Final Project, Part 2 - The Prezi

Well, I finally finished it. I was able to complete my first Prezi for my AP Bio class. I made this Prezi for teaching about regulation of blood osmolarity via chemical signaling with ADH between the brain, blood, and kidneys. I will be using this Prezi and creating others to walk students through these various negative feedback mechanisms that maintain homeostasis in the body.
This will be posted to my blog at Lathrop Science when I am ready to introduce this unit.

Desire 2 Learn, Group 3 Discussion

It seems that the majority of the posts in our group's discussion centered on the obstacles that many of us will face in trying to implement all the Web 2.0 tools we've learned. Most of us deal with failing technology basis in some form or another, while others have limited access in terms of numbers of computers or slow connections and so on. The point is, as we try to move forward into a modern classroom, there will always be hurdles that we'll have to deal with. Some of us will only be able to get our feet wet with these tools while others will be able to implement the whole gammut. The point is, we should do whatever is possible given our individual circumstances. The more you can demonstrate the need for the technology, the more support you will garner on the administration level when they see the educational impact and power of the tech tools.
I have been in this since the beginning, at a time where I had to bring a computer from my house just to keep an electronic gradebook. But by the time I left my schoo this year, I had 30 laptops and several desktops available for use right in my own classroom and a slew of other instruments available to implementation of 21st century learning. Upon moving to a new school, I am once again starting the year out with minimal access. So I have my work cut out for me and plan to do all that I can to make it work.

Guiding Principles Revisited

Here is my initial post on my guiding principles for technology:

"My guiding principles for technology have always been to give students access to information and tools for doing science. I also want them to be able to develop skills in using technology tools for the workplace. I view my role as their teacher to inspire them to pursue their interests, to nurture their natural curiosity, to guide them in achieving their educational goals, and to act as a mentor in developing science skills and knowledge. Technology is an avenue for achieving these goals. I also use technology to give my students more immediate feedback by providing instantaneous test results, online discussions, access to information regarding my class via my class wiki. Finally, I want to encourage my students to be able to collaborate without them having to leave their home, and to interact with each other as well as others in the global classroom to create, discuss, and share information"

Upon re-reading my initial post I would say that these still hold true for me. However, I have a new awareness of so many new forms of technology that are available that I realize I was not keeping up with what was out there! I plan to incorporate many of these into my teaching this year and plan to keep abreast, as much as possible, of the new technology as it becomes available. Also, I realized that I could use these various tools to teach in a completely different way. My goal is to do more science that involves discussions, creating, and sharing. Also, to incorporate professionals into our classroom via the internet and bring my students into the live science community. Additionally, I plan to urge the administration at my new school to also keep up with the technology by providing access for our 21st century learners. I want to be a forerunner in this effort to modernize and plan to share what I've learned through this class in an inservice this Fall.

Final Project.... phewww!

This was quite the journey... after much deliberation and frustration, I finally settled on which hosting site to use for my class blog. Although I am somewhat at peace with my choice, I am still not completely satisfied. The problems encountered were which site could give me all the posting and publishing options that I wanted and give them to me for FREE! But oh, no, that was being waaay too optimistic. So I found that every single one of them had some catch that I didn't really like. To get all the features I quickly realized I was gonna have to pay for it! Anyway, after experimenting and building 3 different class blogs, I decided to go with Weebly since it's very easy to use and I already had another site with them for my XC Ski Team that I was pretty satisfied with the outcome. Only the Pro version however, allows you to embed... or so I thought. However, I found a little trick to get around that stumbling block. If you use the custom HTML feature, you can paste the embed codes directly in to that window and get the document, or whatever embedded via the free version. I cannot tell you how happy this made me... or how long it took me to figure this out! So here is my new, school-color-coordinated and customized Lathrop Malemute Science classroom blog.
I was able to add Google calendars to each class page that I can use to post assignments, due dates, etc. etc. My students first task will be to learn how to use the blog via the Tips for Blogging Success page. As for their first science related task, I have made an Ecology Voicethread for my AP Bio students to use for the introduction to their Ecology unit. For Chemistry, I am started with a task involving the Periodic Chart but haven't yet got that fully worked out. Additionally, I am still working on a Prezi for my AP Bio as well but I am not quite finished with it. That is soon to come!

Adding an Image to the Blog Sidebar

Found an article on how to add an image to the blog sidebar... involves a trick so to speak with images and linking. To get the details click here to link directly to the article. But i am trying it for myself to see if it actually will work for me.

Yay! It worked! Look! I posted my pic in the sidebar. Neat little trick that could come in very handy!

Good Example of How to Use a Blog

So visited some other class blogs and I particularly liked this one called Scattergood Biology hosted by Edublogs. He has a page on there for his students with links to Edblogs help pages for all the how-to's for logging in, posting, how much to write, etc. etc. I particularly like the links he put there for more info about each point he makes. I thought it was a good set of guidelines so I'll probably do something similar for my class blog. I still am fiddling around with which hosting site to use. I've used Wetpaint before for my first wiki and it's okay but they don't have ad-free versions anymore for educators. The other one I've used is Weebly. It's really good and you can get an ad-free educators page. Here's mine that I made for my XC Ski team. The tech guy at my school recommended Edublogs or Wikispaces for Teachers. He said Edublogs was better though.

Vimeo Science Videos

So Vimeo is kinda interesting. It's a collection of really high quality videos for movie makers to publish their work. I found in the science and technology category, some videos explaining various science concepts in very precise and detailed ways. Some are from people who send in questions then have them answered, such as in the Science Catalyst Live Show - Grade 12 Chemistry. Here is one example of this channel.

The Science Catalyst Live Show:Grade 12 Chemistry from The Science Catalyst on Vimeo.

This one is of an "chemistry" class in middle school in Poland. They are not speaking English so unless you speak Polish you won't be able to understand exactly what they're saying however, the video pretty much speaks for itself. The chemistry they're doing in middle school over there looks way different from the typical middle school in the U.S. These kids look like little professional chemists. The demo they did was very cool!

"Chemistry After Lessons" - Middle School in Cieszyn, Poland from Palo Palacz on Vimeo.

My Photosynthesis Wordle

I would like to use this tool to have students brainstorm words by posting them into the wordle window to show related words for a concept like Photosynthesis. Here's mine!

Hyperlinking Words in a Blog Post

This is a response to Cathy, who asked about Hyperlinking in the blog posts:

If you are using Blogger, this is how it works...
When you are typing up your blog post, there is a little button at the top of your post window in the menu choices that looks like a chain link. Click on that and then past the URL for the website you want to it to hyperlink to for those words.
See here:

Good luck!

Prezi is ImPREZZive

All I can say is "WOW!" I was amazed when I saw the Prezi on how Prezi can be used as a teaching tool! This is a tool I dig! I am so excited to make one of my own. I'm thinking of doing one for my project along with creating a class wiki/blog for my AP Bio and Chem class. Not sure though which topic I'll focus on just yet for the Prezi. I'm thinking maybe something like a Negative Feedback pathway or maybe the comparisons of invertebrate anatomy. As for the wiki/blog, I'm wondering if I should have just one wiki per subject/class or if they should be separate. I'm not sure how to organize it. Any thoughts? Here is a cool little Prezi timeline showing the history of the events leading to the discovery of DNA.

Discovery of DNA on Prezi

PhotoPeach - too cute!

I'm so excited about the prospects of using this tool for a classroom project. I used some photos of mine from a 2 day period last week. It's so simple and quick to use. I could see using this to show case student projects in an elementary classroom. It's so simple a 7 year old could do this! I could also see student using it to show case lab results or project progress. Maybee even tracking data such as in a long term experiment. Here's my photo collage of a 24 hour period last week. We stay busy with 24 hours of daylight!
Scenes of Summer in Alaska on PhotoPeach

Classroom Blogs

Upon browsing the links and articles for WEEK 5, the article on the Top 10 reasons to have a classroom blog was a good list of ways to incorporate a blog into your classroom. I have had a class web page since around 1999 that I created using Dreamweaver. The page was a place for me to post a weekly assignment calendar, resource links for my students to use for various lessons that I taught and also to post announcements to parents. However, it was solely my web page and students had no ability to post information or comment. Then last year I decided to try to use a wiki for a class project. Boy have I come a long way since then! I learned a lot from that first attempt at a wiki. First of all, it was just for one specific project and I used it strictly for kids to post their information and comment on each other's projects. But I really didn't think about using it as my primary communicating device for my class. Now that I see all the other ways it can be utilized I'm really excited about setting one up for this year. Dreamweaver seems like such a archaic tool now to me.
Upon further browsing, the following were helpful to me the "Do's and Donts of Wikis 2" and Eric's Slideshare on the effects on student learning of using a classroom blog in science teaching: Shiny Objects, Classroom Practice and Professional Growth. I'm really excited about incorporating all of these really effective teaching tools, but at the same time it is daunting to think about all the time required to build them for integration and use. Our time for experimentation with them in lesson planning and preparation is so short!

File Conversions & Video

I love YouTube as a resource for science videos. In the past, I've used Real Player to download any videos I wanted to show in my classes. I didn't realize there were other ways to do this. So I tried KickYouTube to check it out. There were no real clear explanations, instructions, etc. about the site and how it works. As for the file formats, I wasn't sure which to select to download. For example what they are and their best uses or purposes. The website video showing the process of downloading was kinda weird... no real help buttons. Anyway, I tried it and I selected MP4 HD, not really sure what this means though. The video downloaded and then it played with Quicktime. So here are my questions about this site/tool:
1. How does this work? Is this site safe/secure?
2. Is anything else being downloaded to my computer along with the video?
3. What file format should I use?
Thanks for any help/info you can provide.
Oh yeah, it also had an embed code link. So here's the video I downloaded.

Downloads: Views: 125468

AK Forest Health Issues - Generate An Argument Activity

Climate related forest health problems linked to warmer and drier conditions have been well documented in Alaska. As a result, many species of trees have been in decline or under attack by various biological and non-biological agents. As a result of concerns about the future of Alaska’s forests, the State Department of Forestry has been allocated state and federal funding to address some of these issues. Your group’s task is to identify which tree species and it’s associated problem is most critical either economically, ecologically, or both to your group and then persuade the Department of Forestry to dedicate it’s research and funds to resolving the problems facing that species.

To Download Activity click here: AK Forest Health Issues

Create a Graph

I think this is a pretty handy tool, especially for those students who can't afford to buy graphing software like Excel. However, I still think Excel is better. Create A Graph is pretty simplistic. I did try to email and download the graph I created but the site was either bogged down or not functioning and it did not work. I've always taught my students how to use Excel, and pretty much all of our graphs are created this way. They become pretty proficient at it in a short time and it is the type of software they'll use in a professional setting. The other reason I like Excel is because I can copy and paste data directly from web data sets into it for graphical analysis and manipulation. I realize Create a Graph can also be saved but I like the ability for students to import their graphs into lab reports. When we create class data sets and groups record their data, I usually have the students directly type their results into a class spreadsheet on my laptop that we they share. Students then graph the data individually or in their lab groups.
I tried to upload a link to a simple little bar graph I made of the types of trees I have in my backyard but couldn't get it to go. I'll try later and post it later if I can get it to work.

...5 minutes later, my graph finally loads and I am attempting to post it into my blog.

Reflection - Using online Data

I found the chapter 6 information on using online data sets to be a really good concise resource for ideas on utilizing online data. I have actually utilized this method of teaching for various topics for many years using an informal form of inquiry (I guess I didn't realize it was inquiry at the time), such as plotting tidal patterns in locations, plotting temperature and precipitation averages in different climate zones to infer the effects of large bodies of water and mountains on these variables. However, I don't think my use of them has reached it's full potential. I would like to more closely follow the inquiry method to get kids developing and writing their own questions and draing their own a conclusions based on the analysis of the data. With the "Generate an Argument" model developed by Sampson, I think this would be a great way to retool these labs that I have already utilized in the past. Having students working in cooperative groups to look at this data and then provide supporting evidence for their conclusions in the form a poster (a great way to utilize Glogster!) that can be shared, discussed, and evaluated to determine the validity of the group's conclusion is a more effective use of this information for doing inquiry based science. I like the listing of resources for data, but I know there are many more out there to be accessed. It's a good jumping off point though.
Here are a few other resources that I've used in the past.
Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), the CIA World Factbook, the Alaska Climate Research Center, to name a few.

I explored the I Teach STEM site on wetpaint, which had a lot of good resources for specific subject matter. However, the lack of an index to find the type of site I need for a specific topic would make it a more difficult resource to use.

Voicethread & Jing

So I had the great idea that I would experiment and try to make an instructional how-to voicethread on how to embed a screencast. So I opened voicethread and tried to upload my Jing created screencast image (using an embed code) and couldn't get it to accept the file address. Upon reading the help section and forum on Voicethread I discovered that Voicethread currently does not support Jing files. At least not yet. They apparently will be adding this feature at some future date. As of now, you can only add Jing files if you have the paid version, JingPro. So anyway, here is where you go on the Jing site to learn how to embed Jing files:

Digital Video

Here's a video I made of my daughter riding her pony. I will attempt to make another. One of the ways we use the videos in my riding lessons is for kids to be able to critique themselves and their horse on body position, etc. I would like to be able to have kids in my science classes use the digital pictures and video to produce digital "lab reports" for their science experiments, but I don't have a digital camera for my classroom. However, the kids have plenty of cell phones that can record, but no cords for file transfer. Any suggestions on how to get around this issue? Also, is there a particular way to record the video so that the video isn't too large? Thanks.



Okay, so I was able to get the video uploaded, which took around 5 minutes to load. But for some reason, there's no sound.