Megan Alvord

There is a lot of good happening in the world of physics and physics education at NC A&T! They are putting in some serious work for experiences for teachers and high school students. If you can't attend this, keep them in mind and look out for future events!!! 🎢

I'd love to, but then I'd have to "make it up." There is no getting out of admin PD where I work :(

At least I get my computer so I'm trying to grade some lighter assignments.

"Teacher work day" is a misnomer in my school.

Today would be better phrased as "Admin needs to check a box day"

Words from the agenda today:
Prompting
Deep Research
Vibe Coding

❤️

"It's less harmful to me to make sure that they can do the things without the AI than to try and push the AI into my classroom knowing that, at least for some of them, it's going to mean that they don't get to acquire the skills that they need."

This this this this this this this this this this 🙏

I visited this museum when I was in Vegas for another teacher conference and I highly recommend it! It was a short uber drive from my hotel. I paid extra for the tour and learned so much about Vegas history. It really is a link to old Vegas that I wasn't getting on the strip where the conference was

@coachpayne.bsky.social I won't be able to go but wanted to make sure you saw this!

@barnettdreyfuss.bsky.social is this what you were referring too?

Comic. [Banner: Mathematical Society: 2025 Meeting.] PERSON 1 with bun: Any other new developments from the year to cover before we wrap? PERSON 2: Oh, the teens picked a new funny number. PERSON 3 with short hair: Aww, I’m glad to hear they’re still doing that. PERSON 4 with ponytail: I’ll add it to the list. [List: 23 (skidoo!; 42; 69; 420; 1,337; 58,008; [circled]: 67]

Funny Numbers

xkcd.com/3184/

My school uses K and U for kinetic and potential energies. So we end up with U_g, U_s, U_e, etc.

This year students really wanted to use U_K for kinetic energy and it has been hard to make them stop. 🎢

Ooh that's helpful! I need this for a hanging masses lab.

I had the same thought just last week, but with a projectile launcher. Graphical Analysis still gives the starting speed from the built in photogates, but it's in such tiny font in the data table.

So many "AI for homework help" ads are showing that the class the student needs help in is science and/or math. Is any else noticing this trend? 🎢

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

As a parent, unless your child is with a rouge teacher, chances are they’re reading even less than the bare minimum from your high school English class.

Screenshot from Naviance: "Get started with your recommendation for [redacted]. To generate a meaningful and personalized recommendation letter, select the information you'd like to highlight. You can also set the tone, level of formality, and your relationship to the student. After you make your suggestions, generate the letter. How formal should this letter be? What tone would you like to set? What's your relationship to the student? Would you like to use bullet points? Upload a template letter.

I know AI is everywhere in our lives, but this one really surprised me. I'm uploading my recommendation letters, and Naviance has offered to write my rec letters for me, using just 4 bits of information from me.

The absolute gall to call this "meaningful and personalized"

#EduSky #iTeachPhysics

The lady at the charity shop today told me that she wishes people would clear out their children's old toys in the lead up to Christmas rather than after because she always sees a number of parents in the days before Christmas looking for toys for their little ones who might be strapped for cash. She said there's very rarely anything in just before, but that they get inundated with toys in the days after. And it really made me think about it in a way I never would have before. If you know your child is going to get lots of presents from father Christmas this year, by clearing out your cupboards a few days early you could make another child's Christmas a lot more special too. Saw this & thought I'd repost

Reposting with Alt-text:

But you may have to spend hours in "professional development" about it 🙃

Join us for an AAPT Virtual Coffee Hour on "Beware of Quantum Ducks, Quark Quark Quark: Resources for Teaching Modern Physics" with presenters Jan Mader & Shane Wood on October 14th at 6:30 pm EST. This event is open to the public. ow.ly/NtBq50WYavn #AAPTCoffeeHour #PhysicsEducation #ITeachPhysics

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

The IT department at my school says we can't turn it off since it's a feature of Chrome and not our LMS. Students using Safari or Firefox will probably never see it. Our LMS Canvas says they are talking with Google, but we'll see if anything comes from that (I doubt it).

Guess what lab one of the physics classes at my school is starting today? Video analysis of a basketball throw with a focus on the quadratic equation.

Honestly it's why I'm back on BlueSky after 6 months of a break. Trying to figure this new "feature" out and who has it. We use Canvas and it started showing up last Tuesday. The button saying " homework help" when it will give you the answer is an interesting choice of words.

Administrative requests for lesson plans was also the first thing I thought of when I saw this.

But I love lesson planning...

This is the only way I'll teach projectiles now! End of semester is the way to go!!!

I've tried to use vertical and horizontal axis when I can. "The position variable x is plotted on the vertical axis"

A colleague attended NC NSTA a few weeks ago and he said it was abysmal. I think in NC there is very little money going towards out of house PD. He said he met a teacher who was the only teacher for their district because they only budgeted money for one.

Messy teacher table with Vernier projectile launcher. In front of table is column of ring stands with embroidery hoops at varied heights.

Whiteboard wtih known height values for the set up. Launch pad height is 28 mm. Launcher height is 0.146 m. Initial speed is 6.392 m/s at 155 psi. Table height is 93.6 cm

Here is the finished set up!

Given a known distance (marked on the floor in blue tape) and initial speed from the Vernier projectile launcher, determine the height for the hoop so that the projectile will pass through it. This class was successful for 7 out of 8 hoops.

Collection of ring stands with embroidery hoops attached at different heights.

Day before Thanksgiving break. Wishing my students the best problem solving for success!

#iTeachPhysics