So this was a busy week for conventions. Thursday and Friday was the Massachusetts Science Teachers Convention. I went to several interesting talks on increasing literacy in the science classroom using lab notebooks. Inquiry was also a major common theme. However, there was little discussion of collaboration in the talks. In the vendor aisles, there was a lot of new technology for digital textbooks, but nothing for collaborative digital workbooks/lab notebooks. So our work on the InterLACE Project at the CEEO might be onto something. Of course, one vendor told me “teachers do not want digital notebooks, they want paper notebooks. The market is not there.” Yet. Jeff Stout and I presented a hands-on Metal robotics workshop using both VEX and Tetrix platforms.
Thursday night I received the award for the Suffolk County Science Teacher of the Year. Nice banquet. Sat next to the sand man, Brian Cassie. He has a vast collection of sand from all over the world. And he seems to know something about birds, butterflies, amphibeans, etc. Really interesting guy.
Friday and Saturday was the New England Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers meeting. Feeling a bit conferenced out, I only made it out there Saturday. As president of the New England Section, I ran a nice executive board meeting at the ungodly hour of 7AM (had so wake up at 4:30 for the 2 hour drive to Amherst). I have some great plans to boost membership and develop ties with the other science teaching organizations in New England. In addition to creating an awesome new web page! I also presented my results from the NASA Reduced Gravity pendulum.
