successfully names their molecule first wins a food prize.

I was amazed at how much they actually became involved in this activity.  Once they started drawing their molecule, you could see in their interactions that they were excitedly trying to make it as complex as possible (knowing that it was going to be a fun competition).  Some groups were even sending out ’spies’ to see what the other groups were doing so that they could make sure their molecule was the most complex in the class.

It was so much fun for me to watch as well.  It allowed me to step aside from the traditional lecture-style teacher to an observer and ‘walking reference manual’ to answer questions and to help verify that their structures were actually nameable (it’s fairly easy to generate a structure that goes beyond the naming rules that they are taught).  I would even ‘egg’ them on from time to time, saying this like “I think that other group’s structure is more complex than yours…”.  It was great fun.

Here are a few examples of the structures that they came up with (they were more ‘torturous’ than I would ever think to give them!)

I will definitely have to find ways of incorporating this type of activities in other areas of the chemistry courses that I teach!

Back for another year

I know it’s been awhile since my last post.  My family has been having the time of our lives this past summer with all sorts of activities.  Now that school has started, I’ll be coming back here much more often.

This is my 19th year teaching, and I’ve had another great start.  I’m teaching exactly what I love to teach (grade 11 and grade 12 chemistry), I don’t seem to have any obviously serious discipline problems, the students seem to be getting used to my style fairly quickly and the staff that I work with is still top notch.

Although last year was a very good year, I felt that I had stretched myself a bit too thin with extra curricular activities.  It has caused me to rethink how I conduct my life at school and at home so that I have more time at home and for myself.

As a result, I have set a few new long term goals:

A) Streamline my involvement in extracurricular activities to those that mean the most to me.  As a result, I’ve dropped about 4 or 5 from my list (when I wrote them all down on paper, I found myself thinking “how did I find time to do all this??”).  In this particular year, the ones that I chose to keep are: (1) Student blood drives; (2) Chaperone the trip to France this coming March 2010; (3) Our School’s Forth Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life.  (This one is my favourite, and the activity I am most passionate about [and it doesn't hurt that I have _the_ most awesome partner, and one of my best friends, to work with to plan and execute this monumental event].  If all goes well, we should pass the $100,000 mark for total pledges collected so far!); (4) Participate in my school’s PLC (professional learning community)

B) Include more interesting demonstrations in my chemistry classes and move a little bit further away from some traditional ‘chalk and talk’ lessons.

C) Do more experiments with the students that are just for fun.  I guess I want the students to come to like and appreciate science more than they do now, chemistry in particular (since I’m so passionate about it myself).  I’ve come to realize that it’s not necessary for every experiment to be followed by some written lab report or evaluation instrument.  Science just for the fun of it is important too.

D) Find some ways of incorporating Twitter into my classroom.

E) Expand on the use of a WIKI in my grade 12 chemistry class.

F) Get more of my staff interested in collaborating online with tools such as Twitter, a blog site or a wiki site.  In the process, I hope to get some new ideas for myself.

G) Read more blogs from other teachers to help stretch my mind and get me to think ‘outside of my little box’.

This is my third year participating in my school’s PLC.  This time around, we plan on focusing on increased staff collaboration and using ‘differentiated instruction’ techniques in the classroom.  I’m hoping to make some useful contributions on the ‘collaboration’ part, while the ‘differentiated instruction’ part is still an area of learning for me.

Why I like PBWORKS so much for my wiki space

PBWORK.COM,  the web service I use to host (and pay for a premium account) my course wiki, is running a summer camp to help teach teachers how to use the service to host an educational wiki.  I’ve been invited to act as one of the camp counselors to help the new users along with their homework assignments.  It makes me feel good to know that at least someone else feels I’ve done a good enough job to help others.

The wiki that has been set up for the campers is jammed packed with activities and lessons to help teach new users how to use the many great features this service has to offer.  However, this is not the only benefit that the campers will receive.  All of the camp counselors are also educators.  They will be providing examples of how to use a wiki effectively in the classroom.

I am not familiar with any of the other websites that provide wiki creation and hosting services.  I imagine that they must have similar activities for their new users.  The one that PBWORKS has created I feel is top notch.  I learned a lot of the things I do with the wiki by trial error over the year.  The new users this summer will be guided through this learning process by dozens of enthusiastic teachers that want nothing more than to show how useful wikis can be in a classroom.  I will be one of them, jumping up and down, yelling about how cool wikis are.

I know I’ve said this before, but if you are considering playing around with wikis this summer, I encourage you to definitely do so!  Although you can’t actively participate in the camp this summer (it’s already full), you can still visit the wiki site and see what all of the lessons are and learn on your own.  I believe you will find it to be well worth it!

A new teaching approach – Vodcasting

I saw a very interesting new video about a new teaching approach being used by some school.  It is called Vodcasting, which stands for Video on Demand Casting.  It really got me thinking about what I do in the classroom and how I can change some things up.  You can view the news video here.
Basically it involves a teacher recording a lecture-style lesson on video.  Often, it will include some interactive content to help supplement the lesson.  The students are then to watch the video as a homework assignment, taking notes as they usually would during a traditional lesson in the classroom.  (The teacher can then check their notes as a way of verify if they actually did the homework.)  The next in-class day will be spent on doing specific questions related to the new lesson.  The teacher is then free to move around the classroom, offering help and encouragement where necessary.
This approach turns the traditional ‘in-class lesson and take home questions’ upside down.  The teacher becomes more of a resource to the students.
I’ve presented this idea to some of my grade 12 chemistry students, and the reaction was what I expected: some thought the idea was innovative, while others did not like it at all.  Those that did not like this approach said that it prevents them from asking questions during a lesson to clarify points as they are presented.  Those that liked the approach said that it allows them to ask questions of the teacher while they are doing homework assignments in-class rather than at home.
I would like to try something like this with some of my lessons next year. Since I teach multiple sections of a chemistry class, I might even consider doing so with one section and using a more traditional approach with another section, then comparing results.
If you have any thoughts on this idea, or some experience with it, I’d love to hear from you.  Simply comment on this post, I would be most appreciative of your efforts!

The power of Twitter for a teacher

I just had a “Twitter is Awesome” moment today.

I’ve spoken about it before, but now I have proof how well it works as a Professional Learning Network (PLN). (I use Twitter to primarily connect with other educators all over the world and have learned tons of ideas from them.)

As a chemistry teacher, I tried an outside demonstration of the Thermite Reaction.  The chemicals that were meant to initiate the reaction did not work.  I was able to improvise and get the initiation reaction to work in another way. However, I was completely surprised that the first set of chemicals did not work.

I posted this as a question on Twitter directed to one of my favourite chemistry contacts.  I received this reply within 10 minutes!

I think that Twitter is one of the most innovative and easy to use web 2.0 applications for teachers to develop their professional learning networks.  If you have ever thought about giving Twitter a try, I hope that this example will help convince you to invest a little time in setting up your PLN through Twitter.  I’m convinced you won’t be disappointed!

Time for some Science Puns…

Have you heard the one about a chemist who was reading a book about helium and just couldn’t put it down?  –It was probably just light reading–

“This old pipe is rusty”, said Tom, ironically.

What to do if you are a dark cloud: uranium.

When someone leaves: they argon.

Essential element of politicians: tungsten.

Ratio of an igloo’s circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi

2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton

1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope

Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 bananosecond

365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer = 1 lite year

Half of a large intestine = 1 semicolon

1000 aches = 1 kilohurtz

Basic unit of laryngitis = 1 hoarsepower

Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line

453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake

1 million microphones = 1 phone

1 trillion microphones = 1 megaphone

1 million bicycles = 2 megacycles

2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds

10 cards = 1 decacards

1 kilogram of falling figs =1 Fig Newton

1000 cubic centimeters of wet socks = 1 literhosen

2 monograms = 1 diagram

8 nickels = 2 paradigms

Great Wiki research projects!

My grade 12 chemistry students have completed their research projects through the use of a wiki.

I was very pleased with the results!  (Check them out here.) Most of the students also enjoyed the process of using a wiki to prepare their research reports, rather than a written report followed by a class presentation, usually involving the use of power point.

What I most liked about this was that the work was entirely student driven.  It did require some setup on my part (what class projects don’t!), but once things were going, it was really fun for me to monitor their progress (something that can’t be easily done when they are working on traditional ‘paper’ research reports).

The wiki service that I use, PBWiki, allows me to have complete control over who has read/write/edit rights to any page or group of pages on the wiki.  It also allows me to clearly see who has logged on when and what edits or formatting changes they have done.  This helps me track the contributions of all the group members, ensuring that everyone does their fair share.

If you have ever considered using a wiki in your classroom, I would highly recommend it!

First Experience with Secondary Sports

I had my very first experience with secondary sports over the last year.  I’ve been acting as assistant coach to the senior badminton team.  Over the last three days, our badminton players have been participating in our city (Windsor, Ontario) tournament.  Coming up in the next few weeks are local, regional and provincial tournaments.

The current badminton coach asked if I would help in out with supervising the badminton practices.  Since he is a good friend of mine, and I like what he does with the students, both in and out of class, I agreed.  Little did I know that practices would be every Wednesday and Friday mornings, from 7am to 8:20 am, from early October into late April!  However, this turned out to be a good arrangement as it fit within my normal exercise routine times (this meant I would not have to give up too much family time after school).

I have never been involved in secondary sports before, either as a coach or participant when I was a high school student (way too many years ago).  I did play badminton for fun in graduate school with a few members of the Chemistry department once a week.  I was not athletic by any means in high school, but I do like to stay in shape now (to keep up with my 5 year old son!).

I quickly found out how little I knew about coaching.  However, my friend was very helpful in ‘coaching’ me along, and I have learned quite a bit about coaching a badminton team, what to look for, what kind of drills to run during practice, and most importantly, how to have fun with the kids.   It didn’t hurt that the students attending the practices were all fantastic individuals (you tend to draw only the cream of the crop, as only those students will give up that kind of time at that particular hour of the day on a regular basis).

Today the city tournament (the first of three seeding tournaments that determine which students will attend the all-Ontario championship tournament) ended, and both our junior and senior teams took the team titles for the 8th straight year.  Many of our players also placed within the top three of their divisions!

I learned a lot about the game of badminton and what to watch for to help coach the students in between games.  It was a true ‘immersion’ experience, watching game after game over 8 hour periods.  Many of our more experienced players helped coach the newer members, and I listened in, soaking up as much as I could.  They all knew I was there to learn, but they still came to me for advice from time to time, making me feel very good indeed.

I am very proud to have been part of this experience.  It has taught me that anyone can learn something completely new (even if they are in the second half of their career), if they are committed to immersing themselves into the experience.

I wonder what my next immersive experience will be….