The IPEVO document camera – a cheap alternative to a visualiser

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The IPEVO camera set up that I received consisted of three separate parts – the document camera itself, a carry case and an extension stand to give it extra height.

The packaging that the camera arrived in had foam cut-outs which could make the carrycase an unnecessary purchase in this time of restricted budgets. The build quality of the camera looks a little cheap, although it doesn’t feel like it is going to drop to bits when you hold it. The camera comes with a clip (which my year 9′s showed me how to attach to my laptop) and a stand for functioning as a document camera. The extension stand is really needed to give extra height and should really come bundled with the camera rather than as an optional extra.

The camera functioned well, although when left in continuous/autofocus mode it would often keep adjusting the focus, so the manual focus mode was preferable. The way it focussed on objects meant I was able to get a sharp clear image (although when the focus was lost it took a couple of seconds to refocus). I found the images in good light clearer and sharper than those of my Avermedia visualiser. The camera could also be pointed around the classroom or used like a webcam to show demonstrations adding to its versatility.

The software for using the document camera is simple to use, well thought through and very good. Again I prefer the IPEVO camera software to the Avermedia software that comes with their visualisers.

Time will tell how durable the camera and stand turn out to be, but I would expect a slightly better build quality at this price point, however for those looking for a document camera this could be a worthy purchase.

From Amazon – IPEVO camera £55, Case £19, Height extending stand £22

What I liked about the IPEVO cam:

  • The software
  • The stand makes it easy to position the camera
  • The camera has many uses – and the laptop mount just adds to these

What I didn’t like

  • The build quality
  • The price – I’m not sure if the advertised price includes VAT but if it does it needs to be reduced
  • The case and stand being sold separately – they should be sold as a bundled package
  • I got interference patterns on images of paper when using artificial lighting
  • The camera often refocuses when on auto-focus

 

How do you develop children’s scientific ideas through play – #ASEchat summary

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The question was asked how do you develop children’s scientific ideas through play. Richard Needham (@viciascience) recommended that educators check out the new EYFS framework. The discussion opened with what we mean by play. Cardiffscience said to them ‘play’ means exploration and investigation, preliminary to deciding what to explore in more depth. Cleverfiend referred to a session at the NSLC (National Science Learning Centre) in which teachers were given a selection of toys to play with (investigate) and generate questions about how they worked. Cardiffscience went on to suggest that play tasks be open ended and not simply guessing what the teacher is thinking.

Ideas for play included acids and alkalis with indicators, use of indicators from plants/food, parachutes, electrical circuits and playing with cornflour and water. Apps on a tablet or phone were suggested as good play activities including physics based games like Angry Birds.

When asked “does science play have to be structured to be useful or is promoting interest and asking questions enough?” the group decided that all three are useful for types of activity. Lethandrel made an excellent point “I say “Don’t play”, I say “Explore” which implies there might be a purpose to the activity.

@TESscience mentioned role play as a possible activity and cleverfiend pointed out that his students love role play activities like hot seating. The discussion went on to talk about different apps/software that could be ‘played with’ including Beebot (See links). Paramount to the idea of play based learning is teacher confidence, and the idea of modelling play based activities in our teaching.

A wide variety of points and comments were made and I’d recommend that you read the full transcript of the chat if you are interested in taking play based learning forward in your own classroom.

Top Tweets

@cardiffscience ‘play’ means exploration and investigation, preliminary to deciding what to explore in more depth #asechat

@Mr_D_Cheng #ASEchat here’s some acids, some alkalis som ui. In ten minutes I want to know what you found out!

@agittner Does play sometimes promote trial and error rather than a systematic approach to problem solving (not necessarily a bad thing) #asechat

@cleverfiend Does science play have to be structured to be useful or is promoting interest and asking questions enough? #asechat

@Lethandrel I say “Don’t play”, I say “Explore” #asechat

@NeedhamL56 Is play best used as part of a project, ie not over in 50 mins. Certainly good for group work communication, and reflection #asechat

@agittner I think play can be powerful at second when you start to get the stdts to talk about the play strategies they used (metacognition) #asechat

@anhalf @iSciTeacher definitely..use ofblooms and question dice to genrate qns..#asechat see that som qns cannot be answrd

@RevErasmus hot and cold water and watching the hot water swirl, and chromatography. I let them play in golden time too. they love it.

Top Links

@cardiffscience Great blog post btw ks2 enquiry, literacy and science

@mrNeilButler http://fantasticcontraption.com/

@TESscience http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Atomic-Bomber-app-games-to-learn-about-vectors-6212877/

@iSciTeacher http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami/thingdom.aspx

@TESscience http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Element-Book-6050645/

Summary available from ASE website or from here

William’s Words – a useful book for supporting literacy in science lessons

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Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that I am an advocate of literacy across the curriculum and of literacy within science lessons. I was interested to come across a book that could be used to support literacy in science, written by an experienced science teacher. The book, titled “William’s Words in Science” is written by Dr William Hirst and is a useful reference material for students at KS3 and higher. The copy I received was a weighty tome of over 400 pages and with a useful plastic cover that would extend the life of the book in a student environment.

The main part of the book consists of a dictionary of useful words and terms, complete with definitions written in pupil friendly speak (although the format, language and fonts may make the book inaccessible to some low ability learners).

The dictionary part of the book could be used in multiple ways in the classroom, perhaps for setting word based cover work, for looking up key words during lessons, for checking spellings or looking up important scientists. This is where the author scores a master stroke and provides FREE materials, categorised by year and topic that could be used without the book, but that add an extra layer of depth and usefulness to the book.

Not only does “William’s words” provide a useful reference material for students, but there are extra reference sections in the book that cover common formulae, cycles, periodic table, skeleton amongst other topics.

I can heartily recommend this as a reference material, both for schools and for individual students. I would like to see a set of “William’s Words in Science” in every school, being used to improve the scientific literacy of our students.

Visit the William’s Words site to find out more about this book and to download free supporting resources.

Fiendishlyclever resources hit record downloads

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I received a spreadsheet from the TES showing my download count for the past six weeks.  I was amazed to discover my resources between them total 18996 downloads in the past six weeks alone.

I checked my blog (for which the statistics are slightly less accurate) and in the same period of time visitors to my blog downloaded approximately 13000 resources from the resource section.

That equates to over 31000 downloads in the last six weeks alone.  I haven’t charged for any of these resources (although I have recently added adverts to my website to cover the web hosting costs).  If you imagine that the average resource takes five minutes to create (a rather conservative estimate) that means I’ve saved teachers over 2600 hours (or 109 days) of planning in the last six weeks alone.

Of course the primary reason I share my resources is to share my ideas and improve the quality of science education for all (just as I ruthlessly steal any good ideas from other people that I come across).  But I couldn’t let this landmark statistic go unmarked, so thanks to you all for downloading!