Proprietary software rant

2022 April 2 Saturday 09:44

A certain presentation software is ubiquitous, yet the same old inconsistencies occur. Teacher copies presentation created at school X, takes to school Y, tries to play embedded multimedia, without success. Happens repeatedly.

The amgaf monopolists cannot be expected to teach teachers about "agnostic software usage", such as usage of open document formats; teachers themselves appear unaware of and oblivious to any benefits.

Webmention: Embrace interdisciplinary learning for successful science teaching

Reply: Matthew Simpson

Pan-disciplinary teaching (literacy, maths, other subjects) is laudable and useful on occasion for those types of topics where such an approach will improve comprehension.

Two disadvantages are: time consumed; extant education policy (i.e. assessment) does not recognise nor evaluate collaborative learning by students (even though team-work is necessary in industry).

No to the negative sign chemical equation

2022 April 4 Monday 23:27

Not sure when this began, but have noticed with increased disdain the appearance of negative (-) sign, usually in the context of half equations:

					\ce{2Cl^- - 2e^- -> Cl_2}

No. No. No. Where did the electrons go? Why are textbooks in print with this?

Key stage 3 conundrum

2022 April 23 Saturday 13:15

There are only two guaranteed seasons in uk: spring (a personal favourite time of year because of the resurgence of flowers, trees, etc.) and autumn (always love those autumn colours of plant leaf senescence); the other seasons are more often than not, a disappointment (no snow, no real heat). The impression of secondary school education at ages 11–14 being the "wasted years" has been documented and ideas made about improvements (e.g. 'a chemical orthodoxy'). In addition to the ideas by Adam Boxer about "core questions", this age group should be used not to regurgitate a "dumbed down" version of gcse content. Instead, the opportunity could be taken during "gained time" in the final weeks of the spring term to think about multi-disciplinary, thematic questions.

Suppose a thematic question: "is expansion of London's ulez a good proposal?", may be investigated in the context of each scientific discipline. For chemistry, so many interesting questions to develop for those naturally curious, pre-pubescent minds:

what is vehicular air-bourne pollution?
what are the fuels used?
where do these fuels originate?
what is the compositions of these fuels?
what are vehicular batteries composed of?
how are these new batteries made?
what are the environmental impacts of new vehicular batteries?
is pollution shift away from cities ethical?
conclusions from a chemical perspective?

The thematic questions make the subject discipline questions relevant to the (local) context, with the opportunity to allow for the philosophy, or nature of science to be discussed and learnt. The national curriculum does not refer to critical thought, yet future scientists, engineers are needed to question why they are being asked (and paid) to do what their paymasters ask. Many people have proclaimed a desire during the pseudo pandemic for a "return to normality": very little discussion about whether that "normality" is desirable (it should not be, only environmental sustainability alone if not also economic and political factors).

Review of the aforementioned blog post, together with a recent mail list inquiry, reminded of another consideration. Who should develop resources for teachers, where should such resources be stored for re-use?

An example proprietary repository is now un-available. Teachers, please consider sustainable alternatives and part of your decision on what to use: