A day in Dubai with Madeleine: Aka Science Sultana

Madeleine was my team leader at UC Education Plus. This year she flagged away her role at the university, to join our company in August as a science advisor. Today I drove Madeleine and her husband Alex to Dubai to do some touristy things. We only managed to visit Festival City, Jumeriah Beach and Dubai Mall, where the Burg Khalifia is. Alex packed us a picnic lunch, so we took the opportunity at Jumeriah Beach Park to enjoy our marmite, cheese and lettuce sandwiches, before paddling in the sea. Jumeriah Park is such a beautiful grassy park So sitting there with our marmite sandwiches, the pine trees behind us and our eyes tightly shut we could imagine we were at Waikuku Beach or Salt Water Creek Beach. That is until we realised there was no wind blowing, no sandflies, and it was a perfect cloudless sky around 35 degrees. :-)

Thinking scientifially

I have been working with the Grade 8 and 9's on critical thinking. I have taken along a science activity / experiment and the students have to draw a picture of what has happened or what they thought was happening and write underneath as many reasons why First experiment, thank you Warren Bruce, was a floating and sinking exercise. Ordinary coke or sprite sinks in a bucket of water, where as the diet version of the same drink floats. Now this could be for a whole lot of other reasons apart from the fact that the regular drink has 7 teaspoons of sugar in it. These students really are not used to thinking or exercising the mind. They have come up through a system that is based around the transmission model of learning. Followed by tell me what to learn and I'll regurgitate it back. I grabbed a couple of pics of the girls actually checking out the ingredients of the cans......... Thats a start, at least they are problem solving for solutions.

Salama: Is she good or what??

Last week I talked with Salama my secondary ICT teacher about wikis. We don't have internet at school, but we discussed how we could use a wiki as a way of engaging the students, get them using the ICT and web 2 tools that they use at home in a constructive way, have them share their work with each other and the parent community and try a blended learning approach. The students of course have to do the www bit at home. We had decided that the students would send us their work and we would upload it, as a precautionary measure to test the waters and keep the students safe. However with the new discussion tab the students could log on and leave us reflective comments. We are using that function as a reflective journal and an assessment item. The first Grade up were Grade 12. These students are off to university next year, inshallah, so it was also important for them to start using tools and conventions that they may use next year. Salama hadn't heard of wikis until I made one late last year for Grade 8 to share podcasts with Appleby School. Until this point Salama hadn't used a wiki. She joined my wiki and I made her an organiser with editing rights. Oh my goodness...... Over the weekend she has researched wikis but more importantly prepared a "how to" for the students, in colour of course, rearranged the whole wiki, added photos, created pages, inserted graphics and created discussion forums. If ever a duck was taking to water......
Today we team taught and introduced the wiki to Grade 12. Now a few logistics here, we don't have internet. However Salama bought along her laptop with a data stick to allow us to log on to the web, and I borrowed a dataprojector. We had to do the lesson in the Grade 12 classroom as her laptop won't connect in the ICT lab. I did some demonstrating, we got one of the students to walk through the log in process for the others, Salama is very strong on students demonstrating, and we both talked/ taught. My apologies for the photo, however I am not allowed to take close up photos of the older students and the girls don't like their faces in photos. Salama is very good and allows me to take her photo.. from a distance. The girls loved the wiki. Next class Grade 11 science class. Same enthusiasm. As I write 9 students have left comments and there have been 42 views. Al Ref'ah Girls School enters the world of Web 2. Bring it on!

FOG. An exciting drive.

The Al Ain to Dubai highway was coated in fog this morning on the drive to school. Real thick fog in several places. Suddenly everyone had their hazard lights going. The first instance was really quite scary with absolutely no where to pull off the road. Luckily a car traveling in the next lane, slightly faster than me, breezed along side. So I jumped right in behind him and followed his hazard lights. When the fog cleared I pulled over, and grabbed the camera before we entered the next few patches. Who would believe in the land of sand and continual sunshine, thick fog. Exciting stuff. Suddenly there was equality on the road. Everyone was driving along at 30k and the road seemed much less busy. Mind you you didn't know where any one else was...... and there are some lunatics out there! Especially lunatics with cameras taking pics to post on blogs. Enjoy!!

And the boys can do it too!

On Thursday and today I worked with both Grade 10 classes modeling, brainstorming generally introducing the unit, immersion etc. Today I took photos of Grade 10.1. They were slow to get started but eventually got the idea, well most of them. Have a look in one photo to see Mr Talkative in the background, not doing an awful lot.At the end of the lesson we pooled our ideas to see who had the most original hobbies, from reading the Holy Orran to sand skating. At the end of the lesson one of the students from the group that had the largest number of original ideas approached me and asked for a sweet. I'm not sure if he thought his group should get sweets for getting the largest number, or whether he thought I should give him sweets anyway. Regardless he was out of luck.

On the point of extrinsic rewards we had a management meeting this afternoon, all heads of faculty, one vice Principal, Richard our MA, management advisor and us Teacher advisors. We were brainstorming ideas around the strategic plan, and quality learning, involving the community etc. Various groups mentioned giving prizes to best students, giving rewards etc. Even giving a prize to the best father for ensuring that his son was well cared for, did his homework, came to school etc. Well that's my take on the Arabic / English translation. Definitely a prize to the best father. Teachers are really into gifts, prizes, sweets and rewards.
My biggest gift to both teachers and students is to get them thinking about their learning, and learning in different ways. Not information in, information out. I'm going to do a science experiment with Grade 8 and 9 tomorrow and its all about thinking! Whatt do you think is happening and why... and there's lots of answers Watch this space, its exciting times and exciting teaching!

Flickr

The online photo gallery Flickr has been blocked here in the UAE, apparently since about 2006 for cultural and religious reasons. However as of 1 October the authorities are lifting the block. Flickr allows you to store photos online and make accessible your photos through social networking. Of course with that comes the small percentage who upload undesirable photos etc and sharing of photos which may be harmless but have serious repercussions. The usual qualms with online tools and social networking. So has the ban been about dictatorship, or are the authorities really concerned about protecting the citizens from undesirables, especially the girls, and youngsters being provocative and proactive. I'd like to believe the later especially now the block has been lifted. The reason stated is that many many citizens have online networking sites like Bebo, Facebook etc and are sharing photos through those avenues any way. Flickr has lots of good attributes and many photgraphers, amateur or otherwise use these features. The authorities have also acknowledged this as way to share UAE culture with the out world. So I have no excuse now and shall begin sharing soon