Gina Bennett

Hi Ray, I'd *love* to pop down to Burnaby for the LON-CAPA conference but unfortunately (????) I will be in Sweden on an exchange trip at that time.

I will remind you about your LON-CAPA invitation just as soon as the rush is over!
What would you like to know about Moodle?

Gina

Hi Ray, thanks for the detailed answer. I first heard about LON-CAPA several years ago when we started to research alternatives to WebCT for our college. We ended up (happily) going with Moodle, but I remember hearing about how great LON-CAPA was for supporting science courses. Is there any way we could get 'guest access' so we could see some of these quizzing options in action? I'd love to peek inside a LON-CAPA supported course...

Gina

Hi Ignatia, it seems that NASA agrees with you about the value of simulations for learning science concepts. I just saw this article today in the latest issue of Campus Technology. Here's a snippet:


Interesting!
Gina

Hi Marsha, I am so glad you are posting your 'real world' observations here, because these are the very same questions & problems that we are going to get from our faculty as we attempt to offer a real science experience at a distance. There are 2 of your questions I especially want to re-visit:

1. How to do a broad spectrum of traditional laboratory experiments when you don't have a laboratory?
2. What is lost without real beakers and Bunsen burners?

IMO these questions are closely related. How can you do a broad spectrum of traditional lab experiments without a traditional lab? You can't. You can more-or-less replicate the easy labs, like adding vinegar to baking soda, but let's face it: most traditional experiments require traditional lab equipment (like beakers & bunsen burners), lab environments (e.g. sterile chambers), & the safety apparatus to support such things. And the equipment gets more complicated, expensive, specialized & dangerous the higher up you go educationally.

So the key, for me, is that word 'traditionally'. Just how important or necessary are those traditional lab experiments to the learning of science? Just how important is it to know exactly how to turn the dials of a microscope, handle the glassware when conducting a titration, or get the flame height 'just so' when heating something over a bunsen burner? Are these experiences really science, or are they technical skills that have traditionally been developed to support the learning of science? If you are not going into medicine, do you really have to know how to dissect? If you're not going to be a chemist, do you really have to know how to do a titration?

It's the very questions you present that makes us ask the question: how (or why) do we re-think the teaching of science?

gina

This is an awesome site, Sylvia! The idea of sharing not only scientific research, but also collaboration & mentoring between Europe & Africa, at a very grassroots level, is such a great concept. I love the 'without borders' movement & I like even better the way the French have turned it into a noun: sansfrontierisme.

Scientific research does (or can) benefit us all. Scientists have known this for a long time & it's certainly the main reason that the results of scientific research, while usually funded nationally, are shared internationally. David Reinking is a professor at the University of Georgia & he writes extensively about how 'digital literacies' are changing the way we do things. He was writing about access to information in general when he wrote about the importance of filtering and selecting information...


... but I think his advice & query is even more pertinent to the use of information in the sciences.

A bit off-topic, I suppose; but what the heck? It's week three! We can afford to dabble.