Soda Snake Demo

I started writing this up on my personal area on the TecHKnow wiki. I'd decided to use it as a team training exercise at school and use some of the training theory that I'd picked up both from SLC courses and from one of my tech team who is doing an Ultraversity course in IT and Pedagogy (paperless, totally online and group discussion of work and based on student's work role!)

At our first session, I handed out the Science Museum instructions and all six of us had a go. Mine was a rip roaring success if I say so myself (the photo on the TecHKnow wiki) whilst the others resulted in one burnt Yorkshire pudding, 3 black sea anemones and one no go. Perfect introduction to the Kolb's cycle (nothing to do with biochemistry!) which is about having an experience, reflecting upon that experience, formalising what you've learnt from the experience and deciding how to incorporate what you have learnt into the next experience. Sounds like daft common sense, doesn't it? But there's a whole lot of useful thinking that goes with it. As school science technicians, we are so very busy, that we often don't have time to raise our heads up and see the obvious, or how important having time for reflection is, especially reflection that involves your colleagues.

Anyhow, over two more sessions, we discussed what the factors were in getting a successful result and what was the purpose and usefulness of this particular experiment as a demo, and what were all the factors that made any experiment suitable as a class demo. The most important (after safety of course) was that it consistently worked. Soda snake experiments were made using damp sand, fine sand, coarse sand, different amounts of sand, soil, enlarging the containing hole, different alcohols, etc, etc. At the end of the third session we thought we had cracked it - identified the ingredients for 100% success, as well as enjoyed and appreciated the joys of collegiate work-based learning. Cameras and tripods were booked from ICT so we could each record our success for posterity in the fourth and final glorious session.

AND not one of them b..... well worked!

AND that's why I've disappointed TecHKnow's expectation of a soda snake wiki entry.



On a more positive note, all our team now knows how to use the cameras and tripods and theif limitations, which will be useful in the future.

AND this evening, I tried again at home and it worked superbly. I THINK I know why. If it works at school on Monday (INSET day), TecHKnow will be getting my Wiki contribution at long last! See for yourself.

How many practicals did you prepare today?

Up to now we've just used scrap paper torn in half or post-its to label our prepared pracs or not labelled them at all in some cases...! However, I've been impressed how my fellow lead techs can confidently quote exactly how many pracs their team had prepared and produce a set of statistics as well as use CLEAPSS L228 to make a case for technician hours. That is a little difficult to do where the work requests and pracs are prepared independently in 4 different prep rooms by 6 techs. Encouraged by our trainee tech, for whom the info is invaluable, we've come up with this cover sheet ( Version 2) just before the Easter break. Already I've had feedback from several teaching colleagues who think it's the bees knees. At the end of each day or so, the sheets are passed to me to collate and to extract info for the pracs we do in a spreadsheet, annotated for unusual events such as assessed practical exams. Some of the more involved ones we may photocopy and place with the SoW Technician notes to save time. Hopefully we'll have sorted out the most efficient method for prac preparation and monitoring before the busy autumn term when we will be going over to a two week timetable with no single lessons and 2 changeovers with no changeover time!

Back at the Blog

Well, here we are, almost a year since my last post. I'm still on a steep and time consuming learning curve what with forums, websites, wiki's, You Tube etc, etc... but I'm going to have another go with this!

Google maps has come up recently on the Techknow website, the expanded coverage of Street Views and now the 3D button - hence the glasses!

I want to know more about creating on line maps with data imposed on them by using data sensors and GPS devices that is possible for students to use in science. The SEPS link http://www.sep.org.uk/teacher/was recently posted on Techknow and I am now enrolled (took 5 days to get the email) and have access to a downloadable booklet called ' ICT in practical science: new approaches to data collection and and analysis'. It's impossible to read a 58 page document on a screen so I'll wait until after the Easter break to see if someone at work has it. MUTR http://www.mutr.co.uk/ do but it's £6.

NOW I know that Google maps is not the same as Google Earth. I'd already spent some time playing with 'My Maps' in Google Maps, setting up an unlisted map marked with all the places that we had visited with my mother-in-law - with dates and info on what we did - (no, we didn't bury her in bits!) over the Easter weekend. How to insert photos is still a mystery though. Actually, that map will be useful for future visits by her and friends but it doesn't help with my original mission. AND although I've downloaded Google Earth 5 successfully it doesn't work, computer says 'program not responding'. Humpf...!