Week Thirteen October 12 – October 18, 2008

UTEP-UMCE News – Dr. Bill Robertson, Fulbright Scholar, UTEP Assistant Professor

Week Thirteen October 12 – October 18, 2008

The following is a summary of the activities that I have been engaged in during the week of October 12 – 18 as they relate to the work I am doing here at UMCE as part of my Fulbright Scholarship.

Keynote Address at UMCE Conference on Pedagogy in the Natural Sciences

On Monday, October 13, I attended the Standards and Competencies for Technology Integration in the Preparation of Future Teachers conference and gave the morning keynote address on the topic of “Transformative Education” which had an emphasis on practical uses of technology in education, including problem-based learning, field-based research experiences and action science.

The focus of the conference was held as an extension of the project going on in Chile to better understand the standards, the TICs, like our TEKS, but specific for technology. Over 100 students attended the conference and faculty and a number of presentations were given by professors from both Chile and Brazil. A highlight of the conference was the presentations by students who used interactive white boards to demonstrate practical uses of software in the classroom in the areas of physics, math, chemistry and music. The programs used by the students included Excel, PPT, Modellus, C-Map tools, Hot Potatoes, Survey Monkey and Movie Maker.

Web site: http://www.teleduc.umce.cl

Physics Seminar

On Wednesday, October 15, I attended a seminar that was lead by Dr. Luis Barrera, who is an astronomer in the Physics department. He leads a seminar series with interested students where they share ideas and projects that relate to concepts in physics. He gave a talk on the history of the positron and the progression of ideas about particle physics. An interesting presentation was also given by a team of students, who were able to make an ordinary white board into an interactive “Smart board” using minimal items and a few freeware programs. The students used a Bluetooth download (free) to establish a Bluetooth wireless signal from their laptop, and then used a Wii game control from Playstation (about $40 US) to transmit the signal to the white board, where they used a regular Infocus projector to send the image from the computer screen. They also fashioned a mouse within a glove and were able to move items on the computer from the white board by clicking the fingers of the glove and using the glove as a mouse on the screen. This is something that could be done very practically and cost effectively in order to help transform any classroom wall into a Smart board.

Physics Project Update

On Wednesday, October 15, I attended the regular physics project meeting ad each group went through the progression of their classes. The main thrust at this time was the updates on midterm exams and the types of results they are seeing from the students. This constructivist team based approach is new in a department wide sense and each group has successes and items to revise in order to improve their parts. Each group also discussed the plans for the rest of the semester, and how the can better use the platform Moodle to share information and to interact better with students and colleagues.

Día de los Profesores

On Thursday, October 16, I attended a celebration in the Salon de Honor where the staff and students at UMCE celebrated the Día de los Profesores where teachers at UMCE were honored for their contributions and to identify professors who had made great accomplishments. The Rector also gave a talk in which he spoke about the coming year (2009) at UMCE which will be the year of technology, which bodes well for future UMCE/UTEP collaborations.

Personal Transition to Work in Spanish

I have been working hard on my Spanish and giving a keynote address at a conference was to me a huge step forward. In reality, I was very at ease and certainly felt comfortable with my content, but what surprised me was the ease at which I was able to talk about it with colleagues and students. I also had to field a number of questions from the audience, and this was also something that lead me to feel that I am progressing in the right direction academically. I have also taken on the task of translating a couple of articles I am working on into Spanish with the hope of getting them published in a Spanish science education or technology journal. In the past, I had to have great help in this area, but now I can move line by line, and translate the words and the meanings much more efficiently. As with all writing, I find having someone read it over and give ideas on edits important, and I have a network of people both here and at UTEP to help me in this capacity.

UMCE Notes

Día de los Profesores Web Story

http://www.umce.cl/enlinea/noticias/20081017_dia_del_profesor.html