Be specific
Things have not gone quite as well as I had hoped with my Organic Chemistry Lab class. I have repeatedly encouraged them to try out different screencasting apps and create a digital lab report. There are a couple of problems with this. First, we are not allowing the students to take the iPads home with them. This means that they don't really have enough time to put together a presentation in addition to all of the other things they have to do in the lab, like produce good experimental results. Secondly, I have not been clear enough for many of them to know exactly what to do. I just expected them to pick the iPads up and run with it.
So I decided to hand the iPads out to another set of students in which I have for both lecture and lab. I gave them a very specific assignment: make a ShowMe screencast of a Lewis Dot Structure for a specific molecule or ion. I lectured for about an hour and then showed them a ShowMe I had created. I assigned them a molecule and said, "Go create a lecture on how to draw the electron dot structure for your molecule. The end product should be a screencast that is shorter than 5 minutes." Silly me! When I make a 4 minute screencast lecture it takes me all of...4 minutes! I suppose that is because I have been doing this for so long. I figured I would give the students about 30 minutes and then we could go work on the lab. Ha! It took some of them well over an hour, and I missed the faculty meeting!
The Students Took it Very Seriously
I like screencasting because it is a quick way to answer a student's question over the weekend that I cannot just answer in an email. I whip out a screencast and post it for all to see. In creating their screencasts my students really took their time. They made several "takes". They would mess up and then start all over. I was really impressed by this. One problem we had was lack of space. How do 27 students all make a movie in one room? So I told them to go out into the hall way and into the adjacent rooms to record. It was quite a site to see them spread all over the building earnestly working at getting it just right. The uploading process took a long time. Each student had to sign up for their own ShowMe account. Then the screencast had to be put up onto the ShowMe website. I wondered how much our building's wifi could actually handle...now I know! Students had to "wait in line" to upload their screencast. That took quite a long time. It was funny seeing them walk around the room to find the best place to get a good connection.
Some of the students loved the process, others dreaded it. I am starting to see which students could be the teachers in the bunch. But I think they realized how much depth of understanding one must have in order to actually explain a chemistry concept in an orderly and understandable way. I have told my students that "if you cannot articulate it, you don't understand it." I think the screencasting method is a fantastic way to assess a student's knowledge. And most of all I am seeing "mastery" of the content not just coverage.
What I Learned from my "Gelato Guy"
Here in Fullerton where I live we had a gelato shop open up and it was fantastic. I talked the owner one day into giving me a tour of the place. When he talked he spoke like he really understood the chemistry behind the gelato. I asked him about it and he told me that he had taken organic chemistry in two different languages! (English and Italian) He told me that in Italy his exams were oral. He had to stand in front of the class and clearly answer the professor's questions and explain the concepts. "When you have to explain a concept like Organic Chemistry in a foreign language, it proves whether you really understand it or not. My gelato guy went on to medical school and became a doctor in Italy. When he retired he studied gelato under the top gelato maker in Florence Italy. He move to Fullerton and set up his shop. He invited me to bring my students on a field trip. What a wonderful day! Boy, did they learn...and eat. What a sad day it was when my gelato guy went to set up shop in Napa, California! He hit the big time.
But my gelato guy taught me that the Italians are onto something, and not just gelato. I think that if a student can clearly explain a difficult concept without a script, just like standing in front of the class at the whiteboard, then I think they really understand it. What more of an exam do we need after that! The iPads make this possible. I don't have time to have each student come up one at a time in front of the class and explain a concept or problem. But with the iPads it is possible. And it is recorded for the long term. Even better, if I had the student come up to the whiteboard they get one chance. If they mess up too bad. But with the iPads they can try over and over. They can realize that maybe they don't understand it as well as they thought they did and they can study it better to be prepared to present their screencast. I really think that in this way the technology can take us to a place we could not go before without it. But there is a sacrifice. Time. How much time do I give to using the iPads? Do I sacrifice lab time? Do I cover less material in the lecture? These are the difficult questions before me now. I know the iPad is just a tool. The iPad is not an end in itself for me as a chemistry teacher. The students' deep understanding of the chemistry content is the goal. On the other hand, I learned something else from my gelato guy. When the locals of fullerton realized how good he was at making gelato they brought him fruit from their garden and he made these wonderful desserts for the whole community to enjoy. He created. And I think that is where the iPad can take us that a text book and pencil and paper cannot. I am watching my students create and I am allowing myself to create and in that way I think we are all a little more human. My gelato guy taught me about the right mix of creativity and chemistry!
The Product
Here are a couple of the ShowMe videos that my students created today!
I suppose I could make a bunch of these videos myself. But for some reason it is way more satisfying when my students produce them.
If all that weren't crazy enough...iOS7!
How was I going to update all these iPads to iOS7? Would I have to update them all individually? Is this the job for my IT superman Patrick? I decided to google the term "Mass configuration iOS 7. And it turns out that there is an app for the Mac called Apple Configurator. I downloaded it onto the Mac Book Pro that I have dedicated to the iPad cart and simply followed the directions. It was pretty intuitive. It updated all of the iPads with a couple of exceptions. One or two of them had to be restored. This is a bummer because my students had saved pictures on those iPads. I should have backed them up first. Other than that the process was very simple.
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