Intro to Anatomy/Physiology Video

Guiding Principles Re-visited

At the start of the web tools course, I was asked to reflect upon my guiding principles for using technology in the classroom. Here were some of my thoughts:

1. Does it help students apply science to daily life?
Activities that encourage students to use the web to find, for example, the pros/cons (and the factual information to back both) regarding the application of new technology are used to help students to think critically about how science affects their lives and their world.

2. Does it offer an alternative learning experience we can't do without the technology?
Offering access to virtual labs that allow my students to "see" and "manipulate" atoms and molecules, change the temperature or pressure of a gas, and numerous other activities that would not be safe or possible in the average ninth grade classroom as supplements to actual hands on labs are activities I frequently use to cover the less hands-on-friendly physical science concepts.

3. Am I doing old things in old ways? Using a projector/white board to show notes and demonstrations, using laptops in place of encyclopedias and newspapers, and using laptops for word processing are ways that I use technology weekly and even daily, but when the resources are available, why not use them?



Now that I have been introduced to many new webtools, I find the demand to incorporate technology in a new and productive manner to be less intimidating. Not only are there many tools that students can use to be creative and to collaborate with each other, the list continues to grow.

I feel positive that as long as I continue to focus my technology use on the learning outcome, asking myself how the use of a certain technology will encourage students to be independent, creative learners, I will be successful in helping students use these tools to collaborate and create new things, rather than using new and exciting technology to accomplish old-world tasks. The bottom line is that in order to prepare my students to successful in a web 2.0 world, I had to jump into it myself!

Final Project

I chose to use an "In Plain English" style video to explain what my final project is all about. Please check out the video, and then you can head over to my biology class wiki to see what the class connect pages look like.

Discussion Reflection

After participating in group discussion this week, I have found that many of us feel much more confident with our use of webtools, along with having a broader perspective of what is available to use in the classroom. I have long wanted to post a self made video on teacher tube, but never had the confidence to do so. Through this course, I posted my first video, and now feel comfortable with how I can have students do the same.

I am excited to start planning lessons that allow me to show off my new webtools, and like so many others mentioned, I am interested in the student response. Since my teaching assignment changed, I will be teaching the same group of students that I had last year. I think this situation will allow me to get student feedback because so much of the new web tools have a different focus from the technology that I used last year. I am excited to change their use of the web from search-and-find to create and collaborate. That is really what the message has been for me, that I need to focus on using technology to get students working and thinking together to create something of their own. I am looking forward to seeing what my students are capable of producing!

Timetoast

I haven't had a chance yet to try this tool out for myself, but wanted to mention Timetoast time table generator so everyone could have a chance to check it out if they were interested. I think this would be a great chance for students to research events in science individualy and then use their information to collaborate with a group to create a comprehensive timeline.

I tried to embed an example, but didn't have any luck, so I will have to try to create my own time table later this week.

Bulletin boards and sticky notes

This week, I tested out a few different new web tools. Wallwisher is a neat tool that allows the user to create a bulletin board to put sticky notes on. It can be interactive, so though mine was done entirely by me, I see it being used in the classroom to encourage interaction between students. I found wallwisher easy to use, and could add an image, video, or link to each of the sticky notes posted.

I had been using diigo for several weeks, but only for bookmarking websites. I had been unable to install the tool bar since I was using a district owned laptop that blocks all installations. However, this week I discovered Diigolet, which works almost the same as the full blown diigo tool bar- and I was able to add it to my favorites in the "favorites bar" folder, so now I have a Diigolet icon to use when needed. This is great because I can highlight and leave sticky notes on online text that I read, and my notes will be there when I come back to it. I also can add new bookmarks to my Diigo library, even when I am searching at work, and will be able to find them at home. How efficient!

The last tool I worked with this week was the create a graph tool.
This tool was very easy to use, and allowed me to change my graph from a bar graph to line graph and back again with out having to re-enter my data. I can see this being used to help students understand which graphs are used to represent the relationships between the numbers, and also as an option when creating a graph as part of a lab activity.

Comfortable with wikis, not with blogs

After discovering a few years ago how much easier maintaining a wiki at wikispaces was compared to managing the webpage provided by the school district, I have relied on my wiki to provide students with class information that is up to date with course content. I am in the process of making a new wiki for my biology course, since my other wiki was aptly named "Solbergsphyscience" for my physical science course.

For those just venturing into the use of wikis, their application and use in the classroom is awesome. Students can set up a username to gain access to edit pages, send messages, and start a discussion board. I always like to point out that as the "administrator", I am privy to who edits what content, when, and have never had any inappropriate edits that would seem humorous to the the average 9th grader. :) The wiki also allows for RSS feeds to science articles, which means there are updated articles that I don't have to worry about updating each week. I've also used the wiki to post links to articles or websites to be used during class to make the process more efficient for students.

I am open to the use of blogging in the classroom, I just struggle a bit with how to manage it. Despite the wonders of google reader, I think it would be difficult to monitor all posts and comments for 100+ students if each had an individual blog. However, I could see including a concept driven "blog spot" within an existing wiki. This is something I am excited to work into my teaching, I will just have to iron out the details to make it work in my classroom.

Simulations

I set out to find simulations that I would be able to use in teaching biology for the first time this fall. I have used many simulations and virtual labs in teaching physical science over the last several years, so I thought it would be fun to find some new simulations. I thought using a dissection simulation prior to dissecting would be beneficial as it would familiarize students with the tools and procedures of the lab before getting starting on an actual dissection.

Frogguts.com provides an excellent dissection simulation demo, but the entire program costs $300 annually. I thought it would work well in my classroom to have students work through the demo and then compare the organs and systems of the frog to those of the human body by using the human body simulation.

This would encourage students to make the connection between the organs and body systems in a frog and those in humans and also assist them in identifying similarities and differences. I am excited to find more simulations and am open to suggestions. The use of simulations could also be helpful in identify misunderstandings that students have since I could easily circulate and ask questions as they worked through the simulations.

Using Online Data

When looking for online data that I could integrate into my classroom, I immediately thought of checking the South Dakota Game, Fish, and Park website. The small town in which I live and teach in is surrounded by lakes. Our area tourism guide likes to use the line "20 lakes in 30 miles" to encourage visitors to come to the Glacial Lakes area.

Many students fish and enjoy water sports, yet don't give much thought to the biology and science processes being affected by their activities. I thought creating an activity that would require them to use online data to research non-native species and why the introduction on non-native species is a bad thing would be both revelant and interesting.

Information that I found available on the state website, included pictures of the species and maps indicating where species might be found in the state and for some, nationally. Fact sheets for a variety of non-native species were available as well.

Trying again: Mitosis Video

Ah, technology. I thought after all of the resizing my video would upload, but since I could not get it to work, I thought I would go about it through another route, and upload it to teacher tube. It worked! However, to make sure the content is school appropriate, teacher tube has to review every video that comes in. After seeing the "Under Review" icon where my newly uploaded video should be for the last several hours, I then opted to get a youtube account, so this has been quite the experience. However, I must say, the video uploaded quickly, and there were no issues at all. If you do watch it, you may wish to turn the sound down, I guess talking that close to the camera makes for a loud video! Here's my video, embedded from youtube.

Mitosis Video

I spent an afternoon drawing out the pictures and then videotaped myself in an attempt to do a Science in Plain English talk about mitosis. I didn't have a tripod, but it worked ok to just use my digital camera on the video setting. I gave it a few tries, and was satisfied with the last take, considering that I was talking, moving the pictures, and doing the taping myself. :)

Getting the video from the camera to my laptop was easy, uploading the video took some time. The screen showed that my video was uploading, but well over 30 minutes later, I could not publish my post because that would cancel the video upload. I finally became impatient, and opted to re-record my video, changing the setting on my camera from tv movie to small size. I thought the problem could be that my first video was too large a file to upload. The second video I tried to upload was much smaller. This video still took well over 20 minutes, and still did not upload. I then decided to import the video file into windows movie maker to try to condense to an even smaller file in hopes that it would upload. This time, the file uploaded within a few minutes, but when I looked at the preview of my video, there was a black box with a red x. I will need to figure out how to speed up the uploading process before I use it in my classroom.

From having done the activity myself, I think students would have a lot of fun completing a similar project. I also feel that through the process of making the pictures and deciding what to say about each one, students would better understand the subject matter because creating the video encourages the student to focus on what is going on and what is important. I think the implications for using this activity would be great for clarifying many concepts and also incorporates some of the 21st century learning skills, where students use technology collaboratively to create new products.

"Science in Plain English"

Since it is getting closer to the 4th of July, I have been working along with my husband at our firework stand. I haven't had a chance to make my organism poster using Glogster, but I just had to post about a site that has student created vidoes based on the CommomCraft "In plain English" video series. The videos are short and to the point, demonstrating concepts with paper cut outs. The student made videos covering science topics are awesome! I am excited to think about how to put this to use in an activity geared for a biology classroom. So far, I've thought both showing how to use a punnet square's and demonstrating mitosis would work well in this format . Now I just need to learn how to go about posting a self-created video. That is something I have never done, so this could be an interesting endeavor!

Glogster Idea

I was pleased to find a fitting video that showed many things that would get students excited about biology class. My next step was developing activity that tie in the video to reading and writing in order to help develop science literacy skills. Here's what I came up with: After viewing the video, students select one type of organism (animal, plant, fungi, bacterium) to research further. They could even have an open ended research to get started, and narrow down their organism as they found information. I would request that they use a minimum of 3 resources, and would have to follow some of the write as you read science guidelines covered in the science and literacy article. For example: underline the main ideas or topic, place a dot next to the parts you want to remember, place question mark next to parts you don't understand, highlight the parts you find interesting, write notes about the information you want to remember, and so on.

After the initial search for information and the write-as-you-read activity, students could use Glogster to create an Organism Poster to show their classmates which organism they chose, and all of the interesting information, including pictures, they could find about their organism. I think as a student, I would find this sort of assignment interesting, as it would encourage me to read, research, and create. Next order of business: figuring out how to best use glogster!

Thoughts?

Intro to Biology Video!

Web Tools and Literacy

After spending a significant amount of time watching videos about science and technology on TED.com (an intellectual version of youtube, which offers free talks in the categories Technology, Entertainment, and Design)I decided to attempt to "embed" a video that would be appropriate for this blog. Through some trial and error, I managed to get the video embedded so that it plays right on my blog. The video I selected focuses on using technology to reach students across the world, specifically in slums. It seemed to fit right in with what we've been discussing in this course, the need to change how we use technology to improve student learning. Check it out when you have time!

Using new web tools in my classroom excites me, but my main use of pre-made videos has always been to get students engaged. As I read through the Science & Literacy Article, I realized asking students to reflect upon what was shown in the video would be a valid and meaningful method in which I could incorporate writing into my science curriculum.

I will be teaching biology for the first time this fall, so my next step is finding a few appropriate videos that I can use during the first few weeks of school. My intent is to use the videos to encourage students to interpret, apply concepts, and make real world connections, as well as to introduce what biology is all about. I think by using a "watch-write-discuss" activity (video is shown, students are given time to write a reflection, and then students are encouraged to discuss their reflections in a small group setting) would provide a learning opportunity that would incorporate literacy into my science curriculum.

Check back later this week to see what videos I find that are suitable for introducing biology! Suggestions are also welcome.

Ted.com videos

Guiding Principles for Classroom Technology Use

When thinking about the forms of technology I have used in my own classroom, and how I have decided what types of technology-based methods and assignments to incorporate into my lesson planning and teaching, I find much of what I have used falls into three basic categories:

1. Does it help students apply science to daily life?
Activities that encourage students to use the web to find, for example, the pros/cons (and the factual information to back both) regarding the application of new technology are used to help students to think critically about how science affects their lives and their world.

2. Does it offer an alternative learning experience we can't do without the technology?
Offering access to virtual labs that allow my students to "see" and "manipulate" atoms and molecules, change the temperature or pressure of a gas, and numerous other activities that would not be safe or possible in the average ninth grade classroom as supplements to actual hands on labs are activities I frequently use to cover the less hands-on-friendly physical science concepts.

3. Am I doing old things in old ways? Using a projector/white board to show notes and demonstrations, using laptops in place of encyclopedias and newspapers, and using laptops for word processing are ways that I use technology weekly and even daily, but when the resources are available, why not use them?

Upon further thought, when I consider the first two categories, applying science to daily life and offering alternative learning experiences, these act as my guiding principles, as I feel both improve student learning. These are the activities I really think about and ask myself what their benefit is prior to incorporating them into a lesson.

The last category, doing old things in old ways, just shows that the use of technology (perhaps simply because it is there) can make the process of delivery smoother, simpler, but perhaps without a huge benefit to the learner. These activities, I utilize not so much for the sake of incorporating technology, but for the sake of getting the information across...not completely different from using a text message rather than a direct phone call...... same information, slightly different form of delivery.

This process of sorting through the forms of technology I have used and my guiding principles for doing so puts the focus not so much on the technology itself, but back on student learning- How does the use of this technology improve student learning? That's my one true guiding principle after all.

Setting the Stage

To provide some brief background info, thoughts regarding web 2.0 and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills are my basis for today's post. As a bit of a theater enthusiast, I can't help but to play on words, and "set the stage" so to speak, so here's what I see:

The average teacher's lounge, including the old coffee and heated-up leftovers smell, a few teachers, including one of the negative Nancy variation (isn't there always one?). Discussion topic: 21st century skills. Nancy complains how she is already struggling to cover content standards, and can't believe we are now expected to teach students how to use computers and technology. She asks loudly, "Does any of this tech stuff even pertain to real life?" Entrance cue to one hurried teacher carrying a laptop and a second teacher jamming to some music on an i-pod.

Incorporating 21st century skills into one's teaching repertoire can be daunting, even for educators who are fairly confident about their own tech skills. Some examples of how 21st century skills could be incorporated into an elementary classroom seem advanced to me, and I have been fortunate to have had a laptop cart and interactive white board in my high school class room for the past 2 years. Students have used the laptops to complete web-searches and virtual labs, find science related news, and in some small part, add to the class wiki.

Here is where web 2.0 comes in and smacks me in the face: Despite feeling as though I've been incorporating technology-based skills into my instruction, it seems as though I have been using the web as a reference tool rather than the creative engine that it is.

Web 2.0 changes the mechanism of web use from that of the provider of static information to a tool of collaboration. Web 2.0 brings a change in focus- encouraging students to create, to think critically, and to collaborate with others. These are useful skills to enable students be successful in an ever changing world.

Changes in knowledge and information require updates in not only textbooks and computer software, but also in the instructional methods that are used to teach. Educational use of web 2.0 to further advance how we teach is a noble thought. Ideas, however, that we must do so in order to produce students who can compete with those from other countries, while not a completely invalid theory, would not be my personal driving force.

Introduction

Hi and Welcome!

My name is Kate Solberg, and I live and teach in Sisseton, SD. I have taught 9th grade physical science for the last 5 years, and look forward to the excitement and challenges that a teaching assignment change to 10th grade biology will bring.

Although I feel fairly technologically confident, the idea of having my own blog has been one hurdle that I never really felt the need to overcome- until now! I enjoy writing and sharing information with colleagues and students, so it surprises me that I've always felt like I wouldn't know what to post, but I think that's been my main reason for holding back.

I have high hopes that I will be able to design this blog into a working site that my new biology students will be able to use in the fall!