Second Day In Class - The Computer Lab

Today I took my Honors Physics class into the computer lab to complete Lecture 1.2. (34 students, after lunch, 5th period.) I was very nervous and excited.....

Remember that yesterday they completed Lecture 1.1 in the classroom as a class.

My overall, immediate evaluation of the day: (a) It WORKED and (b) It was successful.*

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I was worried that there might be a problem with 34 students simultaneously downloading 34 videos from my webpage provider. (Remember, only the day before I had a problem downloading a SINGLE version of the video.)  But today it was not a problem.

I was also worried that the headphone connections wouldn't work. But that was a piece of cake.

In fact, after the first 10 minutes of chaos most of the bumps/hiccups were worked-out (see below) and it was quite wonderful. The room was very quiet as all of the students wore headphones and had their eyes glued to either the computer screen or their notes. Not a single student "fell asleep" and all but one student COMPLETED THE ASSIGNMENT by the end of the period. It was a very nice day indeed. I am very happy.


Checklist for STUDENTS to bring:
(a) Their computer log-in and password info
(b) Headphones - I told the kids ahead of time to bring headphones. Many of them did. I also have a box of old headphones provided by the school. Some students had to use the old headphones.
(c) Printed Notes - the printed notes "1C" that they were using the day before (I handed out two of these today because the students forgot. However, I do not know how I intend to handle this in the future. Today I was just happy to get students in the lab to see if this would all work.)

Little bumps/hiccups and things that I had to help students with:
(a) Finding my webpage - some students needed help locating the correct URL. (It is printed at the bottom of the notes I gave them yesterday!)
(b) "Loading Video" - Students would stare at that screen for over a minute waiting for a video to load... I would notice this and walk over to them and show them that all they had to do was HOVER the mouse over the screen and click on the "play" button to get the video to play.
(c) FAILED TO PLAY - I had four students who's videos failed to play the first time. I showed them how to "refresh" the screen to reload the Flash file. All four of them worked fine after that.
(d) Screen Zoom - Many students did not know how to ZOOM the screen in/out. I showed them how to use CONTROL button on the keyboard and the MOUSE WHEEL to zoom in/out to make the video player bigger.
(e) SPACE - some students would type an extra space AFTER their answer.... thus getting an "incorrect" message and having to replay the mini-video.
(e) CFU Answer Range Robustness - On one answer the students needed to type "4" or "4 seconds" or "4 s" into the blank to get the correct answer.... But.... quite a few students typed in "4.0" and their answer was kicked back... they had to erroneously re-watch the mini-video. I need to add that answer into the possible correct answers in my Flash file. <== This is where it is helpful for me to try out these files in the computer lab before having students do them at home. I need to make sure MY answers will work.

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*Having said that... I don't know for sure HOW WELL THE STUDENTS ACTUALLY ABSORBED THE INFORMATION YET. That will take further evaluation. (I need to get them back into the classroom and have them doing practice problems, CFUs, quickwrites, etc... to see what they have learned from the video lecture experience.)  Remember that, LONG TERM, I want students to do most of these lectures AT HOME or in the LIBRARY and then they come in to class and we jump right in to USING the information.