One of the things I noticed while observing a Physics class at a relatively small school was the limited resources available to the teacher for in class experiments. As a student these in class experiments were not only the most entertaining part of the class but also drove home many of the concepts we learned in class. The purpose of my wiki is to provide students with videos of experiments that either can not be done in class because of cost or because of the time available that would go along with material presented in lecture. I have added one video so far of Mach's Pendulum. This is a video that could be used to discuss periodic motion.
As soon as I added my first video I could see many advantages to utilizing wikis; from posting of assignments and class notes to keeping parents informed about what the children are learning.
During my observation I asked one of the teachers if they ever thought of posting class notes on the web so that students could have access to them at home. He indicated he had but was concerned that students may not pay attention in class or take notes if they knew they could get them later. I tend to disagree with this view. I feel students will get more out of class if instead of taking notes they were actively engaged in the class discussion and not distracted by note taking. Often times in my upper level math class in college I would leave the class with good notes but could not tell you what material was presented.
That's often the view of teachers who want to control the information flow. I'm glad you disagree. His students might be more engaged if they are given notes before hand.
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