geek.teacher

I got a Flip video camera a couple months back on a great deal, but didn’t have much immediate use for it.  The other day, however, I saw that PBS and YouTube were sponsoring VideoYourVote.  I like the map-based search function on it in particular.  I decided this morning to take the Flip with me and record my experience.  It’s not particularly dramatic.  I didn’t get intimidated and the machines seemed to work fine.  But it gave me a chance to record an important moment and play around with a new toy and the newer iMovie a bit, so I’m glad I did.

Seriously.

We watched this* in my class today.

Homework for my students tonight: Remind your parents to vote.

*This, being a video about voting, is only worthwhile until Brainpop changes their current free video. So this might not make sense when it’s telling you about the Pilgrims or something.

I strongly recommend every educator with even a passing interest in science read this story on David Campbell, a science teacher from Florida who helped to write the new standards that “Evolutionis the fundamental concept underlying all biology.”  I expected some of the students to be hostile, but by far the most cringe-worthy passage came with describing another teacher:

With no school policy to back him up, he spent less time on the subject than he would have liked. And he bit back his irritation at Teresa Yancey, a biology teacher down the hall who taught a unit she called “Evolution or NOT.”

Animals do adapt to their environments, Ms. Yancey tells her students, but evolution alone can hardly account for the appearance of wholly different life forms. She leaves it up to them to draw their own conclusions. But when pressed, she tells them, “I think God did it.”

This means, of course, that she decided to spend time axe-grinding with her students instead of teaching them actual biology.

Thanks to @dajbelshaw for the tipoff. While you’re at it, make sure to check out his new social networking site for edte.ch people.