bodmas blog

Pictures taken on film and scanned from 6 by 4 prints on a recent trip to Liverpool.

There is now a Moodle installation running on the bodmas site. I can use the Bodmas Moodle to demostrate the differences between versions 1.53 and 1.42+, as we will be upgrading at College over the summer. It is also useful to have a Moodle that I can hack around to demonstrate specific features for different groups without increasing the workload of my colleagues on the college Web team.

I’m hoping we can get a stable Moodle version 1.6 with the IMS module working fully with the nln materials embedded soonish, i.e. over the summer, but that will depend on the speed of bug testing for 1.6 by the Moodle community.

If you would like a test account for the bodmas Moodle, just let me know by using the contact form. I can’t gurantee anything of course, so best used for demonstration purposes.

“This amazing picture was taken during a recent practical session. It shows the end point of an iodine thiosulphate titration using starch indicator. After standing for some minutes, thermal convection currents in the flask caused the patterns. “

A colleague of mine had an interesting and unexpected addition to a Chemistry lesson – and two of the students were able to use their mobile phone cameras to capture this fleeting phenomena.

We think it is convection cells, the radiators in the lab are situated at the back of the cupboards – and heat comes from grilles at the back of each bench. The round-bottom flask has about 1cm of solution in it, and the precipitate is very fine particles ‘almost a colloid’ according to Dave C. Thanks to Dave C, Helen and Helite for the images.

The image was taken at an angle that makes the conical flask look like a milk bottle!

• Marangoni Bénard Convection Cells and how to demonstrate them
• Another demo with geophysical focus

W H Smith’s are selling audio revsion guides for GCSE Maths. The pack consists of 2 audio format CDs with about 25 short recordings plus a small booklet with diagrams and formulas. I found the speed brisk and the pack is for revision so it is assuming that students need to refresh ideas already covered. One of the GCSE students is now trying the pack out and I will have some feedback soon.

As I have at least one Access Maths student who is going to have to miss the areas lesson, here is an ‘audio lesson’ of my own in the form of a 14 minute MP3 with one sheet of diagrams. This audio lesson is not a revision lesson. I’m assuming that the user has not recently been taught basic area calculations. I have to assume that the students have recently studied perimeters including circles because that is how the Access Maths syllabus we use works. For the same reason, the area of a trapezium is not covered explicitly (that is a shame as the idea of averaging the parallel sides to get an equivalent rectangle usually goes down well – mature students begin to see the connections between topics when they grok the ‘average the two parallel sides’ leads to the (a + b)/2 bit in the formula).

• Download MP3 of the audio lesson [ 4.7 Mb, 48K mp3 sample]
• Download the PDF of the diagram sheet [ essential for use with lesson ]

The script for the audio lesson is copied below the fold of this blog post. I find scripting essential, and I usually need two takes. In this audio lesson, I had to use Audacity for editing out some bloops and misreads (about 4). I decided to splice in the instruction to turn over the diagram sheet before taking the summary test at the end of the lesson. I am still in two minds about the diagram sheet – perhaps I should leave spaces for the students to write in the formulas? Just a way of increasing interactivity?

The first take was made using the built in microphone on the iBook. Some background noise but very usable, and the recording level is high. The second take (the one finally used) was made using a cheap Logitech USB microphone with less background noise and a much lower recording level. The ‘normalise’ filter in Audacity brought the level up without any huge increase in background noise.

I’m linking this file to the Access Maths blog for students to try, and I will point out the BBC learning styles test as a possible indicator of a preference for auditory learning. We shall see…

June 2nd in London: a one day conference about educational blogging in the UK. Is anyone actually going? I can arrange to get there I think (depends on the GCSE Maths exams).

The organisers are asking for expressions of interest by e-mail. Using a URL as the title makes googling a two step process – usability point there I had not thought of!

April 19th :: Looks like places are limited so I’m out because of the GCSE Exams. I look forward to the results of the event in early June.

• Inspiration now does Buzan style mind maps in addition to the more flexible free symbol maps provided previously
• I’ll be using this program more extensively to produce mind maps for various modules over the next few months
• HTML export much improved but navigation links not styled as yet (i.e. no ‘navigation’ div). I shall be looking to see if the HTML templates can be customised at all (not obvious at present)
• Purchased as a special offer from CTAD
• Download the trial version from Inspiration to see for yourself