Guiding Principles Revisited

Below are the guiding principles I developed at the beginning of this course. I feel like these statements are still valid and should be a part of any new tool that is implemented in my classroom. However, after taking this class I also feel that I could allow more creativity through the tools we explored to see what the students can create. So I guess I should allow myself (and my students) a little bit of technology just because it is cool, not only because it improves the scientific experience. I also hope that I will remember the article about using technology for old things in new ways and new things in new ways. It is exciting to think that my students could learn from professionals all over the country and the world if I look for those opportunities. Thanks, Eric, for a great class!

1. I will always ask myself the question, "Does this activity improve the scientific experience for the students?"
2. I will avoid using technology just because the students think it is cool.
3. I will focus on the content of a project, and not how well the student is able to use the technological "bells and whistles."
4. I will maintain a balance between what is old (and works!) in the classroom and what is new and will add a spark to the learning experience.

Discussion Reflection on Web 2.0

Several ideas were mentioned by the participants in our group concerning the Web 2.0 tools and the implementation of these tools in our classrooms. First of all, many participants mentioned that they had not realized how many tools were available, and that the number of tools was overwhelming at first. As we continued to learn new tools, however, we learned to choose the items which fit our students, our schools, and our teaching style at this time. The neat thing about being exposed to so many choices is that we can change to something different if we feel it necessary. Another point that was mentioned frequently was that we must remember to use technology as it improves the learning/teaching atmosphere. This technology should not be used just to look nice in a school or so we can say that we utlilize computers. We must be diligent in our quest to use technology when it enhances the curriculum. One other comment that was mentioned less often, but is a continuing possible roadblock to implementation of Web 2.0 in the classroom is the question of student access to the technology. If the students don't have access at school, do they have access at home? Almost all public libraries now have access to the web, but can the students be expected to get to the library? These are questions that must be answered on an individual basis, but hopefully the access will improve over time. Over all, the comments were positive in that participants learned about new tools and were encouraged by their peers to continue to work toward implementation in their classrooms.

Final Project

My final project is a class wiki, for my advanced placement environmental science class. I concentrated more on the set up of the wiki and figuring out the links than on being very creative with my assignments. After looking at several other projects, I can see that I need to work on some creative assignments! But for now, I do have a wiki that I will use, and have the major assignments for the first week of school already posted. Now that I understand how to organize the wiki better, the next portion should be less time consuming than the set up.

I started out with the goal of making an online space for class discussions of current events, with the hope that the online discussions would increase class participation. However, after exploring the wiki and seeing other examples, I decided to use it for communicating all assignments and information about this class. I hope that it will be used by the students to enable them to review material we covered during class time, in addition to the discussions and the assignments.

As the wiki evolves, I will add videos and links from the web that are either homework or we viewed in class. I also want to incorporate more use of VoiceThread and possibly Glogster for assignments. Here is the link: http://bcaroyalscience.pbworks.com

Any suggestions are welcome!

Tools - Week 6

I am later posting this week because we finally (after 18 years!) replaced the carpet in our home. Moving the furniture is tough, but the worst part is moving all the "stuff." I may never go to a store to buy a nonconsumable again - we have too much junk! Anyway, to save money we also ripped up the carpet, which wasn't bad except the staples. I have spent alot of the week moving everything twice. But ... I am excited - new carpet! YAY! We always said - after the dog dies, and the kids move out. Sounds harsh, but it is reality!

Anyway, back to class! I have worked on my project this week, and also explored Wordle, which is fun. I think the students would enjoy this tool. Here is my wordle-
I really liked the different colors and fonts one could use, and it was not time consuming!

To work on my project, I explored the different wikis in more detail. I tried pbworks, wetpaint, and wikispaces. I liked the colors and set-up on wetpaint, but as someone already mentioned, it is too commercial. I couldn't find out how to get rid of the ads, but maybe I missed something? Then I worked with wikispaces. I liked the layout of this wiki better, and the colors were nice. One of the first things I wanted to do was create a table which showed assignments for the classroom and homework for one unit. I worked on this table for a long time (too long!) and it looked great in the edit mode, but each time I published it the table disappeared and I got the text and a bunch of lines (not in table form!) Anyway, I finally gave up to try pbworks. I really didn't want to use pbworks because the layout seems a little confusing to me. During this course I have sometimes had trouble locating the page I needed. I always figured it out, but I knew that my students would likely use this as an excuse unless I could make it more user friendly. Actually, they probably would have no trouble, but it bothered me!! My problem is that in the navigator box shown below I couldn't always find the week I needed. Later I realized I had to click on the correct folder, but I didn't want my students to spend time figuring it out.


After I played with pbworks a little more, I realized that I could edit the order of the folders in the navigator by placing numbers beside them. If there were no numbers, the folders appear in ABC order.


Shown above is a picture of the navigator for my wiki. I aso found I could star the main folders, which I think will help the students. Then I worked on editing the sidebar, which also gave me a little more organization.

Using the sidebar gives the opportunity to show the outline of the wiki so that any page can be accessed at any time (I think!)

I was very slow with these ideas, so there may be an easier way, but I was excited to have worked out the issues I had with pbworks.

I also downloaded Jing and explored it. I really like this tool! I don't know how much I will use it in my classroom right now, but it is great to know that I am able to use it and have it set up to embed images.

My project is underway, but I would like to addsome more information and a few more pages before anyone else previews it. I have emailed my principal to tell him of my plans, and he replied that he is excited to see what I'd like to do . A good week's work!

Prezi Inspiration!

I was intrigued by the work of several classmates who tried out prezi, so I wanted to see how it worked! Kelly mentioned that the rotation of this tool made her a little dizzy, and I have to agree - me too! I wonder if it would have that same effect if I were standing in front of a classroom instead of sitting and looking at a laptop. I'll have to try it before my students return! This is a fun tool. My first thought was that I could use it as a little different type of concept map. I usually draw the concept maps on the board, but this enables me to move the terms around and gives the ability to use images too- pretty cool. I also thought it might be helpful when teaching sequences like cellular respiration and photosynthesis, to get the big picture. As usual, I spent way too much time getting it "right," but I think the product could be used in class with just a little tweaking. Thanks to everyone for the inspiration!

Carbohydrates on Prezi

Blogs

When we first started using the blog for this course, I didn’t really see what use it could be for my classes at school. I had heard of using wikis, and was excited about learning to use them, but had not heard of using blogs for the classroom. After blogging for a couple of weeks about this course and after reading “Create a Classroom Blog” by Brunsell and Horejsi, I have seen firsthand how a blog may be useful to my students. Since I have no computer access in my room, and no computer time is available for high school students except the yearbook staff, any blogging my students will do will have to be as homework assignments. We are fortunate in our school in that most, if not all, of the students do have high speed access at home. The biggest hurdle seems to be convincing parents that the online space is safe.

The article about blogs had quite a few great ideas for their use in the classroom. One comment that jumped out at me was “Science education blogs can serve as powerful digital lab notebooks that contain text, images, and videos.” That sounds pretty cool. I thought that to give lab a new twist, I could put a team of two or three students in charge of posting each lab report online. They could use video they took during lab, pictures, and post their data and conclusions. After this team posts their report, other students in the class could make comments and suggestions for making the report better. I seem to always have a hard time getting the freshman biology students to understand what a conclusion is, so maybe critiquing others’ work would give some positive reinforcement. This project would be “in process” throughout the semester, hopefully training each student to write an excellent lab report. Another plus for this method is that I would have a record of the labs we did and the progress that was made. I would need to remove these posts before the next class started – is that possible?

According to the article, the blog could also be used for online assignments and comments. That is what I would like to develop for my final project, so I guess a blog would work. I am still puzzled as to whether a wiki or blog would be best- so, back to explore some more to hopefully find the answer!

Edmodo

I have also been exploring Edmodo his week, just to see if it would make a suitable site to begin classroom discussions / post assignments. It has been helpful that one of our classmates, David, is also figuring out this site, so I could see what he has posted and how he has used Edmodo. I don't really like the set-up as well as the wiki we are using for this class, but I guess one of the benefits of Edmodo would be the security. With our school's internet policy, Edmodo may be a good choice. I guess after I figure out the best way to use the assignment pages, files, etc., and how to organize it, it would work fine. I just need a site for the students to post their responses and reply to one another. I have posted an assignment and two links, and to access the Edmodo group - APES 1- here is the code: ezwidd. Let me know what you see!

New Tool - Photopeach

I was inspired to try Photopeach after seeing some of the slideshows that were created by class members. It was fun and easy. My husband and I visited Arizona, Utah, and Nevada for our 25th wedding anniversary over spring break, and I have been meaning to do something with the pictures! This shows our visit to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. I definitely think Photopeach could be a useful tool in class if we wanted to focus on text instead of audio. Voicethread would still be my choice for any report type slide shows, as it is more versatile in the comments and allows audio.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Flagstaff, AZ on PhotoPeach

Reflections on Using Online Data

I am continually reminded as I read the articles and posts in this course that being a good teacher who constantly challenges the students is a difficult job! There is so much to learn, and so many new methods and activities to use. I can get overwhelmed easily, so I just need to remember to treat all of these ideas like groceries in a supermarket - I don't need to try every type of cereal, but to eat the same type every day gets boring, and it may not meet my needs. So... all that to say that I love the ideas presented in both the acquiring online data chapter and the article about generating arguments. Using online data is a great idea for many reasons. It should not take the place of student generated data, but the online data can be used in situations when students cannot generate data or there is a time constraint. As emphasized in the text, online data allows students to explore real world problems as is done in the workforce, which gives the students a little better idea of what scientists do everyday. I explored a couple of the websites listed in chapter 6 - Envirofacts http://www.epa.gov/enviro / and World Atlas of Biodiversity http://http://stort.unep-wcmc.org/imaps/gb2002/book/viewer.htm . Both of these sites looked really neat, but I will need a good bit more time to explore them and determine how they could be used. Time, once again, is a major struggle. First to figure out what can be used on these sites, then determine the best activities, questions, and measurement tools. The World Atlas of Biodiversity looked really useful for the environmental science classes, and I am excited about returning to explore it. I have also used the census bureau site in the past and the US Geological Survey water data.

The article explaining the instructional model for generating and argument was excellent. Again, so much to learn, but such a great tool! I found myself agreeing with the ideas about focusing on inquiry and how we know science, but also asking myself - do I really know how to lead students to ask the best questions and critique the inquiry process? That is where this article is so helpful. Not only does it explain what we, as teachers, should be encouraging in our classrooms, but it gives us concrete ideas about how to make it happen. And, as others have suggested, most people like to argue! One of the methods of keeping excitement in a classroom is to create tension, which is exactly what an argument does. The tension causes each person to examine why they agree with a certain point of view, which leads to increased critical thinking. I am excited about implementing this idea in my classroom.

I also wanted my voicethread attempt to be on the blog, not just a link, so hopefully here it is:

City challenges environmental group's assertions on sewage sludge | burlington, state, rules - Top News - Burlington Times News

I'm testing his embed feature to see how it works on a blog page. I'd like for the article to be seen here, but it looks like it will be a link, which may have to do!

City challenges environmental group's assertions on sewage sludge | burlington, state, rules - Top News - Burlington Times News

Embedding Video

Okay, so some of the participants in my Web 2.0 class are way ahead of me. I'm a little slow figuring out these tools. I was reading one blog that talked about embedding video, so I read the info our instructor posted and uploaded on flickr. I think it worked, so I'm posting it here (I hope!) When I first went back to teaching a couple of years ago I read an article that explained how to use a small lens digital camera to take video and pictures through the microscope eyepiece. I thought that was pretty neat, both for me and the students. I didn't have that type of digital camera, but I purchased one for less than $100. If a student had a good view of some item we were trying to see, they could video it and then I could use it in a powerpoint to show what they were really looking for. They were excited when I used their video. Some students were really good at making sure the camera was in the right position, and others struggled, but I think it worked out well. Here is one of the videos:


Here is another video that I uploaded to youtube, then embedded. The youtube upload was faster.

First #scichat

I participated in my first #scichat last night, and I can see how Twitter can be useful. It did move quickly, however, and I am an "early to bed" person, so I was a little slow! I read a lot and didn't really contribute, though I did pick up a couple of good websites to search, and I added a couple of people to follow on Twitter. It was definitely interesting! Eric's video on how to get the most out of #scichat was excellent - very helpful. I was able to keep up fairly easily, and even check and bookmark (thanks to Diigo!) the links as people mentioned them. All in all, it was worth the 45 minutes I spent watching and reading! Next time I hope I can contribute to the conversation!