He's a collector of ideas to teach science with the help of computers. Over the years he has reviewed pretty much everything and aims to spread knowledge of what's good and what makes harder science accessible.
Roger used to teach chemistry and science only yards from where he grew up in
London's East End. Here on the the front line of teaching, he took
his science classes to the computer room, experimented with ways
to make topics understood more efficiently. Back then, in 1985, there was
a lot of experimenting. |
Chemistry was a big subject in the eighties when we weighed things
in pounds and filled up in gallons. You could do chemistry
without the safety police on your back so these were the glory
years.
But one day the safety police came. They cleared the
room of anything that might entice a pupil to take up chemistry
for the wrong reason. They confiscated a stick of potassium he was saving for millenium night. They cleared the shelf and left a bottle of
rock salt - on the label it said "HARMFUL if thrown". In later years they would say that this was ever their intention.
Frost mused
on ways to regain the risk that made chemistry
demonstrations such fun. What could one do? The
answer came after experiencing the school network: if you really wanted something to blow up in your face, ICT was even better than potassium. So came the challenge to tame
technology and find its potential. |
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By 1988, Frost was an advisory
teacher at the Inner London Educational Computing Centre (ILECC)
and North London Science Centre. With his background in
instrumentation, he became interested in data logging. He collected
ideas for an IT booklet he gave away to local schools.
Soon school advisers were buying them in bulk. So encouraged, he
published a series of ideas booklets which quickly turned into reference works worldwide. In 1992 he went freelance
to write for the education press and run training
days for schools. Since then he has written
brochures, manuals and advertisements as well as reviewing science products aplenty. His
aim is to make it easy to find the best resources for school science. For example,
at his web site there are experiments to try, reviews and opinions on
equipment.
He is friendly with many manufacturers and publishers but remains independant. He'd not forgive me if I didn't mention the section about his training work at http://consulting.rogerfrost.com.
After years of never finding software for organic chemistry he bit the bullet and developed his own. It's called Roger Frost's Organic Chemistry Teaching tools. It's made to do all we've said so far: help and enhance.
Does he have fun ever? Yup! He is married with two artistic sons. The
big one is the artist Alex Frost at www.alexfrost.com. Roger can't draw. He can
however ski, ice-skate, disco dance, break things and get drunk
on a pint. He can do a trick where you light a beer bottle filled with butane and burn your fingers as it goes whooop. He laughs it off by saying it's just
part of growing up. Actually, he laughs most things off and he's right - he is
still growing up.
His books include:
- Data logging in Practice 1999
- Software for Science Teaching 1999
- The IT in Science book of data logging and control. ISBN
0-9520257-1-X
- The IT in Secondary science book ISBN 0 9520257 2 8
- Enhancing Science with IT (on this web) 1994 Co-author ISBN
1 85379270 5
- IT in Primary Science ISBN 0-9520257-3-6. Also in Dutch
- Information Technology (Nelson), 1993 Co-author ISBN 0-17-438572-2
- The IT in Science Blue book, 1992.
- The IT in Science Buff book, 1991
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