The concept developed out of a project which involved musicians analysing the “essence” of Music – a project they called the “Music Genome”. According to the founder of the programme, Tim Westergen, “Over the past 6 years, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists – ranging from popular to obscure – and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time” “We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome.”.

Take the concept a little further and you could have a system which asks you questions about how you think you learn best, (even who your favourite teacher is/was), what subject you are learning etc. You could then create your own “learning Station”. This would be an interesting project – the “Learning Genome” An anlysis of the “essence” of learning….

I was privileged to meet up with three teachers from Italy (Matteo), USA (Betty) and NZ (Julian) who are all heading down to Antarctica over the next day of so (weather dependent) to work as part of the Antarctic Drilling (ANDRILL) programme.

This is a huge science project on the Ross Ice shelf involving New Zealand, USA, Italy and a number of other countries. There will be a total of 6 teachers working alongside the Scientists until late December.

The project is looking to link in with teachers and students around the world. Their Project Iceberg website is full of interesting information about the project and history of Antarctic exploration.

Well – if the Mentos Coke phenomenon that many students are talking about is anything to go by – Coke has more uses than just a thirst quencher – it can also be an instructional device. And we probably owe the growth of phenomenon to You-tube.

If you carefully (but quickly) drop a couple of Mentos sweets into a Coke bottle (Diet is apparently best – no sugar therefore less of a mess) …..outside – the contents are emptied very quickly.

What is interesting is that this idea has apparently been around for a while – The Steve Spangler Science site demonstrates the process.

The idea has probably “rocketed” it into the minds of the students as demonstrated on YouTube – the Coke bottles “fly”. Some enterprising students have gone as far as producing their own instructional videos. By carefully placing Mentos in the bottle cap – and then rescrewing the cap on – the Mentos drops into the bottle. Loosening the cap and throwing the bottle at the ground can result in the bottle taking off at great rates.

It is interesting to see how many home made videos have now appeared on YouTube demonstrating the “rocket” when Mentos and Coke are mixed. The Steve Spangler site offers some explanation about what may cause this reaction.

I wonder how long it will be before drinking Coke and eating Mentos sweets become “banned” items? It will also be interesting to see what other variations of this reaction are experimented with. No doubt those too will appear on YouTube.

Several years later I took some of this technology to Antarctica where I was developing a teaching resource about Scott Base (http://www.antarctica.school.nz). It also provided an opportunity to create 3D still images in a range of areas in Antarctica including the Dry Valleys – an incredible environment and a privilege to be able to visit.

More recently I finally got around to trialling making 3D videos. There are a number of approaches to this including some very clever camera attachments you can either make or purchase.

Since then I have also experimented with creating simple mechanisms to mount cameras on to take stereo pairs for use in either stereographs or to create anaglyphs. A simple draw slider costing $5 can be turned into a camera mount which you can use to reposition the camera to take a stero pair. I have also been experimenting with creating simple stereo viewers using $2 shop glasses and some customwood.

The possibilities for the classroom are numerous. Students thinking can be extended for instance by getting them to look at the concept of parallax. – an idea which relates to the way the eye can see objects: “The difference in the angle of sight between the right eye and the left eye creates parallax, or the viewing angle, which makes it possible to locate an object in 3D space.” Parallax becomes particularly important when creating the 3D videos!

There are also opportunity to explore historical aspects of images or early NZ. I am fortunate to have many hundreds of stereograph photos which belonged to my great grandmother, many of them photos of NZ in the 1900’s. I am now in the process of scanning these and using them in some of my teaching. Such images could also be used to compare changes in society or could be developed into a story book.

Early stereographs can also be turned into anaglyphs.

An early stereograph showing the original location of the clock tower (now moved to Victoria Street)

and the anaglyph image created from the stereo pair.

It may be closely allied with the the WIFM syndrome although more research is required before this can be validated.

The IIWA syndrome unfortunately has a profound affect on some people. It can make them lethargic, leave them without a sense of real purpose and generally make them do the same old thing.

If we really do believe that what we do in our classrooms does make a difference, and that e-Learning can provide appropriate learning opportunities to extend our students thinking, then you may escape this syndrome and find that what we do really is worth something and not be left asking….. Is it Worth Anything?