Mo Physics Mo Problems

As we prepare for our 4th EdCamp Elmbrook , I realize how every year it seems like the number of first time EdCampers continues to grow.  I love this because I feel that EdCamps are an amazing source of PD. But, that puts greater responsibility on those of us that are EdCamp veterans to help model what a great EdCamp can be.  EdCamp Elmbrook is March 7th in Brookfield Wisconsin at Brookfield Central High School. We'd love to have you there.  Click here if you'd like to register. I will always remember sitting in my first EdCamp opening session in 2013 and having no clue what I was in for. So, I’d like to take this space to go over some of the basic rules of EdCamp. No One Will Pitch It for You EdCamps are unconferences. By this I mean that they have a blank slate of sessions for the day. There may be a few predetermined sessions, but ultimately the session topics are determined by attendees during the pitch & plan session that opens they day. If an idea ge...

I’ve finished my 9th cycle of Google Site Portfolios with my Physics students. There have been major iterations, for example when the new Google Sites came along. There have also been smaller iterations as some practices in my classroom have changed. Before starting a new batch of portfolios with my students (I have one major change I am making), I wanted to just give an overview of the structure for those interested in using Google Sites for portfolios in their classroom. I've included screenshots of student portfolios. Click on the images to access the student portfolios. End at the Start, the Home Page The home page of the portfolio is not something we do until the very last days of class once the portfolio is complete. In the past I’ve had students write a brief welcome note to the portfolio. As a part of my master’s coursework, I was required to make a portfolio. On the home page of that portfolio, I was tasked with creating a short video introducing the portfolio and w...

We help out 7th Passion Project Expo this week. We had a lot of interesting projects but there was a first that I thought was pretty cool. For the past 3 years, I have had a few students build VR spaces to present their projects using CoSpaces. This year though, I had a student decide to use Google’s brand new Tour Creator to create VR experience . Now, Tour Creator may have been created initially with the idea of using landscape images to create a “tour”, but Emily Taylor did something a bit different. She used images and text to create an informative experience exploring theories around interdimensional beings. Her experience is embedded below, but what’s even cooler is if you go to the link: https://poly.google.com/view/a3LxyoasCTj You can export it to the Expeditions App and view it in VR on your own or guide a tour. In this tour, the hotspots are not specifically tied to their location on the background. But I could image this being done with great effect on something like an ...

In August of 2019, Flipgrid launched a bunch of new options to their camera. These include adding text to videos, live drawing, uploading images, editing multiple clips together, camera filters, and whiteboard background. The updates are amazing! If you and the learners in your classroom haven't tried them yet, you need to get on it. Flipgrid has added some updates to the camera since August. So, I've updated my original guide to reflect those changes. Please click here to get access to the guide.  The quick link to the guide is bit.ly/flipgridcamera I have also taken the annotated screenshots and put them into a slide deck if you are interested in training students or staff in how to use the new camera. Please feel free to make a copy of the slide deck and edit to your liking.  I hope you find these resources useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Just today Pear Deck launched a beta integration of Microsoft’s Immersive Reader as a part of student view. This means that students can use the Immersive Reader to increase accessibility to text content present in a Pear Deck Slide. Pear Deck already has the ability for video and audio content playback to be controlled by students when in Student Paced mode. This option allows learners to launch the Immersive Reader regardless of the presentation mode. If you are unfamiliar with Immersive Reader, check out the quick overview video I made below detailing the Immersive Reader Extension for Google Chrome. All of the same features are available in the Pear Deck integration. To launch Immersive Reader from a Pear Deck slide, students simply click on the icon at the bottom right corner of their screen. The Immersive Reader beta integration is currently available for premium accounts. Teachers just need to go to their settings and turn on the integration. I look forward to seeing how teac...

Today a wonderful appsmash was launched between Pear Deck and Gimkit . This integration allows the Flashcards students create in Pear Deck’s Flashcard Factory to be exported into Gimkit for gameplay. If you aren’t familiar with Flashcard Factory, it is an app in which students collaborate to build flashcards which have multiple representations of terms and concepts. So, how does it work? The first step is for the teacher to build a list of vocabulary terms or concepts. This is done by going to the Pear Deck Launchpad and selecting Start a Vocabulary List. From here, teachers build a list of terms or concepts. If the teacher wants, the can add a definition on their own or use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Integration to find one.The list autosaves to the creator’s Google Drive. Once the list is done, the creator can launch Flashcard Factory or come back to it later to launch Flashcard Factory. Once Flashcard Factory is launched, the projector will direct students towards joinpd.com ...

Last year we took a big risk in our physics classroom and decided to take on a huge project in which students fabricated chariots for Spheros. The project incorporates science and engineering standards as a part of the process and the project required students to have a chariot which had a piece that was fabricated using a 3D printer and one piece that was laser cut. Last year students collaborated on their designs with a Project Lead the Way engineering class so they weren’t required to build the 3D digital models that would be printed. This year, we didn’t partner with an engineering class and groups had to do all the work on their own from design through fabrication. Now that this 10 day project is finished, I am able to look back on the successes and challenges of the project in hopes of building on it when I have a new group of physics students in 3 months. Here’s the overall scheduling of the project.  On days 4-6, groups rotated through the print and cut process. Tho...