Revisiting my initial post

One of my biggest take-aways from this course is that in this ever-changing world, students must learn to be creative, and teachers must prepare students for careers that require an immense amount of individuality and creativity. Through use of a lot of these internet tools, teachers can speed up the learning process through constant communication in and out of school. Many of the resources we learned about in this course leave lots of room for students to be creative. Like I said in my initial post, the internet provides countless opportunities for communication and collaboration. In my final project, I attempted to create a blog that fosters communication between students at different schools and education professionals throughout the state.

I feel that my initial opinions remain the same. I chose to take this course for the reason that I thought it would make me a better teacher by learning how to navigate educational web tools more smoothly as well as give me ideas for integrating them into the classroom. I think this course effectively accomplished this goal, and even if I feel I have not mastered all of the tools we learned how to use, I now have the resources to learn how to use them. I have a long list of ways I can use these resources in the classroom thanks to Prof. Brunsell and all of the other teachers in this course! I want my students to be problem solvers and independent thinkers and I plan to teach them this through science by using inquiry. The internet gives students access to information they never would have had twenty years ago, so they may ask more questions because a lot of knowledge is already out there for them!

Final Project

Here is a screencast of my final project for this course. One thing I forgot to mention is that the age group of students is 6-8th grade. Also, I do not include the name of the school in my blog because I do not yet have permission to create an official site associated with the school. I look forward to the development of this blog over the course of the fall, and any comments are appreciated!




Link to blog: http://outdooredch.blogspot.com/

D2L Discussion Reflection

I enjoyed the small group discussions on Desire2Learn. Since the discussion was concentrated in one place, we could have more of a conversation. I like commenting on people's blogs throughout the course, but half the time I ask a question and do not get a response (nor am I good at responding to comments on my own blog) so I feel like I got more out of the D2L discussion. I briefly looked at the other discussion groups as well and it seems that overall, everyone was really pleased with the course content and how it was run. I think that all of us will find a way to incorporate at least a few of the tools into our classroom, no matter what age group we work with.

The main points that were brought up in our discussion group were using the internet as differentiation for students who need more of a challenge, using the internet as a motivational tool and to get students excited about learning science, and to broaden their opportunities to learn science since you can access resources on most anything in science. The internet is an incredible communication tool that students should be learning how to take advantage of to enhance their learning!

Screencast-o-matic

I created this short clip using screencast-o-matic and would ask this question of middle school students while they are studying the seasons.

I think that it is good I finally tried to use a screencasting program because eventually I may get the hang of it, but was not initially easy to figure out! I tried at least four times to get text to show up with the question for the students, but I was unsuccessful until now. Next time I would turn the sound off because you can hear me breathing and since I am not talking at all, it is unnecessary.

Old computer problems...

So I have tried to download Jing and Snagit (also available on the Jing website) and apparently my mac is too old to do this! I have tried searching other versions of Jing and have not had any luck Does anybody know how I can use this program or where I can find an older version that is compatible with my macbook from 2007?

Blogs and Wikis

A few weeks ago, I created a project wiki for my class (the link is on one of my previous posts). I really like using wikis as a one spot stop for resources and communication. I find them easy to navigate, and easy to organize as a teacher. I like that students have constant access to what they need, and I will not have to print out the project requirements three times for each student. Students can collaborate and communicate through discussion threads, so it also helps me formatively assess their progress and their thinking throughout the project. I think I would more likely use a wiki in my class than a blog, because I think there is more flexibility in how you can use it, and it seems more conducive to project development since resources can be included and it is not so highly discussion based as a blog. It is also true that one student will not be stuck with all the work because as long as a student has internet, they can bring the project home. I think that blogs and wikis are easily the most useful communication and collaboration online tools we have learned how to use in this course, and I will undoubtedly use one or both in my classes in the future. I also like how in this course we each have our own personalized blog, and it keeps us accountable for completing the coursework, but we can also communicate through comments. I feel like I can get to know my classmates better this way, even though I will never meet them in person!

My favorite blog from the examples is "Lab out Loud." I am so impressed that two science teachers created the blog/podcast and put the time in to maintain it for other teachers and students. I could spend all day watching episodes and reading the blog posts. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should! http://laboutloud.com/

Edmodo

I'm not sure why I haven't looked at "Social Networking for the Classroom" yet but I am very excited about the tools under that tab! My students are facebook addicts and Edmodo looks a lot like facebook, but the links are applicable to school. I think that it is important to make students feel comfortable with the resources teachers use in the classroom, so my hope would be that students would sign on to Edmodo like they do on facebook. Though I haven't found it yet, I am hoping there is a chat feature on Edmodo as well, the only concern would be to keep the chat to homework topics. I like how teachers can post a "poll" question for students to answer, because sometimes when I ask questions in class when I want an opinion from every student, some do not want to raise their hand so they do not participate. Having assignments and due dates accessible from home is useful as well. Hopefully other ninth grade science teachers could have an account as well so that we can connect on this site, rather than email.
I am still working on creating my profile, but here is the link: http://www.edmodo.com/msvandyke

Project-Based Learning

I am familiar with project-based learning, but have never heard the term, "challenge-based learning." The idea of project or challenge based learning seems daunting for a teacher at first, but then I realize that once the time is put into creating a genuine project for the students, they have the opportunity to run with it and direct their own learning, so the teacher takes a step back and acts as a guide when students are struggling. I think that students need more opportunities to develop their own questions and learn how to solve problems without someone telling them what to do. I like the emphasis on interdisciplinary projects at some of the schools. It can take months to complete a project, but ultimately the students feel a sense of satisfaction with their accomplishment. I see project-based learning as one step above inquiry, because it requires that students apply what they learn so that it is relevant to their life. A science lab could be an "inquiry" lab but not be classified as PBL if students do not directly respond to the results of their experiment. I see PBL as doing research to take action or create something that others can learn from. I wonder how widespread PBL will be in the near future, as it seems to produce tremendous results for students.

I found a few schools using project based learning post videos of example projects in their schools. Here are a couple websites of the more extensive websites I checked out:
http://videos.hightechhigh.org/
http://www.bie.org/videos
http://www.bobpearlman.org/BestPractices/PBL.htm (This site has links to a lot of PBL resources)

Online Simulations

I think that simulations should be used often to give students context for what they are learning, as well as a visual for learning the material. In earth science, it helps students visualize changes that often happen over very long periods of time (like plate tectonics).
The school I worked at this year had Vernier probes and optics set, which I was able to use in my classes. The Virtual Optics Bench described in Chapter 3 seems like a great simulation as a substitute for the Vernier Optics set.

One of my favorite online simulations (though involved and will take at least a class period for the students to complete) is Virtual Earthquake (http://www.sciencecourseware.com/eec/earthquake/). In this simulation, students learn how to use S and P wave arrival times to determine the distance to an earthquake, and using multiple data points, they find the epicenter of an earthquake. In part two, students find the magnitude of the earthquake. This simulation also enforces skills in reading and interpreting graphs. The other good part is that you can register as a teacher so that you can view the student's final quiz scores when you log in with the class code.


Though I do not have much experience using online data in the classroom, I see it as a very efficient way for students to complete inquiry-based assignments that are not as time consuming. They are still required to interpret data and use that data to come to a conclusion, so I think it accomplishes some of the same learning goals. I am looking forward to creating my "Generate an Argument" assignment, though I am having trouble coming up with a good concrete question for the data set I would like to use!