1) A review of physics education by Dr David Boyce, Wreake Valley Academy
KS2 – The skills develop here are more important than what is actually learnt.
KS3 – Physics learning becomes important but towards the end of the year puberty and other factors cause a drop off of interest in the subject.
KS4 – Learning of formula and their meanings.
If the student opts for physics
KS5 – Build on KS4. Non-observational with maths.
The journey may continue with a degree and then postgraduate study.
2) Mick de Pomerai: Using information about medical physics (specifically, on PET scanning & Hadron Therapy) as a way of encouraging girls into physics. You can be caring and a physicist. There is more to medicine than being a medical doctor.
3) AirServer is an AirPlay receiver for Mac/PC. It allows you to receive AirPlay feeds, similar to an Apple TV, so you can stream content or Mirror your display from your iOS devices or Mountain Lion.
Edmodo provides a safe and easy way for the class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices.
Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
Autograph Maths – The Dynamic Classroom Software. PC software for teaching calculus, coordinate geometry, statistics and probability.
GRADE GORILLA – GCSE, IGCSE and IB Physics revision
Gradegorilla is an on-line ‘test yourself’ Physics website. Revision questions are currently available for GCSE, IGCSE and IB Physics.
Sciwebhop Science & Maths Web with some economics mcq questions. A-level & IB Physics MCQ Exam Database · A-level & IB Physics Structured Database
Quizlet: Simple free learning tools for students and teachers.
4) Chopstick trick by Dr Ken Zetie. Balance an asymmetric object on your two fingers and slide them together. This works well with a chopstick. The fingers meet under the CofG. Explanation is to do with taking moments and realising that the frictional force on the finger is related to the normal contact force, which is greater the nearer the finger is to the CofG.
5) Using ‘extended desktop’ by Dr Ken Zetie. It lets you have a different thing on your PC screen than on the projector e.g. markbook, lesson notes, next web page to pull in. ‘windows’ key and P lets you quickly toggle between modes (duplicate and extended being the main two). The extended desktop is like a second screen to the right of the main screen.
6) Weight and gravity by Dr Ken Zetie. In cancelling the m in mg and the m in ma (for mg = ma in freefall) we are assuming the identicality of inertial and gravitational mass. Worth pointing out that these come from different areas of science and people do search for possible differences. Search on ‘eotvos’ e.g. the Eotwash group in Washington.
7) Dimensional analysis by Dr Ken Zetie. With top students it is good to push this to its limits. e.g. show the drag equation but point out that the lift equation must be identical in form – but needs a different coefficient and interpretation of what A (area) and v are – is v a velocity or a change in velocity for example? Find the form for the time for a ball to drop a distance h () and this must be the same form as the period of a pendulum – but what is h? Distance to the centre of mass, or something more complex if the bob is not a perfectly small point? And what if there were a term that depended on ()? This would not show up in the equation at all as it is dimensionless. So there could be a correction to our equation, something like:
This looks a lot like a virial expansion, a binomial expansion or perturbation theory – things we use all the time in physics.
A good example of taking a straightforward technique and ‘pushing’ it – exploring the limits and assumptions, showing students there is something more to it.
8) Jenny Lacey: sharing websites, resources and apps