NOVA5000 Australian Trials

The use of the Nova 5000 during our It’s electrifying science unit was a resounding success. The students loved using the sensors to record and analyse information. I initially introduced the sensors in a ‘play’ situation. This was a huge success in engaging the students. They held light sensors to everything they could find that gave off light. They were fascinated by the graphing process and initited their own comparisons of the graphs and discussed various theories to explain the differences.

I introduced the students with the voltage sensor when they had experimented with building their own electrical circuits. The students were already highly engaged in building various circuits but what the Nova’s enhanced was their deeper knowledge and understanding. Student’s continually changed and added to their circuits all the while measuring and recording the voltage. The dicussions that arose from the graphs were interesting and enlightening in some cases, and added to their understanding of the topic.

The students became adept at managing the Nova’s within our classroom. They set up recharge stations and a team made sure they were recharged after every use and then put away. Others were responsible in copying data from the Nova’s to the computer. We connected the Nova to our interactive white board. This was excellent for demonstration purposes and to explain to the students how to use the Mulilab software. In regards to using the other software on the Nova’s and to manage the files they created they pretty much were able to work that out for themselves or asked their peers to show them.

On reflection, I was unable to give justice to the teaching of the unit due to the time constraints I experienced during Term 4. This term was a poor choice as we had too many interruptions, assessments, end of year events and commitments that severely reduced the time I could allocate to such a comprehensive ‘hands on’ unit. In future I would move the teaching of a unit that required a lot of time on practical experimentation as opposed to research to an earlier term.

I initially introduced my class to the Nova’s for use in our science lessons but both my students and I quickly found other uses for them apart from during science including spelling activities, drawing and word processing (using the keyboard).

This is a test posting.

Last week, the Kindergarten children worked with my class using the NOVAs. The ‘big buddies’ showed the ‘little buddies’ how to draw in Paint and we saved their drawings which I will add here. The ‘little buddies’ loved the NOVAs.

I was particularly moved by a small boy who, at first, was very shy and reticent about using the technology. His buddy was having trouble coaxing him to pick up the stylus and try. I sat with him and started drawing myself. He watched with interest while I drew a snake with a long tongue and colourful spots.

I was suddenly distracted by another child who needed my attention and when I came back to the little guy, there he was busily drawing his 3 snakes! With long tongues and colourful spots! He was so engaged and involved that he forgot about being shy and nervous!

Within moments he was showing another little guy how to do it! Collaboration and peer-tutoring…in Kindy!

What a breakthrough!

Here are some photos of us on the NOVAs.  Kali broke both her arms last week but she was still able to do all her assessment tasks on the NOVAs! Mitch sat with a small group of students to show them how to use Inspiration to create a Weather mind map.

These little computers are addictive, I am learning more on these computers than before. For the past four weeks we have been collecting the temperature and have been putting them in our books. Today l used portrait 4, then I used the temperatures to make a graph and I found it so interesting. I also loved using Inspriation and I have to tell you the truth it is an inspriation. I will also add I like the funky colours.

Recently our students raised funds to purchase notebooks that they can hire out overnight to work on at home. As much as this was a worthwhile endeavour for students without access to a PC and the internet at home, as an IT Manager I had numerous concerns about purchasing expensive notebooks to go home with students. The NOVA5000 was a welcome compromise – a robust, solid state solution. Not only will we be able to hire the units out overnight for students but we can use them in the science/maths labs during the school day. A better return on investment all around with a fully utilised resource – not just something that will sit on the shelf for most of its life.

To enable the students without internet access at home to remotely connect to our school network and ultimately the web we also allow them to hire an Apple Airport Extreme wireless point that is preconfigured with an automatic dial-up to our remote access server at school. Once the Apple unit is connected to our domain the NOVA5000 can wirelessly communicate with the Apple base station and ultimately open an RDP session on our Terminal Server and have access to all the applications and internet that they would normally access if they were on campus in a student computer lab. This facility will be most welcome to the disadvantaged student without access to PC/Internet at home.

I know a lot of researchers say that the novelty effect of new technologies wears off over time but we have had so many novelties (with Smartboards and LAMS and learning objects) at Glenorie that my class truly got down to business and started investigating the real possibilites of these wonderful tools without too much fuss. I truly don’t think my class are so easily WOWed. They know that the tools have to be used in authentic tasks which relate totally to what they are doing in the classroom at all times, so they were quick to delve into the powers of the NOVA.

When Jake took it upon himself to fix the daylight saving time and set them up on the charger at the end of the day, I knew he was hooked! (And this was a surprise)!

One child used complicated descriptive language skills to articulate his instructions to his buddy on the use of the data logger. I haven’t heard him give such explicit instructions for anything ever before!

2 girls were discussing the most reliable place to collect temperature data. Should it be in the shade or in the sun? They took the NOVAs. One stood in the sun, the other stood in the shade. They compared their data. All in a matter of 10 minutes (without any prompting or suggestion from me). The concluding conversation was deep and intellectual. Once again, without any input from me. When they handed them over to the next couple, their suggestions were valued and considered by the next group.

I watch as children walk to their desks, talk to their friends about how to and what to do with these cool new NOVAs. They love the size and the lightweight colourful design. I will get them to post their comments here.

Some of my girls in the Top Maths group have started an Excel spreadsheet of all the temperature data for the last week. We imported it into Portrait 4 to see how pretty the graphs were. Next week we hope to have a very interesting line graph which plots both morning and afternoon temps.