Category Archives: Channels & Publishers
Animal Development: We’re All Just Tubes! [CrashCourse Biology]
Another enterucational video from Crash Course Biology, which links nicely to section 5.5 Classification (and a wee bit on embryonic development). Check it out:
This is the kind of content that would be useful as a flipped lesson on TED-ED.
Biology Crash Course | Entertaining 12-min Bio brain dumps!
CrashCourse Biology is a new(ish) and definitely more entertaining and engaging alternative to Khan Academy. Hank Green follows his brother John’s example (World History) and is producing some pretty funny, fast-paced and visual presentations for key concepts in Biology. One feature I like is the short ‘history of the idea‘ section in each video.
Here’s an example on the properties of water:
Another feature I like is that the video description has links to sections within the video, making review easier. He also includes a set of citations (more like links to follow to find out more). So although they can be embedded, you are much better off watching them on his channel.
Hank also has another channel, SciShow, which has short, sharp videos on science – whatever the topic. Here are a couple of examples from his playlist.
FoldIt (MrT’s favourite game):
And this on Mendeleev’s Periodic Table:
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I first heard about these channels via Fractus Learning, but didn’t get a chance to look until this weekend, searching for periodic table resources and Lewis Dots. When Crash Course popped up again, I figured it was time to have a look.
Teen Brain Videos and Resources
The teen brain is a funny place to live, with unique challenges and threats. There have been some excellent articles and resources produced recently on the subject – useful for students, teachers and parents.
Teen Brain from PBS
Carl Zimmer has a great piece on the teenage brain at Discover Magazine. Alison Gopnik has a similar piece at Wall Street Journal. Both explore the risk behaviour of teens. David Dobbs asks ‘Why do teens act the way they do?‘ at National Geographic. Richard Knox at NPR summarises ‘Teen brains are not fully connected yet,’ whereas John Cloud at Time reports on a PLOS One paper that suggests a link between more mature teen white matter and risky behaviour.
There are a lot of teen brain resources at PBS Frontline, including a full documentary. It is available (for now) on YouTube, but head over to their main site for more information and a ability to view the whole video by chapter.
I don’t normally advertise on the site, but here I’ll make an exception.
Teen brains, with their unique needs, need to be looked after to optimise learning. By paying attention to current brain research, we as educators could get more from our students and help them learn. Derek Pugh, a former BIS colleague, now works with schools, students and parents on brain-based learning workshops. He has also written a series of articles and a book: The Owner’s Guide to the Teenage Brain.
Why not visit his website, (http://www.braincompatibleeducation.com/) to read more. There are articles and eBooks on sleep, classrooms, diet, water and more.
Drew Berry’s Animations of Unseeable Biology [TED Talk]
In 2011, Drew Berry’s animation of the role of breast stem cells won the Imagine Science Film Festival award for visual science (posted here). In this TED Talk, he explains how and why he and his team have put together these accurate representations of invisible cellular processes. The talk shows some examples of the animations, including a really great segment on mitosis and what is happening when spindle microtubules attach and contract.
For more excellent animations, visit the Walter and Elizabeth Hall Institute (WEHI) TV Channel: http://www.wehi.edu.au/education/wehitv/, or their YouTube channel.
The effective communication of Science is an Art.
Meet Your Brain: Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
Professor Bruce Hood explores the human brain in this series of lectures from the Royal Institution in London. The trailer is below and in time all the lectures should appear on the RI Channel Website here (Vimeo channel here).
If you can access BBC iPlayer, you can keep up with the lectures here.
The theme of the 2010 Lecture series by Mark Miodownik was “Size Matters”, again relevant to the IB Biology course and available to watch in full from the RI Channel website.
Using YouTube to make quick lab videos
I made these lab videos easily using my iPhone (other smartphones will do the same), and sending the video directly to YouTube. YouTube’s editing tools make it easy to annotate the video, so pop-ups appear to explain what is happening and highlighting areas for students’ focus. This is ideal where you want to record, upload and annotate videos quickly and easily.
There are four great things about producing videos this way:
- With GoogleApps, all students and teachers have a YouTube account, which they can sync with their phone or have ready on their laptop. They could also record the video from their laptop webcam.
- If videos are pretty straightforward there is no need to spend time importing into iMovie or MovieMaker, editing and then uploading to YouTube.
- You can make quick edits and corrections to annotations on the ‘live’ video. You don’t need to re-upload the video.
- YouTube also has an online video editor for making more complete edits and putting clips together.
This next one was made very quickly and uses the YouTube video editor tools to mash two short clips together. By this point I’d got hold of a retort stand and created a super-adjustable iPhone camera triunipod – patent pending and soon to be available at an exaggerated cost from the Apple store ;>
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Applications beyond lab videos:
Students could make their own explainers or video clips for class, such as lab report methods, annotated sports performance clips or notes on a speech or presentation they (or a peer) have given. Teachers can use it (like I have above) to make vodcasts for students who can then repeat or look back at work in class. In this example, students have carried out these reactions in class, but I will be away the following class. This gives them an opportunity to see the reactions again with some annotations to help them through the theory work.
Limitations
- Having a lot of students online uploading at the same time can impact bandwidth.
- Students may need help in setting up their school YouTube accounts and assigning permissions and privacy settings – you would need to be aware of appropriate student-created content.
- Although quick and easy to use, it is unlikely to look polished enough for a publications class or professional piece of work. It will be fine for simple tasks focusing on content or explanation.
If you want even more power to edit on the phone, I like this free app called Splice. It has enough features to get you putting clips and photos together, with transitions and themes, and will upload directly to YouTube (though it can take a while to render).
Science Stunts for Parties
Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and author of Quirkology, the Curious Science of Everyday Lives. He also has a YouTube channel loaded with illusions and tricks. As dinner-party season approaches, here are some collections of little science tricks to impress your granny. Be careful with flames.
Robin Ince and the Infinite Monkey Cage
Robin Ince, rationalist and science-minded comic, give a short TED Talk on Science vs Wonder:
He also has a radio show/ podcast called The Infinite Monkey Cage, hosted with Brian Cox on the BBC. In this episode, Six Degrees of Separation, they discuss the connections of humans with Stephen Fry, Simon Singh and Alex Krotoski.
Stephen Fry’s Planet Word
What is language? Is communication the same as language? How have we evolved the ability to form and use language and what sets us apart from other species?
In this new BBC documentary series, Stephen Fry explores our origins of language. A good link between the sciences and languages (perhaps even history) as areas of knowledge in TOK.
More information and the discussion page here: TOK – What is Language?
i-Biology 