277_worksheet_1

=Jan Otto 277 2013-2014=

__Me as client__ From the very begining of my education I'd an access to PCs with OS's from Windows series (Win 3.1 - first to have the Polish language version). In secondary school I used to prepare larger written homeworks in MS Office and print them, started to use searchers and wikipedia more widely, thanks to the fact we switched from dial-up connection to dedicated line at home. In high school I programmed in C.

At my university laboratory with PC's is available 24h/day. Access to specific devices like grids, supercomputers, smartphones or microcontrollers is limited, but possible to gain.

__Me as observer__ I think my experience wouldn't change much. All school friends of my nephew (9years) have smartphones, but they are prohibitted to use them at school as it is perceived as a time-eater. There is the new technology, but our education system isn't ready yet to notice the possibilities it brings.

__Me as server__ Maybe it's because my education was focused on sciences or maybe I had bad luck for teachers, but one of biggest problems of my education was boredom during lessons of history and geography which very often were just reading the textbooks outloud in the classroom or looking at tables and trying to memorize which country has what number of tones of the given resource or which blue stripe on the map has which name.

Instead of that I would try to stimulate the curiosity, by games and scenarios in which the main character controlled by students would have to use the table information or know some historical facts, to solve some puzzle, achieve some task or to defeat some enemy. Technology would allow us to visualize such scenarios and give them form of the game with many attempts possible. This would make the lessons more attractive.

back to the toppage
The point in #2 is excellent about smartphones; the idea in #3 is also quite good (I was bored too, but in the USA we don't have to learn as many stupid, useless facts as they do here). When I was learning meteorology at the geography

classes, I used to give latin name to clouds from images or photos, indicate the wind's direction and strength

basing on simple maps with isobaric curves and memorizing few

simple rules which would determine if it's going to rain or to get

cold that day, but this seemed totally unpractical in context of forecasting. I would like to do the project on meteorology.

The first stage would base on actual data collected from the

meteorology station in the area. I would ask students to observe

and record the current state of the weather by home devices. Then they would confront it with the data they get from the nearby meteorological station to discover the accuracy and locality of measurements.

The second stage would be forecasting. Seeing how the rules for

the forecasting are applied in the meteo station, they would be

able to develop their own rules and intuitions for interpretation

of their own measurements and at some point build their confidence

in their own forecasting.

The school would need the access to meteorological data and PC's with the software for it's presentation. Students would have to be equipped with the measurement devices.