Some Random Thoughts

I won’t be interjecting a lot of my personal thoughts throughout the blog, I want this to be a teacher resource and not my rant on science education. This is my one forum for thoughts, it might change from time to time.

I’m incredibly impressed at the traffic to this site. One week in and I’m getting almost one hundred visits a day. I can’t imagine where it will be in a couple of months.  (Yeah, imagine 43,000 in seven months, 60,000 in nine months.  It’s nerdvana, people, and I’m king nerd.)

I need help. I’m one of the change of career teachers. I’ve been teaching for six years, there is so much I don’t know. I’m also the only Physics teacher at my school. I know that there are a lot of us out there. It’s really hard to share ideas when there isn’t anyone else that speaks our language. This blog is a result of an Educator’s Day out at Penn State. I met a bunch of other Physics teachers, many of whom are in the same boat. We shared some ideas, but it was clear there was a lot of us doing it on our own and for the first time. The internet is a great resource, but someone you know who is doing the same thing is a better resource.

I am constantly surprised at how few of my students have ever done an experiment on their own or have built and launched model rockets or had a chemistry set or played with an electronics kit. I did all of that and more and I’m betting most of you did too.

So help me pull ideas together. I’m adding things as they come to me. I was cleaning my room today and saw the jar of iron filings. There won’t be any order to the posts, just trying to get everything that I’ve done down for myself and for those of you who apparently need the same help.

Please join me. Use the Contact Me page, send me an email and I’ll give you authoring privileges.

- Scott