Thing #12: Post




I made a blabberize of a science teacher stating the student objectives. I think next time I'll use a comic character. The timing is a tad behind on the audio, so I'm wondering if this would be as noticeable on a cartoon. The weebly is really a fun way to make a personal web page. It is very easy to post pictures and videos. I have a personal weebly that I post some files that are too large to put on email. I made a birthday card for my sister and a valentine card for my husband using Photostory 3, posted them on the weebly, then just sent all my family members the link to go see it. That way no one has to save it or store it. It has options for blogging as well. The word clouds have many applications and are so easy to make on wordle. I think I might use this for posters, because one of our initiatives this year is to get more visual representations, especially word references and vocabulary up on classroom walls so students make eye contact with them regularly.

Thing #11 Post:

The image generators were really fun, and I think I will work with them in my postings and wikis to encourage others to ask about them. I liked the image chef word mosaics, flickr color picker, and the magazine cover maker.





The word mosaic could be easily used during a student project on elements. I used the word helium within the chemical symbol, but for advanced students, like in chemistry, they might be asked to use the chemical symbol and insert a physical property of that element. Prominently displaying this information in the classroom would help students make a repeated visual association, and be more apt to remember properties of certain elements. I was able to post this image straight from the website to the blog.

The magazine cover used here is from a picture of a student at West Mesquite High School who is using a skeleton model and a computer program to learn the body systems, and how they interact to maintain homeostasis. Skeletology is a word I made up, but when students are asked to be creative, making up words that have scientific roots is a learning experience. I used the "add image" button on the blog editing window in order to upload the picture.

I had many ideas come to me about how to use the flickr color pickr. For example, students are expected to understand why a pigment molecule is so important to living things. Since pigment molecules absorb and reflect different wavelengths of light, they appear as a particular color when the light meets our eye. I saw many beautiful pictues of plants showing rhodopsin, a red pigment, chlorophyll/green, carotene/orange, and anthocyanins/blue and purple.

Thing #10 Post:
This slide show could be used to review and reinforce material to students. I would like to see how Smartboards and Interwrite slates can enrich this type of presentation. One strange thing that occurred to me while I was putting this slide show together: Between the time I copied the picture to use and finished the slide show to post, the owner of one of the pictures had taken it off the site. I kept trying to repost, and it said html was messed up. Finally I figured it out and had to find another mushroom :-( . Oh well, we'll see how this one goes.....

Picture of grass by Vagabond Shutterbug
Picture of ladybug by Paulo Henrique Zioli
Picture of alligator by Mondmann
Picture of mushroom by Vagabond Shutterbug

Thing #9 Post:
Okay. Pictures for free. Fantastic pictures for the taking. By exploring through the groups and tags, you find a picture you never would have thought about! Soon you visualize your students engaged in lessons using these awesome images in a novel structure you could never provide before now. I found pictures of my famous cousin that I had never seen in print before. Sergio Savaman Savarese took a picture of her passport. http://www.flickr.com/photos/savaman/41623156/
So maybe with some other pictures of Janis Joplin the students might recognize, (and kids today still do recognize her amazingly enough), I brag about all the musical talent I must have inherited being related as a third cousin. I will ask students to calculate how much DNA we are likely to share by having a common set of great-grandparents. (The answer is 1/16 or 6.25 percent!) This lesson topic is genetics and pedigrees, specifically about how to predict inheritance using probability. My theme I'll use later will be elements of the food chain and trophic levels. I was able to find some pretty spectacular photos illustrating specific parts of the food chain. Often in our secondary science classes, we rely on the use of graphics and diagrams rather than pictures that show authentic living things. With the advent of testing and preparing students for "what they will see on the test," our lessons have neglected to inject the very component that makes a lesson relevant. Pictures of real life.

Thing #8 Post:
Discovering Creative Commons is close to finding the Holy Grail for some of us who work with curriculum development, teacher-made lessons, power-point presentations...the list is endless. I actually have a file called "copyright" with letters and emails granting permissions and clarification documents concerning copyright. Hopefully I won't need to refer to that file as much now. Plus I am fairly certain that I have inherited a gene that draws me to anything that is labeled "free." :-) I will be spending a good amount of time exploring creative commons so that I know where to look for diagrams, pictures, music, lessons. More importantly I can steer our teachers who work so diligently putting together meaningful lessons for their students. The majority of my comments concerning a teacher's created lesson is the problem associated with copyright. Our only recourse for so long has been clip art which really isn't enough for our science image needs. I like to find music that isn't blasted constantly on the radio stations, and I happened upon one that I think I'll enjoy.

Thing #7 Post:
Reading and posting comments on blogs is not entirely new for me. Most of my postings have been on personal blogs made by my own children, nieces and nephews. This class has required that I search for blogs that are more topical and relevant to my work. I have been thrilled to find the number of blogs made for educators. These blogs are a wealth of information and resources! Best of all, most seem to be really current and up-to-date. Being in the science field, however, I have been less successful finding a good fit for my needs. Some blogs have been sooo technical that I can't even follow them. Others are really specific to a scientific area and are very interesting to read about, but I do not have the background to intelligently contribute to the blog. I am still looking for a science content blog that is not focused particularly on education, yet is not too technical. I want to find a blog that I can learn from and make comments with some degree of confidence. I posted to a science education blog that shares ideas for using Interwrite boards. Since I will be working on that this fall with high school teachers, I will be referring to it often. I also posted on a site that is distributing a podcast-based initiative for helping districts achieve more parent involvement. We have a high school in our district who only had one single parent volunteer for PTA during the initial PTA drive! I would like to see the district find a way to help parents feel more comfortable communicating with the schools.

Thing #6 Post:
I am really practicing the RSS skim method. It will take me awhile to master it so that I am efficient, but I've really enjoyed it. I found a site where James Hollis' motto is "Sharing is Caring." The posts are from teachers who love working with SMARTboards, and share the ways they have used them successfully in classrooms. Besides just tutorials, some posts show examples of how they used specific programs. Another humorous post by Terry Friedman describes the mysterious 'tech force' that seems to be out to get us as we experience cyber life. I used to believe that this 'force' eminated from copy machines. They could feel my karma as I approached and did not want any thing to do with it. A machine that had worked all day long would deliberately misfeed, create a paper jam, or run out of toner. Now that I depend upon computers more than copiers, that 'force' has moved to my desktop and/or laptop. Trying to fix it through problem-solving is pointless. There is no logic to fixing a computer issue. Shut down. Restart. Computer works. Victory over the tech force!! I added the Dilbert feed, but I think I'll look for Bizarro and Steve Moore. They have good science-related comics and have given us copyright to use them in instruction!

Thing #5 Post:
I had no idea what a RSS was except that it had the word reading in the title. It is easy to figure why it would be popular and I am anxious to add to mine. A feed posted last Friday by Ben Grey caught my interest. He describes much of why I feel integrating technology into our school curriculum is more important than ever. A video from YouTube features a young man who credits his school program with saving his future. The article focus is mostly on the two sides of the technology coin- one side stresses the difficulty, the stress, the uncertainty, the resistance, the overwhelming task of utilizing technolgy for instruction. The other side relates the excitement, the hope, the clarity, the pride of accomplishments seen with much of the credit owed to technology. The video of Abel Real is a touching testimony of how a school program where students were given a laptop to use and take home, opened a boy's life to hope for his present and future. In this case, Abel represented many of the poor, underprivileged students who changed their life choices to pursue secondary schooling, rather than dropping out. Abel gave full credit to the teachers and administrators who worked so hard to provide this aspect to his education, and for many, the inspiration to work hard and live a productive life.

Thing #4 Post:
If I had to describe the writing style of most blogs, I would call it conversational. Usually a post begins with an opinion, a discovery, or maybe a question. The intent of a post is to invite response, and sometimes the nature of the subject is quite passionate! The lengths of posts vary depending on what the writer or responder wants to say. This type of reading is very different since it involves a back and forth dialogue which has the potential to go just about anywhere. In some blogs, two or three individuals tend to dominate the discourse, with others piping in with agreements or arguments. This happens in Why I Don't Assign Homework. Others blogs might pose a question and many different readers offer observations and thoughts which help clarify the issue. I wonder if blogging has started to influence other modes of writing. In the last few years I have read several novels that tell a story from more than one view as it moves from chapter to chapter. Just as a person reading a blog is receiving topical information from many sources, a reader of a novel that changes narrative each chapter will come away with a more multi-faceted understanding. I think blogging definitely facilitates learning. If a topic is interesting to a student, and especially if he wants to take a stand, he will be forced to think about what he knows and how best to express it in order to make a valid contribution to the blog.

Thing#2 Post:
Thoughts on web2.0 in the 21st Century:
When I went to the technology conference in Austin last February and sat in on a session on web2.0, it took my breath away. The presenter didn't hand out any notes, but was clicking from one thing to the next on a projector screen, and I was so awestruck that I furiously scribbled notes. In an hour and a half he had taken us to over 60 websites that are used interactively in instruction. My hand was nearly numb but I was completely mesmerized. My hope is that enough educators in our district and beyond rise to the call to organize these web-links into learning opportunities for students. Having students produce podcasts, wikis, google docs, and research using bookmarked information has huge learning potential. By providing the computers as tools and by modeling ourselves, how web2.0 can be used to find answers and solve problems with the aid of technological social networking, we just might help create a generation of lifelong learners where the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is almost nonexistent. Exciting times!

Thing#1 Post:
Some of the challenges I will face in this course of 23 Things is to face problems as challenges rather than roadblocks. Sometimes I get bored or impatient when things don't move along at a speedy pace. I'm sure I will face ample opportunities to toughen up as a solution-finder with this endeavor to complete this time-intensive course before my July trip! Which means that I have committed to accept responsibility for my own learning by using many tools for support, rather than immediately calling my boss, a significantly competent technology wiz.

The easiest habit for me as a lifelong learner is that I tend to begin with an end in mind, since I have difficulty moving forward if I don't have an ultimate plan or purpose. Even though I realize this about myself, I often forget to refocus when I feel bogged down during a project. Remembering my purpose always gives me a jump start. I am also very receptive to mentoring and teaching others. I like for others to be involved in something I've found fun or purposeful.

The most important habit for working through this course is to treat the assignments as play. Play is underrated in our work-driven society, and I believe that learning should often be fun. The brain chemicals released during fun activities provide a positive association to the learning that is happening. I also think that the use of my toolbox will be supremely important (especially the calendar). Brainstorming with others about the possible uses and applications of web2.0 will be much more productive than if I only think on my own. Input from colleagues who work with other age groups, from students of varying internet experiences, and from teachers of other subjects - all these help broaden the perspective from which I can understand this medium.