There are a whole lot of education blogs out there, but one of the very best has to be Joe Dale’s “Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom“. He gave a presentation at the CESI conference this year and people had to be turned away at the door.

Every subject needs to have a Joe Dale; someone to keep us up to date on best practice in relation to ICT issues, and who you know is a full-time teacher who practices what he preaches.

Here’s my contibution to the ‘Modern Language’ database:
Eddie Izzard – Learning French

‘Course you can’t show this wonderful clip unless you have Youtube.
Don’t mention the war

Is there an equivalent Science / Physics Teacher blog out there?
Patricia Donaghy has done her part; http://edubloggerdir.blogspot.com/ is a registration page for educational blogs where you can go and search by topic.

I guess over time more teachers will get the hang of this sharing lark.

Une solution existe: le solar tracker, ou encore le “suiveur solaire”.

Le sun tracker permet de placer au mieux le panneau par rapport au positionnement du soleil (orthogonal au rayonnement si possible). En effet, la position du soleil varie constamment, à la fois pendant la journée, mais aussi pendant les différentes périodes de l’année.

L’idéal consiste donc à utiliser un solar tracker à six axes pour suivre réellement le soleil. Il existe aussi des solar trackers à 2 axes pour adapter le tilt correspondant à l’inclinaison saisonnière.

D’après mes recherches sur le web, un tel système permet d’augmenter le rendement entre 45% et 60%.

Ces sun trackers sont d’autant plus attractifs qu’ils consomment très peu (qques watts par jour) et ils représententeraient un surcout d’environ 0,6 €/Wc (information difficilement vérifiable à moins d’être confronté à un cas réel).

Dans mes recherches, les cas d’usage presentent systématiquement le photovoltaïque. Je n’ai pas vu de solar tracker utilisé pour le CESI. A priori, on pourrait aussi l’imaginer.

Bien entendu, ce type de système suppose un dégagement minimum pour permettre le libre mouvement dans tous les sens. C’est donc incompatible avec une intégration toiture, sauf peut-être pour les systèmes à 2 axes (je n’ai pas encore trouvé d’exemple).

Dernier point: l’entretien. Apparemment, les solar trackers ne sont pas garantis très longtemps (2 ans). Il faut s’assurer que les coûts de maintenance ne soient pas prohibitifs. De même, les sun trackers à 6 axes reposent généralement sur 1 pied dont la résistance aux contraintes doit être particulièrement soignée du fait de la prise au vent des panneaux montés sur ce pied.

Quelle est votre expérience ? les prix sont-ils corrects ?

Ce lien cite quelques sociétés fournisseuses de solar trackers. il en existe d’autres.

La photo montre que les panneaux chauffent l’eau a 60°C (Cadran rouge). L’eau circule dans le serpentin du ballon de 300 Litres pour en chauffer l’eau, et ressort pour remonter dans le panneau a 44°C ou est est de nouveau chauffé.

CQFD…

En réalité, ce liquide caloporteur est constitué l’eau glycolée, autrement dit un mélange d’eau et de glycol. Ce dernier est en fait de l’éthylène glycol utilisé ici pour ses propriétés d’antigel.

Revers de sa médaille, le glycol est toxique en cas d’ingestion ou d’inhalation et dangereux car inflammable.

Bien entendu, pour les systèmes à échange de chaleur, le glycol est dilué. Il reste, à mon sens, assez peu compatible avec une démarche écologique.

En outre, l’eau seule présente d’excellentes propriétés de transport de calories. Avec un peu d’imagination, j’ai le sentiment que l’on pourrait trouver le moyen de se passer du glycol. Cela me semble particulièrement facile dans le cas des pompes à chaleurs utilisant la chaleur du sol…

Dernier point: quid du recyclage de cette eau glycolée ? je n’ai pas trouvé d’information sur ce sujet.

Bad day
Had to forego the lunch which followed because I had a mountain of ‘Mock’ papers to correct.

Good day
Came across this answer to the question ‘What is self-induction?’

Self-Induction is when you have been rejected so many times by clubs and have gotten so pathetic that you’ve actually inducted yourself into a non-existent club that its only member is you and you alone . . . . Oh I wish someone else would join.

Sean, you’ve a bright future ahead of you - I’m just not sure it’s going to be in Physics.And this in response to the question ‘What are the four fundamental forces in Nature?’

Science: Gravity Electromagnetic, Strong, Weak

Religion: God, The Holy Spirit, Jesus, Their own ego

(At this stage I would like to emphasise that these are not my own views ).

Bad day
Remembered I offered the editor of the Irish Science Teachers’ Journal that I would write an aticle on ICT issues related to Science Teaching. Bad timing. Deadline looming. Need to work on it tonight.

Good Day
Took a break in the name of ‘research’ and googled “physics teacher blog” and found Dean Baird’s The Blog of Phyz.Lots of good reading, but I like this post the best so far. There are so many experiment books for ideas on demonstrations out there, but their day has surely passed due to the advent of video-sites like youtube.

I had heard of the Leidenfrost Effect before, but there can’t be too mant easier or more impressive demonstrations of it than this one.

He includes a couple of more clips, including one which goes wrong, which is nice to see because as every physics teacher knows whether we are comfortable admitting it or not, things go wrong A LOT in Physics.
Thanks Doug

The CESI National Executive Committee met today so it looks like a root and branch renewal in underway.  A formal structure to branch meetings and activities will have to be re-established in order to draw down TPN and TPC funding.

That does not mean that the casual and informal social gatherings should cease forthwith. On the contrary, the official infra-structure should help to strengthen the social aspect of the Dublin Branch.

Volunteers are also required to moderate and manage various online facilities which shall evolve over the next few weeks.

Post your wish list of activities and we will move forward from there.

The other eye-opener was the number of Primary school teachers. They probably out-numbered us two or three to one. This was partly explained by the fact that at primary level you have more time and opportunity to engage with ICT projects, and the class doesn’t move on after 40 minutes, but still . . .???

The most memorable presentation was from Tommy Maher about what his school got up to over the last year or two.
Unbelievable stuff.

For another day.

Fatto sta che più sotto c’era un articolo che parlava dei lavori degli studenti universitari e dei loro sogni futuri, la foto mi ha subito colpito era il grande CESI che torna alla ribalta sui giornali. Ho fotografato l’articolo, se cliccate sulle foto le potete ingrandire e leggerlo se vi interessa:

E’ un piacere ritrovare un carissimo amico sul giornale, guardate che viso tranquillo che ha, sono questi gli studenti di Scienze della Comunicazioni, sono bravi ragazzi che si impegnano parecchio. Ricordiamo anche che il Cesi oltre a essere uno studente e un bibliotecario, è anche un famoso chitarrista, infatti fa parte del famoso gruppo dei Nacho Fever, che sempre più negli ultimi anni si è affacciato nel panorama musicale imponendosi per uno stile tutto loro e con un rock che si sente poco tra i gruppi emergenti, intendo un rock di QUALITA’! Bravi ragazzi!

This in turn led to a link to their Transition Year Nanotechnology competition project, which consisted of a fictional website of a hospital set in 2027, detailing the role of nanotechnology in their treatment centres.

Wonderful stuff, deserved more publicity (or did that pass me by?).

SCC appear to be setting the standard in relation to incorporation of ICT in schools, and are giving a presentation at the CESI conference this Friday. Looking forward to it.

John Hegarty suggested Google Groups might be a good way to go, and also mentioned that Tom Kendall gives talks on blogging in schools and he suggests the following site as a platform to work on http://www.21classes.com/

Tom has set up two of these in his own school: http://msmccarthy.21classes.com/ and http://crazy.21classes.com/.

Mags Amond however has suggested another alternative, which she mentioned on the DICTAT forum

“Also, nearer home, TeachNet / Digital Hub people are piloting a space for Irish Second Level students called Project Blogger (building with WordPress). The TY science students in 15 schools are being introduced to it over these few weeks, so Blogs being what they are there hopefully should be something to see very soon.”

All of these are involved with CESI, which is holding its conference on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th February, so maybe I’ll delay things a little and hopefully talk to them there.

1. Knock off the ‘Moderate Comments’ option. I wouldn’t comment on a blog if I thought that the comment wouldn’t appear for 24 hours.
2. Put up a ‘Subscribe by email’ option, or with a feedburner.
3. Improve overall presentation

Hopefully this will be raised at the CESI conference next month.