How will you use these technology applications to improve learning experiences for your students and/or improve your own practice?
I picked a few of my favorites to talk about in this section:
Productivity Tools (Word to .pdf and Google Calendar): I currently use and will continue to use the Word (and PPT) to .pdf format extensively in my classroom. I find that students encounter much fewer problems downloading and/or opening files on Moodle when the files are in .pdf format. And now that I’ve found some tools that can convert a .pdf file to another format that could be edited, that might end up being even more helpful since students could now download a .pdf file I have and convert it into something they can edit. I also liked the idea of a Google Calendar. I’ve entertained the idea before, but I think that it might be something that I would be willing to try next semester or next year. I think that visually seeing due dates on the calendar (rather than just listed on the board or on a unit overview sheet) can be extremely helpful for some students.
Research Tools (MEL and the citation tools): I think that I knew about MEL before, but never really explored there. We have Infotrac at school, so it seems like a lot of the same data bases were there. But MEL had so much more. I think that is reason enough for me to start requiring that all my student research projects use mostly articles and sources from MEL rather than just a “blind search” on the internet.
RSS (Google Reader): Since I learned about the RSS concept and iGoogle/Google Reader last summer, I’ve been very intrigued with the idea of trying to incorporate RSS subscriptions into a “current events/biology in the news” type of ongoing assignment. And even if I don’t use it for a class assignment, I think that using if for my personal and professional life would be nice. There are lots of great blogs out there that I could subscribe to and just try to carve out a few minutes here and there to skim through the headlines to see if I wanted to learn more.
Virtual Classrooms (Moodle and Face of the Classroom site): I already have a Moodle classroom for the courses I teach. But, as I mentioned before, I am very intrigued with the idea of creating a separate website/face of the classroom site that would send students to Moodle for some assignments/tools/references, but would allow a little more flexibility with incorporating other types of content in a more visual way.
Visual Tools (Wordle/Tagxedo): Love Wordle! Not quite sure how to use them in my class, but I will continue to try to find ways. Even if it was a fun little optional activity that was included at the end of an assignment that students might finish early, it would be fun to see what students could create with all the varieties of vocabulary that come up in Biology and Anatomy & Physiology.
Screencasting: I really hate trying to annotate a screencast and abhor listening to myself in the recording, but I think there is real value to these. I think that I will be creating a few of these over Christmas break and using them right away (since I have jury duty). I can also see tremendous value with adding these to assignments that require specifics on the computer or things that students just don’t always understand right away. Then students can go back and watch the video on their time and as many times as they need (and pause when needed) to make sure that they understand the concept. I can also see some potential for recording parts of lab activities that are hard to understand (or make up if absent) and figuring out a way to screencast/podcast or some combination of the two so that they would be available after that particular class period is over.
What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
Summarizing and Note-taking: The productivity tools (file conversions, etc...) and research tools (MEL and the citation tools) would definitely address these strategies.
Homework and Practice: I think that the research tools, the virtual classroom, and the screen casting tools would help and assist students as the complete their homework and practice their learning.
Cues, questions, and advance organizers: The productivity tools, the virtual classroom, the visual tools, and the screencasting could all contribute to this strategy.
Cooperative learning: The virtual classroom is an obvious method to address cooperative learning. However, I can see opportunities for cooperative learning to happen within most of the activities. Group research, group projects requiring screencasting as an outcome, etc... are examples of how these other “things” could also contribute to cooperative learning.
Nonlinguistic Representations: The visual tools (Wordle, Tagxedo, etc...) and the screencasting are wonderful examples of nonlinguistic representations. I find that sometimes I spend way too much time trying to write out directions for how to complete something on the computer. However, if I just took a quick 5 minutes to screencast the thing that I’m trying to explain, I would spend less time with it and students would understand it right away.
Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
Since I was so excited about the screencast that I made and how I could actually use that right away in my classroom, I’m going to describe the activity that I will use that for (although, this may sound very similar to the posting I made for Thing #21...oh well...). As a part of our cell division unit (which leads right into our genetics unit), One of the activities that I've had students do is to look at an onion root tip under the microscope and identify the stages of the cell cycle/mitosis each of the cells is in. Students do okay with this, but not all students always understand what they are looking at. So, in addition to actually manipulating the microscope to look at cells, I found an interactive web site that shows images of cells in various stages of the cell cycle/mitosis, asks students to pick which stage the cell is in, and then provides feedback for students on whether or not their choice was correct. I find that even though I think that the directions I’ve included for how to navigate through the site are very clear (obviously, I wrote them!), I have lots and lots of questions every year about simple navigation tasks. Therefore, I made a screencast describing the simple steps of navigating through the site. I hope that this will make things more clear for my students and cut back on my frustration level regarding having to answer “the same question” over and over :)
Michigan Curriculum Standard Covered:
B4.3A: Compare and contrast the processes of cell division (mitosis and meiosis), particularly as those processes relate to production of new cells and to passing on genetic information between generations.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thing #21
Screencasting
I decided to alter the directions for this assignment slightly so that I can actually use my screencast immediately (I didn't do something I found on Thinkfinity, but it is an interactive site). I have Jury Duty starting on January 3, so this might be something that I need to use right away. The topic that we will be studying is cell division (mitosis). One of the activities that I've had students do is to look at an onion root tip under the microscope and identify the stages of the cell cycle/mitosis each of the cells is in. Students do alright with this, but not all students always understand what they are looking at. So, in addition to actually manipulating the microscope to look at cells, I found an interactive web site that shows images of cells in various stages of the cell cycle/mitosis, asks students to pick which stage the cell is in, and then provides feedback for students on whether or not their choice was correct. So, since I might be absent when we would normally review the activity, I decided to make a screen cast that would cover the same things that I would when reviewing the activity.
Here is the link to my screencast: Mitosis Activity Instructions Screencast
Overall, I enjoyed making the screencast. I never like to hear my voice recorded, and it makes me nervous. But, I'm sure that I would grow more comfortable with it over time. And I got good feedback (mostly because my colleague was so impressed with the whole concept of screencasting). One bonus of making this is that I think that I will make a few extra screen shots of activities that students will be completing the first week back from break in case I actually have to be gone for several days for jury duty.
I decided to alter the directions for this assignment slightly so that I can actually use my screencast immediately (I didn't do something I found on Thinkfinity, but it is an interactive site). I have Jury Duty starting on January 3, so this might be something that I need to use right away. The topic that we will be studying is cell division (mitosis). One of the activities that I've had students do is to look at an onion root tip under the microscope and identify the stages of the cell cycle/mitosis each of the cells is in. Students do alright with this, but not all students always understand what they are looking at. So, in addition to actually manipulating the microscope to look at cells, I found an interactive web site that shows images of cells in various stages of the cell cycle/mitosis, asks students to pick which stage the cell is in, and then provides feedback for students on whether or not their choice was correct. So, since I might be absent when we would normally review the activity, I decided to make a screen cast that would cover the same things that I would when reviewing the activity.
Here is the link to my screencast: Mitosis Activity Instructions Screencast
Overall, I enjoyed making the screencast. I never like to hear my voice recorded, and it makes me nervous. But, I'm sure that I would grow more comfortable with it over time. And I got good feedback (mostly because my colleague was so impressed with the whole concept of screencasting). One bonus of making this is that I think that I will make a few extra screen shots of activities that students will be completing the first week back from break in case I actually have to be gone for several days for jury duty.
Thing #20
Visual Learning
I think these tools might be helpful in a number of ways. First, a concept mapping program like Bubbl.us is similar to the Inspiration program I have used with
students before. It would be a great way to have students organize their thinking and concepts for a particular unit. I think that Wordle would be a lot of fun to use with some text. I'm not exactly sure how I would use it in an assignment (besides just for fun). But, I know that I have seen Wordle images hanging in the English room down the hall from me that students created as a part of an assignment. They look good from the hallway :)
Bubbl.us Diagram
I created a Bubbl.us diagram of the concepts of nature of science (NOS), one of the main components of my dissertation research.
I created a Bubbl.us diagram of the concepts of nature of science (NOS), one of the main components of my dissertation research.Wordle
I created a Wordle from Genesis 1...I really like it!
I think these tools might be helpful in a number of ways. First, a concept mapping program like Bubbl.us is similar to the Inspiration program I have used with
students before. It would be a great way to have students organize their thinking and concepts for a particular unit. I think that Wordle would be a lot of fun to use with some text. I'm not exactly sure how I would use it in an assignment (besides just for fun). But, I know that I have seen Wordle images hanging in the English room down the hall from me that students created as a part of an assignment. They look good from the hallway :)Thing #19
Virtual Classrooms
I have a couple of ideas about how I can extend my classroom. I currently have a Moodle site for all of the classes that I teach. I have really liked Moodle, and I have gotten comments from students where they tell me it's so nice to have all the class "stuff" available to them online and how they wished that every teacher would do that. One of the most used things that I find on my Moodle site is the course PowerPoint presentations that I've uploaded. Since a lot of what I teach is very visual (diagrams, images, etc...), I've had students download the PowerPoint, e-mail it to themselves, open the e-mail on their phone, and then flip through the slides like flash cards (most students did this during the skeletal and muscular system units since we had lab practical portions to their tests). When I told a fellow teacher about this, the first thing they were concerned with was students using this to cheat. However, I just really didn't think that would be a problem. I monitor kids very closely during tests, so I don't think it happens often. I was just more impressed with their use of technology to enhance their learning.
Another thing I would like to do is create a class website (Weebly, PBWorks, or something like that) and then connect my Moodle site to that. I found that the Weebly site I created would allow me to post more content on the actual site (rather than just links to documents and other resources). Sometimes I feel a little "trapped" by my Moodle site. I think that creating this Virtual Classroom would help meet a number of the NETS-S for my students including Research and Information Fluency, Communication and Collaboration, Digital Citizenship, and Technology Operations and Concepts.
Navigating the Land of Online Learning
The "Navigating the Land of Online Learning" activity was a nice summary of some of the questions, issues, problems, and advantages to incorporating online learning components into a course. To be a succesful online student, there are a variety of skills you need to have and questions you need to ask. I think that one of the biggest skill an online student needs to have is self-motivation or self-direction. As opposed to sitting in a daily face-to-face class where the teacher might have the due date up on the board, announcing it in class, forcing students to write it in their planners, and then requiring things to happen during the 50 minute (or whatever time frame) period of time each day. A virtual class gives students the opportunity to be more flexible with their time; however, it does require some self-motivation and self-regulation. I've moved to having 5:00pm or 9:00pm or midnight deadlines. I have found student responses to be very positive towards this since it recognizes that students are busy and need to sort of prioritize things they need to do in their life. In addition, I get a lot fewer complaints about due dates which has made my life easier.
One more thing that I think will be required and new for "new" online learners is a technology learning curve. Since a lot of the learning will be done at home or some other location where the tech person/help desk does not live, students will have to figure out what to do with something breaks down and how they are going to deal with technology problems.
I do not think that online learning should completely replace face-to-face classrooms. I haven't really enjoyed all the aspects of the completely online classes that I have taken. However, I do think that there are some great things from the face-to-face classroom and the online/virtual classroom that can be combined nicely into a blended classroom.
I have a couple of ideas about how I can extend my classroom. I currently have a Moodle site for all of the classes that I teach. I have really liked Moodle, and I have gotten comments from students where they tell me it's so nice to have all the class "stuff" available to them online and how they wished that every teacher would do that. One of the most used things that I find on my Moodle site is the course PowerPoint presentations that I've uploaded. Since a lot of what I teach is very visual (diagrams, images, etc...), I've had students download the PowerPoint, e-mail it to themselves, open the e-mail on their phone, and then flip through the slides like flash cards (most students did this during the skeletal and muscular system units since we had lab practical portions to their tests). When I told a fellow teacher about this, the first thing they were concerned with was students using this to cheat. However, I just really didn't think that would be a problem. I monitor kids very closely during tests, so I don't think it happens often. I was just more impressed with their use of technology to enhance their learning.
Another thing I would like to do is create a class website (Weebly, PBWorks, or something like that) and then connect my Moodle site to that. I found that the Weebly site I created would allow me to post more content on the actual site (rather than just links to documents and other resources). Sometimes I feel a little "trapped" by my Moodle site. I think that creating this Virtual Classroom would help meet a number of the NETS-S for my students including Research and Information Fluency, Communication and Collaboration, Digital Citizenship, and Technology Operations and Concepts.
Navigating the Land of Online Learning
The "Navigating the Land of Online Learning" activity was a nice summary of some of the questions, issues, problems, and advantages to incorporating online learning components into a course. To be a succesful online student, there are a variety of skills you need to have and questions you need to ask. I think that one of the biggest skill an online student needs to have is self-motivation or self-direction. As opposed to sitting in a daily face-to-face class where the teacher might have the due date up on the board, announcing it in class, forcing students to write it in their planners, and then requiring things to happen during the 50 minute (or whatever time frame) period of time each day. A virtual class gives students the opportunity to be more flexible with their time; however, it does require some self-motivation and self-regulation. I've moved to having 5:00pm or 9:00pm or midnight deadlines. I have found student responses to be very positive towards this since it recognizes that students are busy and need to sort of prioritize things they need to do in their life. In addition, I get a lot fewer complaints about due dates which has made my life easier.
One more thing that I think will be required and new for "new" online learners is a technology learning curve. Since a lot of the learning will be done at home or some other location where the tech person/help desk does not live, students will have to figure out what to do with something breaks down and how they are going to deal with technology problems.
I do not think that online learning should completely replace face-to-face classrooms. I haven't really enjoyed all the aspects of the completely online classes that I have taken. However, I do think that there are some great things from the face-to-face classroom and the online/virtual classroom that can be combined nicely into a blended classroom.
Thing #18
Staying Informed
I picked the iGoogle reader format for RSS feeds. I selected a number of subscriptions and blogs to follow. Most of these, for now, were personal and news feeds. But, I think that I could organize my feeds and folders to include a number of educational blogs. I've had this Google Reader account for a while. The biggest problem I've encountered is the same one that I encounter with a lot of other things in my life: not enough time! However, I do think there are some very nice ways that these could be incorporated as a resource for my teaching and my students' learning. One very interesting and ongoing assignment that I could set up would be a "Biology in the News" assignment (or "Anatomy & Physiology in the News") where students would have to read and summarize one news article/journal article. I've done something like this in the past with the Environmental Science course I taught for several years. However, it wasn't a huge success. But, I think that if I had kids set up a Google Reader account (since they already have Google Docs, it would logistically be the easiest one to use), I could have then subscribe to several news feeds related to the class they were in and subtopics that they were most interested in. Then not only are students keeping up to date with news and discoveries in that area, but I also benefit by reading their summaries and really learning something new while I did that (rather than read 30-90 reports about the same thing).
I picked the iGoogle reader format for RSS feeds. I selected a number of subscriptions and blogs to follow. Most of these, for now, were personal and news feeds. But, I think that I could organize my feeds and folders to include a number of educational blogs. I've had this Google Reader account for a while. The biggest problem I've encountered is the same one that I encounter with a lot of other things in my life: not enough time! However, I do think there are some very nice ways that these could be incorporated as a resource for my teaching and my students' learning. One very interesting and ongoing assignment that I could set up would be a "Biology in the News" assignment (or "Anatomy & Physiology in the News") where students would have to read and summarize one news article/journal article. I've done something like this in the past with the Environmental Science course I taught for several years. However, it wasn't a huge success. But, I think that if I had kids set up a Google Reader account (since they already have Google Docs, it would logistically be the easiest one to use), I could have then subscribe to several news feeds related to the class they were in and subtopics that they were most interested in. Then not only are students keeping up to date with news and discoveries in that area, but I also benefit by reading their summaries and really learning something new while I did that (rather than read 30-90 reports about the same thing).
Thing #17
Research and Reference Tools
Student Research
I selected the InfoTrac Junior Edition and InfoTrac Student Edition databases below to compare/contrast. I thought that the appropriateness, usability, content, and credibility for each of them was pretty good. I teach in the high school, so I woul
d probably have a more difficult time determining if something was really appropriate or not (reading level-wise, content-wise, etc...) for an elementary student. But I did notice more Weekly Reader articles and such show up in the Junior edition which makes sense to me. Overall, I really like these types of search databases...especially when students can choose to search for just full-text documents. That puts all these resources at students' fingertips.
Advanced Research
I used the Academic One File to find an article on bacteria. I have used a lot of these research databases in my own
research (graduate school stuff). And I have occasionally used these for finding articles for my classroom. One of the problems that I have is that since I teach science, once I get to these upper-level articles, some of the material goes way beyond (content-wise) what the vast majority of my students can really understand. But, I have tried several different guided activities to help my students "wade" through an academic article. That being said, not all the articles are way beyond reach for my students. For example, I can find Science articles that most students can understand (or at least understand most of it...maybe with a little extra coaching).
Works Cited 2
As a Calvin graduate and frequent user of the site, I choose KnightCite to use to create a citation for a journal article. I found that KnightCite actually is a better citation machine than CitationMachine when it comes to some APA formatting issues (there were even some formatting errors in the tutorial video using CitationMachine--Stephen King's entire first name was typed out when it should have just been an initial, S.). Here is my citation:
Overbye, D. (2010, December 14). Poisoned debate encircles a microbe study's result [Electronic version]. The New York Times, D4(L).
Student Research
I selected the InfoTrac Junior Edition and InfoTrac Student Edition databases below to compare/contrast. I thought that the appropriateness, usability, content, and credibility for each of them was pretty good. I teach in the high school, so I woul
d probably have a more difficult time determining if something was really appropriate or not (reading level-wise, content-wise, etc...) for an elementary student. But I did notice more Weekly Reader articles and such show up in the Junior edition which makes sense to me. Overall, I really like these types of search databases...especially when students can choose to search for just full-text documents. That puts all these resources at students' fingertips.Advanced Research
I used the Academic One File to find an article on bacteria. I have used a lot of these research databases in my own
research (graduate school stuff). And I have occasionally used these for finding articles for my classroom. One of the problems that I have is that since I teach science, once I get to these upper-level articles, some of the material goes way beyond (content-wise) what the vast majority of my students can really understand. But, I have tried several different guided activities to help my students "wade" through an academic article. That being said, not all the articles are way beyond reach for my students. For example, I can find Science articles that most students can understand (or at least understand most of it...maybe with a little extra coaching). Works Cited 1
I used the MEL database (Academic One File) to search for an article about the new bacteria scientists have found that used arsenic as a component
in its DNA. I needed to click on the News Article tab to find a super current news article related to this current topic. Here is my citation in APA format:
I used the MEL database (Academic One File) to search for an article about the new bacteria scientists have found that used arsenic as a component
in its DNA. I needed to click on the News Article tab to find a super current news article related to this current topic. Here is my citation in APA format:Overbye, D. (Dec 14, 2010). Poisoned debate encircles a microbe study's result. The New York Times, p.D4(L). Retrieved December 19, 2010, from Academic OneFile via Gale:http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=lom_accessmi
Works Cited 2
As a Calvin graduate and frequent user of the site, I choose KnightCite to use to create a citation for a journal article. I found that KnightCite actually is a better citation machine than CitationMachine when it comes to some APA formatting issues (there were even some formatting errors in the tutorial video using CitationMachine--Stephen King's entire first name was typed out when it should have just been an initial, S.). Here is my citation:
Overbye, D. (2010, December 14). Poisoned debate encircles a microbe study's result [Electronic version]. The New York Times, D4(L).
Thing #16
Professional Learning Networks
LearnPort
I registered for LearnPort for the first time in one of the earlier "things" that talked about the NetTrekker. I looked in there for a while for more resources and lesson plans. There is a lot of material accessible there! This time, I explored the courses that were offered. It was really neat!! I had to renew my teaching certificate again this past summer, and I was reminded about the continuuing education requirement portion of my teaching certification. Since I am still finishing up my dissertation, I've never had a problem getting enough credits for renewing my certificate. But as I look into the future, I will need to start to accumulate credits or SB-CEUs. This was a great resource! And some of the courses looked like they would be great content review resources. I will definitely be using this in the future.
Social Networking
I have both a Twitter and Facebook account. And to be honest, I've never used the Twitter account except for the assignments I had to do as a part of my 23 Things course (I think that's why I signed up). I also never really used my Facebook account. I know that there are people (lots of my friends) who absolutely LOVE Facebook and are on all the time. I just don't feel the need to be that connected. And, I don't really care (nothing personal) if someone just put cookies in the oven or if they just noticed that it's really cloudy. I just don't have enough time in my day to spend a lot of time on either of those sites. That being said, I do think that there might be a place for some type of class Facebook account. I don't know of any high school teachers that have one for their class, but I know several elementary school teachers who have pages for their students' parents to access and find out what's going on and to communicate with each other. I usually try to think that I'm pretty open to technology, but I'm just not sure that I'm ready to venture into that area yet.
I just finished watching the AdobeConnect presentation for this thing, and I would like to ammend my answers/opinion about Twitter. I do like the idea of subscribing to other "smart" people's Twitter feeds and then to be able to scroll through them occasionally and glean some good information. I just do NOT want to know when people have coffee, notice it's sunny, wash their car, and other mundane stuff.
MACUL
I joined the MACUL space and poked around in a few places. This has been something that I've thought about over the years, but I figured that most of the members were probably "super duper" tech people and not "regular" classroom teachers. But, as a part of the PBL training I took this summer, I think that I might be a part of a MACUL presentation or poster session or something this coming year. So, maybe this is a good way for me to start being involved in an organization such as this.
Professional Organization
I chose to research International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (Unfortunately, there was no link attached to the resources list item called Education Related Professional Organizations...so I did't get the chance to pick from a lot of organizations).
Purpose: This organization tries to improve learning and teaching by advancing the effective use of technology in PK-12 and teacher education. They are also the creator and home of the NETS (standards for technology proficiency and integration in education for students and teachers.
Cost and Benefits of Memberships:
LearnPort
I registered for LearnPort for the first time in one of the earlier "things" that talked about the NetTrekker. I looked in there for a while for more resources and lesson plans. There is a lot of material accessible there! This time, I explored the courses that were offered. It was really neat!! I had to renew my teaching certificate again this past summer, and I was reminded about the continuuing education requirement portion of my teaching certification. Since I am still finishing up my dissertation, I've never had a problem getting enough credits for renewing my certificate. But as I look into the future, I will need to start to accumulate credits or SB-CEUs. This was a great resource! And some of the courses looked like they would be great content review resources. I will definitely be using this in the future.Social Networking
I have both a Twitter and Facebook account. And to be honest, I've never used the Twitter account except for the assignments I had to do as a part of my 23 Things course (I think that's why I signed up). I also never really used my Facebook account. I know that there are people (lots of my friends) who absolutely LOVE Facebook and are on all the time. I just don't feel the need to be that connected. And, I don't really care (nothing personal) if someone just put cookies in the oven or if they just noticed that it's really cloudy. I just don't have enough time in my day to spend a lot of time on either of those sites. That being said, I do think that there might be a place for some type of class Facebook account. I don't know of any high school teachers that have one for their class, but I know several elementary school teachers who have pages for their students' parents to access and find out what's going on and to communicate with each other. I usually try to think that I'm pretty open to technology, but I'm just not sure that I'm ready to venture into that area yet.
I just finished watching the AdobeConnect presentation for this thing, and I would like to ammend my answers/opinion about Twitter. I do like the idea of subscribing to other "smart" people's Twitter feeds and then to be able to scroll through them occasionally and glean some good information. I just do NOT want to know when people have coffee, notice it's sunny, wash their car, and other mundane stuff.
MACUL
I joined the MACUL space and poked around in a few places. This has been something that I've thought about over the years, but I figured that most of the members were probably "super duper" tech people and not "regular" classroom teachers. But, as a part of the PBL training I took this summer, I think that I might be a part of a MACUL presentation or poster session or something this coming year. So, maybe this is a good way for me to start being involved in an organization such as this.Professional Organization
I chose to research International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (Unfortunately, there was no link attached to the resources list item called Education Related Professional Organizations...so I did't get the chance to pick from a lot of organizations).
Purpose: This organization tries to improve learning and teaching by advancing the effective use of technology in PK-12 and teacher education. They are also the creator and home of the NETS (standards for technology proficiency and integration in education for students and teachers.
Cost and Benefits of Memberships:
- $10/month
- Learning & Leading with Technology Magazine
- ISTE Learning Resources
- 30% ISTE Books discount
- 60% ISTE Webinars discount
- ISTE Conference and Exposition registration discount
- Unlimited access to all ISTE member communities and social networks including 20 Special Interest Groups
Thing #15
Productivity ToolsWord to .pdf
I use this function all the time. When I post documents and PowerPoint presentations on our class Moodle site, I post them in .pdf format. This has eliminated problems I had previously with students not being able to open the files because they were in a format their computer couldn't use.
Media Convert
I tried to open www.media-convert.com, but it wouldn't open. So, then I searched and found Media Converter. But it turns out that it just converts media files (my word processing document that I tried to upload was not a supported file type). So, I went to Zamzar instead. I uploaded a Word (docx) document, and the output formats I could choose from were the following: doc, mp3, odt, pcx, pdf, png, ps, txt. I don't even know what odt, pcx, and ps are as far as their file types. The Zamzar site was easy to use, and I can see myself using it in the future as I have students turn in more and more electronic documents that I can't always open. And I can convert (or have students convert) their files into particular formats to use different place. I also converted a Word document to an mp3 file. I'm not a huge fan of "screen readers," but they might be very helpful for some students. And who knows, maybe I might get used to it if I used them enough.
Google Calendar
I also like this function. All of our students have g-mail accounts (the educational ones through school), and so it would be very easy for me to have them create and set up a calendar. Then I could share a calendar with class due dates with them. I also noticed that you could embed the calendar. That would be a very nice function that I could use to embed the calendar either into our class Moodle site (I think Moodle has a calendar as well, but this would be nice since I could keep a variety of different calendars and then just have one of them "sent" to the Moodle site) or onto my "Face of the Classroom" site (a Weebly one or something).
Capstone Reflection for Things #8-14
How will you use these technology applications to improve learning experiences for your students and/or improve your own practice?
I picked a few of my favorites to talk about in this section:
Digital Photo Editing (Picnik): I loved the Picnik site! I think that this would be a great asset to my class in making some of the images that we use even more interesting and eye catching. It would be a great way to really pique the interest of the “artists” in my classroom. As I mentioned earlier in my blog, I have students complete a “Plot Study” project during our ecology unit. I would love to see a number of students use Picnik (or some other photo editing site) to enhance the photos they “collect” as a part of their “collection.”
Digital Storytelling: I will talk about this more later in this posting, but I would love to see what types of digital stories my students could create on a variety of topics in my class. There are a lot of “processes” that we talk about in biology: nutrient cycles, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, homeostatic responses, etc... that would lend themselves to nice digital storytelling projects. It would be a really nice end-of-the-unit project to have students create to really let them demonstrate their understanding of the topic.
Prezi: I must confess that I didn’t really like Prezi all that much before. The first time I saw Prezi was at the David Warlik conference I went to last fall. I thought it was great then! But then I tried to create one, and I was immediately turned off. Another teacher at school required all students to create a Prezi, and I heard lots of complaints from students (a lot of these were actually about getting dizzy from watching things zoom all over the place). But, I think that I will give Prezi another chance. Maybe I just didn’t try it with the right topic. I really like the one I created for the Cell Cycle, and I think that Prezi actually does a better job than PowerPoint for that particular topic since it is cyclical in nature—and Prezi can show that.
Quizlet: This will also be a definite addition to my teaching—especially for my anatomy and physiology students. I’ve just mentioned the site before and hoped that some students would explore the site and find out that it was really great. But it would also work to “assign” various groups of students to create flashcards for particular units. That way they could get flashcards for every unit and share the workload.
What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
Nonlinguistic Representations: Digital photo editing, digital storytelling, Prezi, Quizlet (my favorite tools from this section) all incorporate nonlinguistic representations. I think that there are so many students who are visual learners (aren’t we all at some level?) who would greatly benefit from these tools.
Reinforce Effort and Provide Recognition: The quiz/survey assessment tools provided a means for reinforcing effort and providing recognition. I can see an application like Quizlet being used by a student to reinforce what they are learning and to provide recognition for them as to what they know or do not know. If they actually have to answer the question/define the term on the card before flipping it over, that will help them become a little more self-aware about what they really know.
Questions and Advanced Organizers: Applications like digital storytelling and Prezi require some advanced organizer skills as you set up your project. These are key skills for students to acquire and to learn how to use tools like advanced organizers to help them learn.
Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
I think that I would really like to create an activity where students used a digital storytelling program to create a story regarding the cell cycle to demonstrate their knowledge. First, students would need to learn about the cell cycle. As a part of that learning, they would engage in various lab activities where they viewed cells in various stages of the cell cycle. They would need to take some digital photos of those cells (or sketch them and scan in the sketches) in order to use them in the digital story. We currently have one camera that mounts onto a microscope. But, a project like this might be just the impetus our department needs in order to buy a few more microscope mounted cameras (I hear they are wonderful!).
After obtaining the photos and images, students would need to order those images in the proper order and create a digital story demonstrating their knowledge of the cell cycle. There could be specific instructions and guidelines about what type of content material and knowledge needed to be demonstrated in both the photos/images and narration accompanying the images.
Michigan Curriculum Standard Covered:
B4.3A: Compare and contrast the processes of cell division (mitosis and meiosis), particularly as those processes relate to production of new cells and to passing on genetic information between generations.
I picked a few of my favorites to talk about in this section:
Digital Photo Editing (Picnik): I loved the Picnik site! I think that this would be a great asset to my class in making some of the images that we use even more interesting and eye catching. It would be a great way to really pique the interest of the “artists” in my classroom. As I mentioned earlier in my blog, I have students complete a “Plot Study” project during our ecology unit. I would love to see a number of students use Picnik (or some other photo editing site) to enhance the photos they “collect” as a part of their “collection.”
Digital Storytelling: I will talk about this more later in this posting, but I would love to see what types of digital stories my students could create on a variety of topics in my class. There are a lot of “processes” that we talk about in biology: nutrient cycles, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, homeostatic responses, etc... that would lend themselves to nice digital storytelling projects. It would be a really nice end-of-the-unit project to have students create to really let them demonstrate their understanding of the topic.
Prezi: I must confess that I didn’t really like Prezi all that much before. The first time I saw Prezi was at the David Warlik conference I went to last fall. I thought it was great then! But then I tried to create one, and I was immediately turned off. Another teacher at school required all students to create a Prezi, and I heard lots of complaints from students (a lot of these were actually about getting dizzy from watching things zoom all over the place). But, I think that I will give Prezi another chance. Maybe I just didn’t try it with the right topic. I really like the one I created for the Cell Cycle, and I think that Prezi actually does a better job than PowerPoint for that particular topic since it is cyclical in nature—and Prezi can show that.
Quizlet: This will also be a definite addition to my teaching—especially for my anatomy and physiology students. I’ve just mentioned the site before and hoped that some students would explore the site and find out that it was really great. But it would also work to “assign” various groups of students to create flashcards for particular units. That way they could get flashcards for every unit and share the workload.
What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
Nonlinguistic Representations: Digital photo editing, digital storytelling, Prezi, Quizlet (my favorite tools from this section) all incorporate nonlinguistic representations. I think that there are so many students who are visual learners (aren’t we all at some level?) who would greatly benefit from these tools.
Reinforce Effort and Provide Recognition: The quiz/survey assessment tools provided a means for reinforcing effort and providing recognition. I can see an application like Quizlet being used by a student to reinforce what they are learning and to provide recognition for them as to what they know or do not know. If they actually have to answer the question/define the term on the card before flipping it over, that will help them become a little more self-aware about what they really know.
Questions and Advanced Organizers: Applications like digital storytelling and Prezi require some advanced organizer skills as you set up your project. These are key skills for students to acquire and to learn how to use tools like advanced organizers to help them learn.
Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
I think that I would really like to create an activity where students used a digital storytelling program to create a story regarding the cell cycle to demonstrate their knowledge. First, students would need to learn about the cell cycle. As a part of that learning, they would engage in various lab activities where they viewed cells in various stages of the cell cycle. They would need to take some digital photos of those cells (or sketch them and scan in the sketches) in order to use them in the digital story. We currently have one camera that mounts onto a microscope. But, a project like this might be just the impetus our department needs in order to buy a few more microscope mounted cameras (I hear they are wonderful!).
After obtaining the photos and images, students would need to order those images in the proper order and create a digital story demonstrating their knowledge of the cell cycle. There could be specific instructions and guidelines about what type of content material and knowledge needed to be demonstrated in both the photos/images and narration accompanying the images.
Michigan Curriculum Standard Covered:
B4.3A: Compare and contrast the processes of cell division (mitosis and meiosis), particularly as those processes relate to production of new cells and to passing on genetic information between generations.
Thing #14
Online Video and Audio Resources
My school has a subscription to Discovery School/UnitedStreaming. I've used a lot of videos and video clips from this site. I've used them by just showing small clips or showing an entire video. I have downloaded small sections of videos and posted them onto my Moodle course. And I think that my tech coordinator was going to figure out how to sign
my students up to go to the site and watch a video (if they are absent and the video is too big to fit on a site like Moodle).
This site allows you to search for videos/clips and then narrow it by content area, grade level, full clip or video, etc... One drawback I see to this site is that sometimes the videos are dated. That might not seem like such a big deal, but outdated videos in science are not a god thing. I really kind of wish that our school had a subscription to Learn360. Maybe if I ask a few more times :)
I find that video resources are so nice in science since science (at least life science) tends to be such a visual acitivity. However, I have used some audio resources before with various assignments (podcasts from places like NPR Science Fridays).
My school has a subscription to Discovery School/UnitedStreaming. I've used a lot of videos and video clips from this site. I've used them by just showing small clips or showing an entire video. I have downloaded small sections of videos and posted them onto my Moodle course. And I think that my tech coordinator was going to figure out how to sign
my students up to go to the site and watch a video (if they are absent and the video is too big to fit on a site like Moodle).This site allows you to search for videos/clips and then narrow it by content area, grade level, full clip or video, etc... One drawback I see to this site is that sometimes the videos are dated. That might not seem like such a big deal, but outdated videos in science are not a god thing. I really kind of wish that our school had a subscription to Learn360. Maybe if I ask a few more times :)
I find that video resources are so nice in science since science (at least life science) tends to be such a visual acitivity. However, I have used some audio resources before with various assignments (podcasts from places like NPR Science Fridays).
Thing #13
Online Interactive Learning Tools
Google Earth Location
I picked Potato Creek State Park in Indiana (just south of South Bend). This is a state park we found a few years ago because it was half-way between my brother and sister-in-law in Chicago and us in Grand Rapids. It's nothing super fancy, but it has worked very well for us. I'm sure we will go back for years to come :)
Google Earth Placemark
We are going to Washington, D.C. for Spring Break this year. My husband has never been to Washington, D.C., so I'm very excited that he will be able to see some of the sites there. One of my favorite places to go there is to Arlington National Cemetary. I could spend all day walking around and visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. So, that is what I picked to Placemar
k.
k.Quizlet
I definitely plan on using this with my students in the future. The Anatomy & Physiology course that I teach involves a lot of terminology (almost seems like a foreign language sometimes). And not only do students need to learn the terminology, then they need to be able to put those terms to use as they describe and explain how the different body systems function. Since it is an upper-level elective course for mostly for students who are interested in health care related careers, I do ask them to learn a lot of terminology. And that's hard. So, I think that a site like Quizlet would be a great place to send kids to make flashcards and play games as they study. One downfall I found is that in order to upload photos, you needed to pay for a subscription. It was only $10 for the year which might be more than worth it if that's what it would take to really help students. But, it would be nice if it was free. There were some free images you could use, but they were limited, not necessarily what I wanted (especially for an upper level science course), and the search function wasn't all that great.
Thing #12
Evaluation/Assessment and Survey Tools
Google Forms
Love it! I learned about these in a technology presentation from a colleague who was embedding these into his Moodle site and using them as "brainstorming" activities or "bell beater" activities. I've found a number of ways to use them including a li
ttle "quiz" students take about me at the beginning of the year, a way to collect e-mail addresses, a way to collect updated data information for my dissertation, etc... Overall, I love this application! I didn't the "summary response" tools existed. I will definitely be looking that those from here on out.
Rubistar
I created a rubric for the Spinach Leaves Lab that students complete during our unit on Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration. As a part of this activity, students place spinach leaves in a jar and connect an oxygen gas measuring probe and a carbon dioxide measuring probe to the jar. A computer program (Logger
Pro--Vernier program) then caputures the data from the probles. Students experiment with different variables (light levels, light colors, temperature, etc...) and then watch what happens to the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the jar. They analyze the data and draw some conclusions regarding the rates of photosynthesis and cellular respiration under those experimental conditions. Currently, I have a form with questions for them to fill out. However, as a part of our NCA (AdvancEd now...or something like that) work, I need to have a rubric assignment where I can gague how well students do analysis. This seemed like a great assignment to "tweak" inorder to fit that goal.
Data Warehousing
I must admit that I am pretty unaware when it comes to knowing about anything related to data warehousing in my district. One of the tools mentioned was Moodle, and I am aware of that. I guess our grading program/student management system would be considered data warehousing. It is the Blackbaud system, and I am not a fan. The grading component of it is NetClassroom, and it is not user friendly for the teacher or the student/parent accessing the information. I think that student management systems like this and course management systems could be used to inform instruction in several ways. First, when I give a test, I would love to have a simple, easy way to analyze test questions to show me which ones students were missing with more frequency. I guess if I put all my tests on Moodle, I could get that information. But I don't have all my tests there, so now I just have to rely on a feeling that I get while correcting and noticing that more students seem to be getting particular questions wrong. I think it would be really interesting to see a data analysis of our students scores on a test like the ACT or MME to see what content areas students seem to be struggling with. Of course, FERPA/HIPAA is very important and student confidentiality and privacy need to be respected and protected.
Google Forms
Love it! I learned about these in a technology presentation from a colleague who was embedding these into his Moodle site and using them as "brainstorming" activities or "bell beater" activities. I've found a number of ways to use them including a li
ttle "quiz" students take about me at the beginning of the year, a way to collect e-mail addresses, a way to collect updated data information for my dissertation, etc... Overall, I love this application! I didn't the "summary response" tools existed. I will definitely be looking that those from here on out.Rubistar
I created a rubric for the Spinach Leaves Lab that students complete during our unit on Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration. As a part of this activity, students place spinach leaves in a jar and connect an oxygen gas measuring probe and a carbon dioxide measuring probe to the jar. A computer program (Logger
Pro--Vernier program) then caputures the data from the probles. Students experiment with different variables (light levels, light colors, temperature, etc...) and then watch what happens to the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the jar. They analyze the data and draw some conclusions regarding the rates of photosynthesis and cellular respiration under those experimental conditions. Currently, I have a form with questions for them to fill out. However, as a part of our NCA (AdvancEd now...or something like that) work, I need to have a rubric assignment where I can gague how well students do analysis. This seemed like a great assignment to "tweak" inorder to fit that goal.Data Warehousing
I must admit that I am pretty unaware when it comes to knowing about anything related to data warehousing in my district. One of the tools mentioned was Moodle, and I am aware of that. I guess our grading program/student management system would be considered data warehousing. It is the Blackbaud system, and I am not a fan. The grading component of it is NetClassroom, and it is not user friendly for the teacher or the student/parent accessing the information. I think that student management systems like this and course management systems could be used to inform instruction in several ways. First, when I give a test, I would love to have a simple, easy way to analyze test questions to show me which ones students were missing with more frequency. I guess if I put all my tests on Moodle, I could get that information. But I don't have all my tests there, so now I just have to rely on a feeling that I get while correcting and noticing that more students seem to be getting particular questions wrong. I think it would be really interesting to see a data analysis of our students scores on a test like the ACT or MME to see what content areas students seem to be struggling with. Of course, FERPA/HIPAA is very important and student confidentiality and privacy need to be respected and protected.
Thing #11
Presentation ToolsI created a Prezi on the Cell Cycle and cell division: http://prezi.com/cbrm_vhbf17g/mitosis/
This is a great topic for a Prezi because it is a cycle. The visual layout of a Prezi really helps communicate that concept.
I think that Prezi and PowerPoint presentations each have their place. For a concept like the cell cycle, a Prezi is a nice visual way to display not only the content of each of the stages of the cell cycle, but also shows how those stages all fit together. However, organizing the Prezi can sometimes be more trouble than it is worth. I've given students the option of creating a Prezi or PowerPoint for some of their presentation projects. One complaint that I often get is that all the zooming that Prezi does makes people a little "motion sick." Plus, unless the concept does have a nice "story" to it, Prezi just seems like a fancy, zoomy way to present the same information. But I do think that there are concepts (like the cell cycle) that would lend themselves to good, quality Prezi presentations.
One thing I did think about as I was creating this was how I was probably violating some copyright laws. I often use images (under fair use) in my presentations. But then the presentations are only available either in my classroom (during class time) or on my Moodle, password-protected site. However, creating this Prezi (at least on the free Prezi program) makes the presentation available out there on the web. So what kind of copyright issues does that bring up? If you were going to place "things" in a Prezi that would normally be okay because you were "covered" under the fair use guidelines, what happens when that Prezi is now public?
Here is a screen shot of a website with mitosis picutures that I used ZoomIt on. I think this is really nice for highlighting areas of the screen, getting students to focus in on just one section of the screen (if the page is particularly "busy"), and obviously for visually impaired students. The draw option was probably the thing that I would choose to use more often since it was so easy.
Thing #10
Digital StorytellingI chose to make a digital story about the cell cycle. This is one of the next topics that we cover in class. As in a lot of biology topics, this is a very visual topic where we look to see the cell dividing and pulling apart it's chromosomes.
First, I created a storyboard for my digital story. I used bubbl.us; however, I'm not a real fan of that program. I use Inspiration more often. But, I realize that bubbl.us is free and web-based. So, I guess it will work.
Then, I downloaded and opened Photo Story to begin my digital story. Well, since I am doing this a little "last-minute," I didn't have access to all the digital images of cell division that I wished I had. And, looking at the ones available on Picassa and Flickr, I think that I might actually have students take photos while we go through the cell division unit and have them create their own digital stories of the cell cycle. Anyway, it was just easier for me to grab family photos that I already had saved on my computer. So, I made a family digital story project about what happened with our family during 2008.
Once I made and saved the story, I tried to go and put it on my Weebly site, but something was wrong with Weebly (they were "fixing" something). So, I created a Voice Thread account, created a project, and uploaded my story there. So, I think that this is the link that you need to see the story:
The feedback that I got was mostly about the time spent on each slide and some of the transitions. I realized after creating the story that you can control the amount of time spent on each slide (clearly I should have messed around more with the first few images). I did go and chance the time spent on each slide, but that was kind of a pain. I didn't narrate anything since I hate listening to my recorded voice, and my microphone is tucked away in the basement right now. But, I think that students might like narrating it (they constantly ask me to "Jing" things just so they can be really loud and then listen to themselves on the playback).
Digital Storytelling in My Classroom
As I mentioned earlier, I can see a great opportunity for a digital story telling project in some of my units like the cell cycle, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, etc... Actually, this would make a great project for those topics because, to be honest, those topics are sometimes not exactly the most exciting things that we cover in the course of the year. So, this would be a nice way to add some excitement. And, in doing so, I think that students might really learn the material if they needed to manipulate the information and create a story out of it.
Thing #9
Digital Images
Digital Photo Editing
I opened a photo in Picassa and then edited it in Picnik. Included screen shots of before and after editing.
Public Photo-Sharing
Digital Photo Editing
I opened a photo in Picassa and then edited it in Picnik. Included screen shots of before and after editing.Some of the editing features I applied in Picnik:
1960s, cross-process, HDR-ish, and Holga-ish. I adjusted each effect so that I ended up with an image with interesting contrast and color and nice rounded corners.
I can see lots of neat ways to use this type of resource in my classroom. One of the first ways 
that comes to mind is having students use this resource in conjunction with their Plot Study project. One part of their project is to do a "virtual collection" of organisms--photos of a variety of flowers, animals, fungus, trees, etc... Last year one student had AMAZING photos that she had clearly edited. I asked her what program she had used, and she explained she had used Picnik. Picnik was an easy program to use, and it made the photos look so interesting and neat.
that comes to mind is having students use this resource in conjunction with their Plot Study project. One part of their project is to do a "virtual collection" of organisms--photos of a variety of flowers, animals, fungus, trees, etc... Last year one student had AMAZING photos that she had clearly edited. I asked her what program she had used, and she explained she had used Picnik. Picnik was an easy program to use, and it made the photos look so interesting and neat.One of my goals is not only to teach students the content (science, in my case), but also to teach them some "life skills" and expose them to programs and ideas that they might use in the future. For instance, I had students use Dropbox last week. Even though our school filter doesn't allow students to upload or download to Dropbox, I still made them all sign up and accept an invitation from me to a shared folder. I think this is something that a few students might really like (especially if they look in the folder at home over break and realize they can open and save into it to complete their assignment). Likewise for Picnik and other programs like that. Even if they don't use the program all that often in my class, I think it's worth it to expose students to technology like that so that they know it exists and is out there.
One other reason I really liked Picnik and the other photo editing programs was that it made the photos look so cool that I said, "wow!" One of my goals for teaching is to inspire an awe and wonder in the natural world that God has created. And I can freely articulate that since I teach at a private Christian school. Spending time editing an image does help you reflect on how beautiful even the most simple things in life can be.
Public Photo-Sharing
I uploaded an image to Picassa and here is the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Sfz3bl91op8t3vrwFlU87A?feat=directlink
Here is the photo that I shared (just to use the embed code):
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thing #8
Copyright and Creative Commons
I created a copyright quiz using Google Docs. I sent the quiz to several coworkers and family members (who are also educators). Overall, people seemed to
have an okay understanding of copyright and fair use. One thing that I found was that people (myself included) seemed to think that there were "hard and fast" rules about the amount of material that could be used inorder to stay within fair use guidelines (400 words of text, 10% of work, etc...). I think I remember learning about these guidelines either at a conference of from one of the tech people in our district. I also found that people (including myself) didn't realized that unpublished material has copyright "rights." I guess I just had not thought about it. But I guess that makes sense. I did know that you could register your copyright since I have instructions for how to do that with my dissertation (once it's finished!).
I created a Creative Commons license for my personal Weebly site. Here is a screen shot of my license (sorry it's so small).
I created a copyright quiz using Google Docs. I sent the quiz to several coworkers and family members (who are also educators). Overall, people seemed to
have an okay understanding of copyright and fair use. One thing that I found was that people (myself included) seemed to think that there were "hard and fast" rules about the amount of material that could be used inorder to stay within fair use guidelines (400 words of text, 10% of work, etc...). I think I remember learning about these guidelines either at a conference of from one of the tech people in our district. I also found that people (including myself) didn't realized that unpublished material has copyright "rights." I guess I just had not thought about it. But I guess that makes sense. I did know that you could register your copyright since I have instructions for how to do that with my dissertation (once it's finished!).I created a Creative Commons license for my personal Weebly site. Here is a screen shot of my license (sorry it's so small).
Capstone Reflection for Things #1-7
How will you use these technology applications to improve learning experiences for your students and/or improve your own practice?
So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about these various technology applications. I can think of a number of ways that I can use these technology applications to improve learning experiences for my students and to improve my own practice. I think the biggest area of interest for me right now is with a web presence.
I currently have a Moodle site for my students, and I really like it. One of the reasons I like it is because it is not “owned” by my school. Let me explain. The first few years I was teaching, I invested MANY hours in developing websites for my classes using FrontPage. I liked designing the pages, adding images and other links, and linking to various documents and presentations that we were using in class. Then, my district decided to change their webpage, and FrontPage and all the work I had done were deleted. The next “hot topic” for my district was Blackboard. I took a Blackboard training course and spent a lot of time setting up Blackboard sites for my courses—uploading documents, creating assignments, creating quizzes/tests, etc... Then, my district decided that Blackboard was too expensive, so they dropped Blackboard (along with all my work). So, I found a Moodle training and signed up for that. The most appealing part of Moodle, for me, was that it wasn’t “owned” by school. Therefore, if school “changed their mind” about something, my Moodle course would remain intact. And, Moodle was free, so I didn’t have to worry about school deciding it was too expensive and switching to a new program.
I like Moodle, but it has some big limitations. I have briefly seen/used PBWorks (as a part of a PBL training I took this summer), and that looked like it would be a good program to use. But a free website creation program like Weebly looks really appealing. I like things to be visually appealing, and so it seems like you could do that with Weebly. It has definite advantages over a blog. Although, if the purpose of the site was simply to communicate with parents and help students organize their schedules and planners, a blog would be a good option. But I want to be able to put content on the site, link to documents, videos, and other webpages, add images, and more (Google Forms, embedded videos, links to places like Quizlet and Quia).
What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
Summarizing and Notetaking—A class website seems like a logical place to house class notes. Not only will class presentations be uploaded/linked (PPT presentations and Prezis), but this might also be a nice place to provide a link to a Google Docs location where students can construct “class/group” notes and study guides. I find that some of the best studying, questions, and explanations I hear over the course of a day are student-to-student where one is trying to explain something to his or her classmate. This would provide a background format for that type of collaborative work.
Providing Recognition—As a part of a class website, student work can be uploaded to the site or linked to the site. For example, one of my existing assignments asks students to create a blog for their “Plot Study” project. If we had a class website, that would be an easy way for me to provide links to other students’ blogs so that students have the chance to see the work that their classmates are doing. Some of the blogs that have been produced have been outstanding, so letting other students see them would be a great way to highlight and recognize great work and to hopefully encourage other students to improve the quality of their own work.
Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
The Thing that I picked to create a lesson or activity with was Thing #2: Google Docs. As a part of our ecology unit, we talk about characteristics of living things. This is related to two Michigan curriculum standards:
L2.p1A: Distinguish between living and nonliving systems.
L3.p3B: Distinguish between the living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components of an ecosystem.
Since we don’t have little “clickers” in our district, I thought that creating a Google Docs Form to ask students to brainstorm about characteristics of living things before we talk about them would be a good idea. I included the form at the bottom of this post.
This seemed like a very nice “quick” activity to engage students, get them thinking, get EVERY student to participate (their answers are anonymous so they don’t need to be scared of participating. It would also be a great place to start—gage students’ prior knowledge, identify any misconceptions, and build from there.
So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about these various technology applications. I can think of a number of ways that I can use these technology applications to improve learning experiences for my students and to improve my own practice. I think the biggest area of interest for me right now is with a web presence.
I currently have a Moodle site for my students, and I really like it. One of the reasons I like it is because it is not “owned” by my school. Let me explain. The first few years I was teaching, I invested MANY hours in developing websites for my classes using FrontPage. I liked designing the pages, adding images and other links, and linking to various documents and presentations that we were using in class. Then, my district decided to change their webpage, and FrontPage and all the work I had done were deleted. The next “hot topic” for my district was Blackboard. I took a Blackboard training course and spent a lot of time setting up Blackboard sites for my courses—uploading documents, creating assignments, creating quizzes/tests, etc... Then, my district decided that Blackboard was too expensive, so they dropped Blackboard (along with all my work). So, I found a Moodle training and signed up for that. The most appealing part of Moodle, for me, was that it wasn’t “owned” by school. Therefore, if school “changed their mind” about something, my Moodle course would remain intact. And, Moodle was free, so I didn’t have to worry about school deciding it was too expensive and switching to a new program.
I like Moodle, but it has some big limitations. I have briefly seen/used PBWorks (as a part of a PBL training I took this summer), and that looked like it would be a good program to use. But a free website creation program like Weebly looks really appealing. I like things to be visually appealing, and so it seems like you could do that with Weebly. It has definite advantages over a blog. Although, if the purpose of the site was simply to communicate with parents and help students organize their schedules and planners, a blog would be a good option. But I want to be able to put content on the site, link to documents, videos, and other webpages, add images, and more (Google Forms, embedded videos, links to places like Quizlet and Quia).
What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
Summarizing and Notetaking—A class website seems like a logical place to house class notes. Not only will class presentations be uploaded/linked (PPT presentations and Prezis), but this might also be a nice place to provide a link to a Google Docs location where students can construct “class/group” notes and study guides. I find that some of the best studying, questions, and explanations I hear over the course of a day are student-to-student where one is trying to explain something to his or her classmate. This would provide a background format for that type of collaborative work.
Providing Recognition—As a part of a class website, student work can be uploaded to the site or linked to the site. For example, one of my existing assignments asks students to create a blog for their “Plot Study” project. If we had a class website, that would be an easy way for me to provide links to other students’ blogs so that students have the chance to see the work that their classmates are doing. Some of the blogs that have been produced have been outstanding, so letting other students see them would be a great way to highlight and recognize great work and to hopefully encourage other students to improve the quality of their own work.
Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
The Thing that I picked to create a lesson or activity with was Thing #2: Google Docs. As a part of our ecology unit, we talk about characteristics of living things. This is related to two Michigan curriculum standards:
L2.p1A: Distinguish between living and nonliving systems.
L3.p3B: Distinguish between the living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components of an ecosystem.
Since we don’t have little “clickers” in our district, I thought that creating a Google Docs Form to ask students to brainstorm about characteristics of living things before we talk about them would be a good idea. I included the form at the bottom of this post.
This seemed like a very nice “quick” activity to engage students, get them thinking, get EVERY student to participate (their answers are anonymous so they don’t need to be scared of participating. It would also be a great place to start—gage students’ prior knowledge, identify any misconceptions, and build from there.
Thing #7
Hands-On Activity
I already have a Moodle site for the courses I teach. I created a blog last year for the 23 Things course I took, one for this course, and a family blog. So, I thought I would try to create a Weebly. I really kind of liked it, and I might think about doing something like this in the future with my classes. Sort of combine the website and Moodle content. I really like Moodle, but there are some definite limitations to Moodle.
The Weebly I created was a personal/family one: Our Family Fun Times. One thing that I probably realized before, but was made even more aware of was the need to have some sort of organizational strategy in mind before creating pages. As I was creating it, I was thinking about ways I could organize a site that I might create for my students. I like the idea that a webpage (like the one created by Weebly) is a lot more visual than Moodle. Plus, students could just click to get to the particular page for the unit/activity instead of scrolling down to just find links to documents and such. Overall, much more visually appealing.
I already have a Moodle site for the courses I teach. I created a blog last year for the 23 Things course I took, one for this course, and a family blog. So, I thought I would try to create a Weebly. I really kind of liked it, and I might think about doing something like this in the future with my classes. Sort of combine the website and Moodle content. I really like Moodle, but there are some definite limitations to Moodle.
The Weebly I created was a personal/family one: Our Family Fun Times. One thing that I probably realized before, but was made even more aware of was the need to have some sort of organizational strategy in mind before creating pages. As I was creating it, I was thinking about ways I could organize a site that I might create for my students. I like the idea that a webpage (like the one created by Weebly) is a lot more visual than Moodle. Plus, students could just click to get to the particular page for the unit/activity instead of scrolling down to just find links to documents and such. Overall, much more visually appealing.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thing #6
Digital Citizenship
Hoax Site #1
The first website I picked to evaluate was the Mankato (MN) Home Page. I picked this one because I went to Mankato, MN numerous times growing up to downhill ski at Mt. Kato. So, I thought it was humerous that Mankato has all cold connotations for me and the website was about how Mankato is a nice, balmy place year-round.
Credibility/Authority: can't really find; crazy disclaimer page that should give you an idea that this may not be a credible site
Accuracy: not accurate--can't verify this type of Minnesota weather
Reliability: there are ads on the page
Relevance: the information is so crazy sounding, that it doesn't seem like it would be very relevant
Date: says it's updated "the first Monday of every month"--that sounds sketchy
Sources Behind the Text: most of the links within the text that should probably go to external sources go to other pages within the same site
Scope and Purpose: the purpose of the page seems to be entertainment, not educational or informational
Hoax Site #2:
The second website I picked was The Taxonomy of Barney.
Credibility/Authority: from the Improbable Research group--this should give you a first hint
Accuracy: The information is based on the idea that Barney is actually a living creature (not just a person in a big purple suit). This obviously cannot be verified through other sources.
Reliability: the x-ray image included in the text is clearly a drawing
Relevance: the information in the site wouldn't be relevant to someone doing research in the area of dinosaurs or evolution (but it might be a fun article to read at the start of a unit as a humorus way to start the unit)
Date: It's dated 1995, which is pretty old for scientific journal articles (if you are trying to do research on anything current).
Sources Behind the Text: One link on the site takes you to Amazon for a book of collections of articles such as these. Reading the reviews, it shouldn't be hard to figure out this is an article written for entertainment.
Scope and Purpose: states that it is "research that makes people laugh and then think"
Two activities I can use in my classroom:
E-mail Netiquette: All students in our district received e-mail addresses this year through school (a Google service). Students were given directions in how to access this new account; however, they weren't given any guidelines about how to appropriately use e-mail. I'm assuming that most students already use e-mail (most of my students already had e-mail addresses, so this new one is simply one that isn't blocked at school during the school day). However, it would be nice to have students read over and talk about various e-mail netiquette issues. Then students would not only have an idea about what might be appropriate or not appropriate when sending e-mails to me as their high school teacher, but hopefully would be able to take some of that information with them as they leave high school and need to start e-mailing other people (potential employers, etc...)
Personal Information on the Web: Although the piece is a little old, the information and message is still very real: NBC Nightly News piece on Online Predators. We spend some time in class talking about posting personal information--students are required to create a blog as a part of a project during our ecology unit. So we talk about issues like your address name, using your full name, not posting a map to your house (since a map is part of the project), and other issues. I don't want to scare students, but I need them to know that there are real risks and that they need to be very careful about posting personal information.
Hoax Site #1
The first website I picked to evaluate was the Mankato (MN) Home Page. I picked this one because I went to Mankato, MN numerous times growing up to downhill ski at Mt. Kato. So, I thought it was humerous that Mankato has all cold connotations for me and the website was about how Mankato is a nice, balmy place year-round.
Credibility/Authority: can't really find; crazy disclaimer page that should give you an idea that this may not be a credible site
Accuracy: not accurate--can't verify this type of Minnesota weather
Reliability: there are ads on the page
Relevance: the information is so crazy sounding, that it doesn't seem like it would be very relevant
Date: says it's updated "the first Monday of every month"--that sounds sketchy
Sources Behind the Text: most of the links within the text that should probably go to external sources go to other pages within the same site
Scope and Purpose: the purpose of the page seems to be entertainment, not educational or informational
Hoax Site #2:
The second website I picked was The Taxonomy of Barney.
Credibility/Authority: from the Improbable Research group--this should give you a first hint
Accuracy: The information is based on the idea that Barney is actually a living creature (not just a person in a big purple suit). This obviously cannot be verified through other sources.
Reliability: the x-ray image included in the text is clearly a drawing
Relevance: the information in the site wouldn't be relevant to someone doing research in the area of dinosaurs or evolution (but it might be a fun article to read at the start of a unit as a humorus way to start the unit)
Date: It's dated 1995, which is pretty old for scientific journal articles (if you are trying to do research on anything current).
Sources Behind the Text: One link on the site takes you to Amazon for a book of collections of articles such as these. Reading the reviews, it shouldn't be hard to figure out this is an article written for entertainment.
Scope and Purpose: states that it is "research that makes people laugh and then think"
Two activities I can use in my classroom:
E-mail Netiquette: All students in our district received e-mail addresses this year through school (a Google service). Students were given directions in how to access this new account; however, they weren't given any guidelines about how to appropriately use e-mail. I'm assuming that most students already use e-mail (most of my students already had e-mail addresses, so this new one is simply one that isn't blocked at school during the school day). However, it would be nice to have students read over and talk about various e-mail netiquette issues. Then students would not only have an idea about what might be appropriate or not appropriate when sending e-mails to me as their high school teacher, but hopefully would be able to take some of that information with them as they leave high school and need to start e-mailing other people (potential employers, etc...)
Personal Information on the Web: Although the piece is a little old, the information and message is still very real: NBC Nightly News piece on Online Predators. We spend some time in class talking about posting personal information--students are required to create a blog as a part of a project during our ecology unit. So we talk about issues like your address name, using your full name, not posting a map to your house (since a map is part of the project), and other issues. I don't want to scare students, but I need them to know that there are real risks and that they need to be very careful about posting personal information.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Thing #5
Differentiated Learning
A couple things I already do in my teaching which meet the elements of differentiated instruction:
Several elements and materials are used to support instructional content...access to the content is seen as key. I try to use a variety of sources of information for my students. In addition, I try to have several "access points" for all the information: in class, online through school grading program, online at class Moodle site. Another thing I try to do it have the outline and presentation materials for the upcoming chapter available in advance. Then students can go online and fill in the outline before coming to class. Likewise, they could choose to simply listen during class (or just jot down the highlights), and then access the materials online later to fill in the outline or study materials.
Clarify key concepts and generalizations. One thing I do for my Anatomy and Physiology students is provide a "Unit Overview" sheet for each body system we cover. This sheet has a list of key concepts, focus areas, and learning objectives for that particular body system. It also has a list of due dates for the unit and further instructions/details for particular assignments.
Diverse Learning
Prentice Hall Interactive Textbook: I think that I may have stumbled on that website at some previous time, but I forgot about all the cool stuff that is on this site. I use a companion site frequently in my Anatomy & Physiology class. But this biology site has animations, links to other references, self-tests, and other activities. These would make excellent study materials for a student who sort of understands the materials, but really needs more time to process and practice.
Universal Design for Learning
One of the resources I found on the Universal Design for Learning: Strategies, Tools, and Resources wiki was the "100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner." This was such a cool list! I recognized a few of the resources on the list as things that I already use. But there were so many resources on the list that looked like they would be very helpful for my students. For instance, under the "Interaction" heading, I visited "Flashcard Machine" and set up an account. I also checked out Quia and Quizlet. Some of my anatomy & physiology students are really struggling with ways to study. I think these flashcards would be GREAT for them to access. We've talked about Quizlet in class before, but I think that if I actually showed them some flashcards, that might be the impetus some need to actually go there and try it out. I could even make it an ongoing assignment for some students to create flashcards that are individualized for our class for each unit. That would be a fantastic resource for my students!
Text-to-Audio Conversion
A couple things I already do in my teaching which meet the elements of differentiated instruction:
Several elements and materials are used to support instructional content...access to the content is seen as key. I try to use a variety of sources of information for my students. In addition, I try to have several "access points" for all the information: in class, online through school grading program, online at class Moodle site. Another thing I try to do it have the outline and presentation materials for the upcoming chapter available in advance. Then students can go online and fill in the outline before coming to class. Likewise, they could choose to simply listen during class (or just jot down the highlights), and then access the materials online later to fill in the outline or study materials.
Clarify key concepts and generalizations. One thing I do for my Anatomy and Physiology students is provide a "Unit Overview" sheet for each body system we cover. This sheet has a list of key concepts, focus areas, and learning objectives for that particular body system. It also has a list of due dates for the unit and further instructions/details for particular assignments.
Diverse Learning
Prentice Hall Interactive Textbook: I think that I may have stumbled on that website at some previous time, but I forgot about all the cool stuff that is on this site. I use a companion site frequently in my Anatomy & Physiology class. But this biology site has animations, links to other references, self-tests, and other activities. These would make excellent study materials for a student who sort of understands the materials, but really needs more time to process and practice.
Universal Design for Learning
One of the resources I found on the Universal Design for Learning: Strategies, Tools, and Resources wiki was the "100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner." This was such a cool list! I recognized a few of the resources on the list as things that I already use. But there were so many resources on the list that looked like they would be very helpful for my students. For instance, under the "Interaction" heading, I visited "Flashcard Machine" and set up an account. I also checked out Quia and Quizlet. Some of my anatomy & physiology students are really struggling with ways to study. I think these flashcards would be GREAT for them to access. We've talked about Quizlet in class before, but I think that if I actually showed them some flashcards, that might be the impetus some need to actually go there and try it out. I could even make it an ongoing assignment for some students to create flashcards that are individualized for our class for each unit. That would be a fantastic resource for my students!
Text-to-Audio Conversion
I tried the VozMe program with some text, but I found it very difficult to understand the speaker. So, I installed NaturalReader and found that much easier to understand. I have had a number of students over the years that have had reading and writing difficulties. I know that school owns several copies of Dragon NaturallySpeaking software (which I also personally own--invaluable for transcribing dissertation interviews!!), but I don't know if they have some sort of reading software. I would assume they do... I think that this would be another way for students to be able to hear what they are learning--adding to the learning styles and hopefully improving how they learn.
Thing #4
Thinkfinity
Activity #1: Sunburn, Sunscreen, and Cancer
This activity was one of the Science NetLinks from AAAS. It was a nice activity relating skin cancer and sun exposure. In my Anatomy & Physiology class, we like to talk about how "no tan is a safe tan." But this activity had sections where kids could classify their skin type and relate it to their risk of skin cancer with sun exposure. It also had a neat part of the activity where kids calculated their sun exposure related to their geographical location and time of the year. The assessment ideas were also interesting. It reminded me of the PBL course that I went through this summer. Overall, I really liked this activity. I will be sure to add it to my Delicious links and try it out next fall when we talk about the skin.
Activity #2: Asparagus Odor
I couldn't pass up this activity :) I love to increase the "gross factor" with my students, and this is just the way. It seemed like a nice way to add some variety into a lesson--a short podcast and an article. And when we talk about genetics, it's always nice to have examples that don't include visual physical characteristics (hair color, eye color, etc...). This would be a very easy lesson to incorporate. As I was looking through some of the lessons, I noticed that a lot of the lessons were in this "short & easy" format. I liked that!
Activity #1: Sunburn, Sunscreen, and Cancer
This activity was one of the Science NetLinks from AAAS. It was a nice activity relating skin cancer and sun exposure. In my Anatomy & Physiology class, we like to talk about how "no tan is a safe tan." But this activity had sections where kids could classify their skin type and relate it to their risk of skin cancer with sun exposure. It also had a neat part of the activity where kids calculated their sun exposure related to their geographical location and time of the year. The assessment ideas were also interesting. It reminded me of the PBL course that I went through this summer. Overall, I really liked this activity. I will be sure to add it to my Delicious links and try it out next fall when we talk about the skin.
Activity #2: Asparagus Odor
I couldn't pass up this activity :) I love to increase the "gross factor" with my students, and this is just the way. It seemed like a nice way to add some variety into a lesson--a short podcast and an article. And when we talk about genetics, it's always nice to have examples that don't include visual physical characteristics (hair color, eye color, etc...). This would be a very easy lesson to incorporate. As I was looking through some of the lessons, I noticed that a lot of the lessons were in this "short & easy" format. I liked that!
Thing #3
Skype AssignmentI previously had a Skype account, so I just used that account. I tried to send Ron a message, but I couldn't find his contact information. I did a lot of searching and found lots of Houtmans other places (and I searched for EduTechGeek too), but no Ron. So, I sent my brother a message.
I called my parents using Skype. We actually used Skype a lot last fall when my parents were in Ghana for the semester. We would drag the couch over in front of the computer so our two toddlers could crawl up on the couch and talk to and wave to their "papa & grandma."
As far as using Skype in the classroom...I can see a lot of potential for getting "expert" speakers to come into the class without having to travel. I teach sections of Honors Biology and Anatomy & Physiology, so using Skype would be a great way to get scientists from all over to be able to conference with us. However, I can see that it might become a classroom management issue. I don't think that the students at the high school currently have the ability to get on Skype at school (I think they can at the elementary/middle school though). There would be a need for some ground rules to be set and followed regarding the use of Skype and other services like that during class time. These are definitely issues that we need to address since we are planning on going to a 1:1 laptop program next year.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thing #2
Google Templates
I recently created a Google Form for allowing my students to take a short "private" poll regarding a field trip opportunity (going to the Bodies Revealed Exhibition at the Public Museum). This was a way that I could get students to honestly tell me whether or not they really wanted to go, if they could/wanted to pay, and if they would be willing to create a class "scholarship fund" for those class members that couldn't pay.
Google Docs Shared Document
I created a PowerPoint presentation by uploading a presentation that I had already made. I was actually very surprised that all the formatting that I had used when originally making the presentation stayed intact when I uploaded it. I was under the assumption that there were big limitations on formatting when using Google Docs. However, I then uploaded a Word document I had earlier created and tried to edit it. Then I ran into formatting issues. But, if you don't care as much about formatting issues, it is a great place to put things for multiple people to be able to edit. I've actually used it outside of school with people to help plan events and other things.
Reflections
I have found Google Docs very helpful for using in my classroom and teaching. When I first tried it with my students several years ago, we had some major headaches trying to get everyone signed up and connected. But, once we used it for an assignment (it was a small group research project), I immediately had students ask me if they could use it for a group presentation they had to make for a different class.
What I have used more often in my classes lately is the "Form" of Google Docs. Just last week I had students fill out a form with their e-mail addresses so that I could invite them to a Dropbox folder I had created. I've also used it for class surveys, to collect information about students, and for small brainstorming activities. Our school is going to a 1:1 laptop program next year, so I can see the Forms function sort of like those little clickers that you can get. Of course, you can't necessarily "track" students (which maybe you can with those clickers?), but maybe you can. Something else to learn sometime...
Thing #1
Microsoft Office Shortcuts
Here is the screen shot of my shortcuts: Shortcuts Practice
Some of the other shortcuts that I've used:
Print Screen: I still use this occasionally. However, now that I learned about Jing (at the Introductory session class), I LOVE Jing! I have spent way too many hours of my life pasting and croping screen shots in order to just get small things copied into step-by-step instructions for people. I am so excited to have more opportunities to use the simple "copy" option in Jing and the screencast option in Jing rather than Print Screen. So, I guess this one isn't a shortcut that I'm thinking I'll use all that often any more...oh well...
F12: I like this option. I seem to save files in different formats and with different names quite frequently. This seems like it might be a handy shortcut in the future.
Control Z: I already knew that Control+Y was Redo. So now having this reminder that Control+Z is Undo will be a nice compliment to that. I use lots of diagrams with some of my classes, and it seems that I always spend a lot of time formatting those diagrams or adding labels to them. These two shortcuts (Control+Y and Control+Z) are very handy for that kind of work.
Delicious
My Delicious link: Kara's Delicious Page
I already had a Delicious account prior to starting this course. I really like Delicious; however, I don't think that I really utilize it as much as I could. Currently, it seems like I simply add links to my account and tag them. But, I rarely go back and actually look at those links. I think that if I went back through and started organizing the links better, I might actually find that there are sites in there that I want to go to and look at again. I didn't know anything about Tag Bundles previously. I can see some potential there for grouping my own links. And also some potential for grouping a number of sites and sharing them with students rather than creating individual links for them to follow on something like Moodle for a particular assignment.
Here is the screen shot of my shortcuts: Shortcuts Practice
Some of the other shortcuts that I've used:
Print Screen: I still use this occasionally. However, now that I learned about Jing (at the Introductory session class), I LOVE Jing! I have spent way too many hours of my life pasting and croping screen shots in order to just get small things copied into step-by-step instructions for people. I am so excited to have more opportunities to use the simple "copy" option in Jing and the screencast option in Jing rather than Print Screen. So, I guess this one isn't a shortcut that I'm thinking I'll use all that often any more...oh well...
F12: I like this option. I seem to save files in different formats and with different names quite frequently. This seems like it might be a handy shortcut in the future.
Control Z: I already knew that Control+Y was Redo. So now having this reminder that Control+Z is Undo will be a nice compliment to that. I use lots of diagrams with some of my classes, and it seems that I always spend a lot of time formatting those diagrams or adding labels to them. These two shortcuts (Control+Y and Control+Z) are very handy for that kind of work.
Delicious
My Delicious link: Kara's Delicious Page
I already had a Delicious account prior to starting this course. I really like Delicious; however, I don't think that I really utilize it as much as I could. Currently, it seems like I simply add links to my account and tag them. But, I rarely go back and actually look at those links. I think that if I went back through and started organizing the links better, I might actually find that there are sites in there that I want to go to and look at again. I didn't know anything about Tag Bundles previously. I can see some potential there for grouping my own links. And also some potential for grouping a number of sites and sharing them with students rather than creating individual links for them to follow on something like Moodle for a particular assignment.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thing #0
What makes a good blog?
I think that a good blog is an organized blog. I really don't like all the "extra" stuff that is always on the side of the page. Maybe I would get used to it if I regularly read and visited more blogs. But I like things uncluttered. I also like blogs that have images and weblinks built into the posting. I want the person writing the blog to be connected to other things. But I guess that might differ depending on the type and purpose of the blog.
How could a blog enhance your existing school web presence?
A blog could enhance my school web presence in a number of ways. I currently have a Moodle site for each of the courses I teach. However, it is a very "hidden" place where students go to get information and to send information to me. But most of that information is not shared with anyone else. However, if I had a blog for classes, then it could become a more public forum where students, friends, parents, grandparents, etc... could see what was going
on in the classroom. I currently have each of my biology students blogging as a part of a "plot study" assignment. This is the first year that I have asked them to blog, and it has been a learning experience. Overall, I have really liked it. And as I've read the blogs, I've noticed several parents commenting on their student's blog. I thought that was really nice since some parents probably never really see the things that their students create.
I think that a good blog is an organized blog. I really don't like all the "extra" stuff that is always on the side of the page. Maybe I would get used to it if I regularly read and visited more blogs. But I like things uncluttered. I also like blogs that have images and weblinks built into the posting. I want the person writing the blog to be connected to other things. But I guess that might differ depending on the type and purpose of the blog.
How could a blog enhance your existing school web presence?
A blog could enhance my school web presence in a number of ways. I currently have a Moodle site for each of the courses I teach. However, it is a very "hidden" place where students go to get information and to send information to me. But most of that information is not shared with anyone else. However, if I had a blog for classes, then it could become a more public forum where students, friends, parents, grandparents, etc... could see what was going
on in the classroom. I currently have each of my biology students blogging as a part of a "plot study" assignment. This is the first year that I have asked them to blog, and it has been a learning experience. Overall, I have really liked it. And as I've read the blogs, I've noticed several parents commenting on their student's blog. I thought that was really nice since some parents probably never really see the things that their students create.
Are blogs an easier way for people to self-publish?
Blogs are an incredibly easy way for people to self-publish. Students can create and then post them in a public blog. This not only makes the assignment "real," but might also increase the quality of the work since it's not just me, the teacher, seeing what they have created.
Blogs are an incredibly easy way for people to self-publish. Students can create and then post them in a public blog. This not only makes the assignment "real," but might also increase the quality of the work since it's not just me, the teacher, seeing what they have created.
21 Things -- Getting Started
I am really excited about this course! I took a 23 Things course last summer, and really enjoyed it. I am hoping to learn a few more "things" in this course, and to get more comfortable actually using those "things" in my teaching.
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