Creative, Collaborative, Lifelong learners: me, myself and eye

In an era of Bebo, Myspace and Facebook the world of our students has changed, they are becoming more self absorbed and egocentric. Not the most desirable traits of human nature. However, let's embrace their self obsession and build on their creative talents by setting our students the task of producing something that tells us, as teachers a little more about them. We can then tailor our science topics around their interests so that we are putting together individualised programs for them (apparently the phrase "differentiated programs" is passe.)

Students can tell us more about themselves through multimedia such as filming their own video, singing and recording a song, making an animated caricature of themselves, the list goes on. A quick, simple and easy option is to produce a concept star using MWord or sketch one out on paper.

or a personalised apeaking avatar using a free website such as Voki.com.

Spend some time asking your students about their travel experiences or travel the world using Google Earth so as to link what students are learning about in the classroom to the outside world eg take an interactive tour around the Galapagos Islands while studying evolution, adaptation, habitats, endangered species etc...

On 30th August 2010, an interactive video known as "The Wilderness Downtown"was launched following a collaboration between Google, the artist Chris Milk and the band Arcade Fire Viewers start the experience by typing their childhood address (or any address) and are taken on a tour of their hometown thanks to Google Maps and Google Street View.

That's me... myself... now eye.

Eye dissections are so much fun and a good challenge for your students. If they can't carry out the dissections for cultural, religious or personal reasons then they can carry out one of the many interactive eye dissections, just click on the screenshots below to link to the interactives.

See the table below for links to a series of eye experiments that I put together from a range of sources. This activity is best set up as a circus of activities around the lab, usually takes about 30 mins with another 10 - 15 mins for a discussion of their results.







		teacher list of eye test experiments

Finally, are you an optimist or a pessimist? old or young? I'll leave you with one of my favourite optical illusions is young girl/old woman which was first seen on a German postcard in 1888, but then adapted by British cartoonist W.E.Hill.