Today I will begin using this blog for my vacation updates and pictures. Before, I used it only for a class assignment. On Thursday, Cary and I took a flight to San Francisco, and drove straight to Napa Valley. We stayed at the Silverado Lodge and Resort, an old golf/tennis/spa resort with condos and homes. The food was fabulous, and we indulged in a supreme spa package that was worth every penny. We toured Rutherford Hill Winery and tasted their reds and whites. I recommend this area and would love to go back!

Today we are in San Francisco, and plan to shop a little before heading to Pebble Beach. We are staying very near Union Square at the Handlery Hotel. It is PACKED in SF, because there was a marathon this morning. San Francisco hosts about 3-4 full marathons a year and it is very hard to get rooms during this time.

One last thing Post:
And this is only 23 things. I am sure there will be 23 more things by next month. That is the truth and if you don't believe it then you are probably still trying to figure out how to copy/paste in word. Students learn these tricks and tools intuitively or through the familiar navigation of popular sites. When I mention any of these applications to kids, they 'know' what I am talking about even though they don't know the name. For most teachers, in order to stay ahead of the learning curve...."they're gonna have to take 23 things...."
I will recommend this class to others, but maybe during a regular semester. I thought taking this in the summer, it would be easier to find time to work on the lessons, but life gets in the way, even during summer! But the time invested is more than worth it. I am very excited to begin using some of these tools.
I hope to use many of these 23 things to help with my most important objectives as a science facilitator: Building background knowledge in science teachers, creating lessons that are on-target with the state objectives, and finding ways to assess how well students are learning. I believe that I learned some ways to make learning fun and interesting for students, and ways to make instruction more focused and versatile for teachers.
A very heartfelt thanks to the people in Library Services who put this course together and who were so helpful in the monitoring of our coursework.

Visit 23 Thingsters


Thing #23 Post:
I want to thank Mary and Debbie (and all the other facilitators) for arranging this badge of honor to all of us who completed 23 things!
I was very impressed with Classroom 2.0 and the other Ning networks. The video that explains how Ning can be set up is very helpful. We might just be catching a glimpse of the newest social networking craze. I would very much like to develop one that is shared and limited to my family members. I think I will give it a go later this summer. My mother has a 'round robin' of letters that go around the country from family member to family member. I don't think a Ning would replace that round robin, but I would like to post the letters in it and keep the connections between the younger generations.
I found a forum that talked about the use of document cameras in various settings. As soon as my membership gets approved, I have a response to make to a man who asked: " Can't you achieve the same result with a web-cam, and cheaper?" We have a teacher at West Mesquite who did just that- he mounted webcams on bendable arm desk lamps for 1/4 the price of buying Elmos.
I think that these social networks can be easier to use than the list servs I currently subscribe to. The AP Biology list serve is just a serial list of all the comments/posts that you have to sift through. If we had a Ning page, it could be classified by topic, pictures could be added to show lab set-ups etc. I wonder how hard it would be to get around the filters in the district? I have been taking this course at home, so I haven't encountered the issues of being blocked.

Thing #22 Post:
My introduction to social networking began when my daughter, in college at the time, called and said, "Mom, I created you a Facebook account so you can keep up with all the pictures I post and stay up with who my friends are and what we are doing." She assumed I would be okay with this and as she knows me quite well, I was really grateful. So what started as a small family oriented bookmark on my computer, gradually ballooned as her friends (many my former students), their moms, my co-workers, etc. invited me to be a friend. Then about a year ago, BAM! I became connected to extended cousins who I had lost contact with, elementary school friends and the list is endless. Personally I have treasured facebook, mostly for the reconnect with my family and their children.
I think it is important that educators understand how social networking works. For example, it has become nearly a substitute for email. I received an inbox message recently from a former student looking for a science teaching job. No phone call. No school email. He looked me up on FB. I lost contact with the wedding videographer for my daughter's wedding. His email was bouncing back, his phone no longer worked. I looked at the routine people search engines on the web to no avail. Finally I thought, "Maybe he's on facebook?" Two seconds later- there he is, staring right at me. I sent him a note, he responded in an hour!
To be fair, I do have a MySpace account, but have not spent much time on it. It did not lead to rewarding interaction for me, other than keeping up with our children's events. I have joined Plaxo and Linkedin but have not done anything with that except I get a notice on my email every so often of another contact. If I find time I should see how they have updated.
As far as useful features, I enjoy joining groups on FB. I even noticed that all middle schools in Mesquite ISD had an alumni site, except A.C. New, so I established one! It now has about 100 members!
I don't really see a direct educational application yet. My friend, Stormy Shippy, has developed a textbook finder program that is linked to facebook. He is an alumni of UNT and the program also gives students the ability to list their school schedule and link to other classmates. This might help with large universities especially where it may be hard to build study groups.

Thing #7b Post:
I enjoy the science articles coming from my reader. Right now it is a bit heavy with biological articles, so I should try to find more chemistry and physics feeds. But the biology news tends to be more relevant and is written in a way that seems to care about scientific literacy of the average reader. The chemistry and physics news feeds and blogs are often highly technical. I found an article discussing new research on how studying a plant's internal clock can impact the kinds of models being used to predict climate change. I am especially interested in biorhythms and the circadium clock of organisms, (partly because my body really takes a beating when I travel across several time zones) but also because it is such a marvelous tactic of adaptation. This article describes how plants have survived over the years based largely on its ability to adapt to environmental changes. It is estimated that 90% of a plants genes are controlled and regulated by its biological clock. The control of when a flower opens, or when a seed is ready to germinate, or in getting chloroplasts ready for photosynthesis before dawn- these are all "timing" control factors. When scientists created an experimental plant without these controls, the plant had a difficult time surviving and reproduced less frequently. The climate control models made routinely thus far have ignored any variables where plants might undergo photosynthesis more rapidly at different times of the day. This would change the amount of CO2 used up during these times, which means the model is not as accurate.

Thing #21 Post:
The Google Notebook is closed to new subscribers! From what I could gather, they wanted to focus on other applications and felt that most users could use other applications to accomplish what they were using Notebook for. There were quite a few unhappy posts about it though. It was recommended that just making a google doc with notes would be a good substitute. One responder mentioned that he switched to a thing called Zoho Notebook, so maybe we could take a look at that.

I had not heard about Google Alerts, so I configured my account to send me updates on swine flu, global warming, and earthquakes. These topics have been pertinent to our area in recent months, so I would like the latest information.

I have known about Google Sketch up for some time, but haven't invested the time required to build good models. My first attempt was very frustrating! I recently found out that my boss, Joel Palmer, has given training on this feature of google, so I guess it is time for me to sign up! It has super potential. I made a rudimentary model for display here, but later on this month I'll go to my school files and post the picture of a hot plate made by Joel. It is really fabulous. One really cool feature is that you can spin the hot plate around while in the program and see the hot plate from top, bottom, front, and back.

I have a google calendar that I share with my family so we can plan our times together. It happens to be on this account I am using, so I'll have to rearrange my accounts to move that calendar to another personal google account. I hope to use this calendar with my science specialists so we can plan meetings and deadlines for projects. Our district has a calendar with our email, and it is the one I currently use with my boss and other facilitators, so we'll see which one works best for this purpose. I'm thinking if we are using iGoogle home pages, Google docs, etc. then it will be smoother to use the Google calendar. Has anyone else been using the Google calendar for school and work?

Thing #20 Post:
Google docs is a tool that should make me more productive in my job, save time, and improve the quality of our curriculum and teacher training.
I often need input from a large group of teachers and the form used in google docs lets me send a link with questions and then the spreadsheet records all the responses in one place. Before that, I had to make an email folder titled "teacher responses" and tally the results manually from my email! I am planning a contest to see which teachers are able to interpret their student expectations in the way the state assesses them. I am making forms that ask questions. The teacher answers will be recorded on the spreadsheet and graded with a formula. I'm crossing my fingers that this is received with a spirit of purposeful fun, rather than another job added to their chore list.
I will be working with science content specialists from all the high schools this year, and to reduce the number of physical meetings, I hope to use google docs to create and refine our plans to unify the campuses in science matters. We hope to improve all campuses using the ideas and experience of all six!
Often teachers will send me a powerpoint or document they have created and want my input. It would be so much simpler to view it together and discuss changes that need to be made. The two problems that come up most often are content accuracy and copyright. Having a google doc on our science wiki would allow teachers access to these copyright rules when they need to refresh their memory.
I worked with my boss on this quiz for students taking the Apex Biology Credit Recoup class this past spring.

Thing #15 Post:
I'm glad to say I finally made a wiki! I want to give thanks to our instructor for the wikispaces cheat sheet, it helped clarify procedures for me really well. My wiki page was titled Quartzamongous. I read through some of the wikis from classmates and enjoyed the different perspectives and personal tastes expressed. My wiki title was Making Footprints. At first I had a hard time figuring out about choosing the heading vs normal text, but once I saved and looked at the product, I was able to catch on. I had difficulty signing on in the beginning because I finally figured out you have to ask for approval to join. This only took a few hours, so I went ahead to other lessons (as you can see my posts are now out of order). I wonder if when we make our own full-fledged wiki, do we have to name each page? Or was this necessary because we all attached a page to one wiki? We will have a science wiki up and running this fall, so I'll be working on this within the next few weeks. I think I'll make a photo album of my trip to the Holy Lands. I'll put a link on my class wiki page so everyone can see where Jesus walked! :)

Thing #19 Post:
The toy of my dreams. I think this is my favorite thing.

I used this same 'idea' in my lower tech environment of a picture (converted to a transparency) and an overhead projector. My only input would be words/phrases spoken aloud by students while I jotted them on the transparency. This type of group input would stimulate discussion and narrow down important concepts as contributions by everyone were tied together in a meaningful way.

This toy adds so much dimension to this instructional method! It adds personalization, ownership, and creativity. One of my hopes is that it might encourage shy students to develop some courage in expressing their thoughts. Plus it is permanent in that it can be referred to often. The example on Measuring Volume of Weird Objects is one that I particularly like. I also see students forming their own ideas on topics to be explored on Voicethread. I think it would be so great for family pictures too! Why have I not seen this anywhere before?

Thing #18 Post
I certainly believe YouTube is one of the most visited websites. I had visited casually before, but felt compelled to finally make an account when I made a valentine photostory that I wanted to share with family and friends. But Mac users could not view the photostory. By uploading the photostory to YouTube, the Mac users could watch it, so they must do something to the formatting as it is posted. Every once in a while I have been sent links to YouTube by teachers who want to use a video. With the district screens and filters, I have had extreme difficulty viewing on YouTube from school. The best option is to download the video for use, but that is not always allowed. So until we resolve that issue, our teachers won't be able to make use of the videos on YouTube. It is a shame since so many are really good.
I found a pretty good video that shows teachers how to unpack and use the triple beam balance. This is provided by one of our science vendors, Carolina Biological. Another is a nice lively justification of using cooperative learning. I think a graduate student put this one together. I am pretty sure the third video is a student project, perhaps high school or undergraduate. I like it because it is accurate, musical, and ties some important concepts together without being too overwhelming.

Thing #17 Post:
I have a little experience with podcasting, having taken the Audacity course earlier this summer. The hardest part to that, if you want music in the background, is to get a music file that will play. Otherwise, it is super simple. So I think it would be really helpful to have a bank of music that is not copyrighted and is in a format acceptable to a podcast.
But this thing #17 focuses more on subscribing to available podcasts and I really had no previous experience with that. I chose the science podcasts offered on the discovery page, and really liked all of them. The "Dragonfly TV" had podcasts with students actually setting up measurable experiments through inquiry. I think students of any age will benefit from seeing these short podcasts. Our students continue to be weak in their understanding of the scientific process and part of the reason is that is that they do not receive enough variety in their experiences . They are expected to analyze an experimental set up and evaluate whether it is valid. Discussing the content of the podcasts should give them more practice refining this skill."Why? The Science Show for kids podcast" is another I will recommend to students and teachers. These podcasts are in a question/answer format and should enrich student understanding by deepening their background knowledge. I also subscribed to the podcasts from NOVA and Scientific American. I hope to add these to our district science wiki, so teachers can explore them at their convenience. With our standards changing over the next couple of years, it will be an opportunity to add this to our curriculum as lesson options.

Thing #16 Post:
The Library Thing is a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it does seem reasonable after all, that a link that will find and organize books and resources, would make an educator a very happy camper! I first typed in all of my daughter's novels so that I could leave 5-star reviews! I also plan to add all my favorite books from childhood, all my favorite books from my parenting years, and my favorite books in general. I want to use this as I begin my grandchildren's book collections!(Even if they are using kindles by that time!)

Professionally I am glad to have a list to refer to when I am trying to think of the title of a particular book from which we are basing much of our curriculum design. Teachers are always asking "Where is this research?" when we refer to research-based practices. I plan to have plenty to share with all the information they need to access it. The National Science Foundation sends me regular emails with new books on scientific inquiry or other best practice programs. Rather than store the email to my archives, I can quickly go to my library page and add these to my list! It's going to make me look so awesome!

Thing #14 Post:
There are many ways teachers can use wikis for instruction. The wikis for observation in thing #14 are really varied in their approach and skill level. If a wiki is needed as a source of information, or if it is to be used as a student project, then the number of features can be small. One of the wikis looked like merely a long list of websites that could be used to glean information. I could see this only being useful if a teacher really wanted to restrict the sites she wanted her students to open. This particular site was cumbersome because it wasn't organized very well and the sites were not cleanly related to the body systems. Some were just peripherally related. I really liked what I saw in the high school chemistry class. The students made wikis to explore alternative energy sources. The instructions and options were clearly stated. The students were able to customize their presentation due to these options. Links, podcasts and videos were used to enrich their wiki's value as an educational medium. I also was impressed with the advanced math site. The site itself had objectives linked to explanations. This was a project that the seniors were to produce. They took a topic and made class notes with explanations. The only way I would improve this site is to have a link for assessment, so students get feedback on what they know. This can be done using google docs. I would like to see a senior-level multimedia class partner with a senior-level science class and make wikis for TAKS objectives and student expectations. With the new state requirement of four years of science, some of our creative students who normally don't take a fourth year will be enrolled in a science class. I think it would be smart to capitalize on the talents of our artistic right-brained students for the benefit of our at-risk students. The seniors responsible for this project are likely to experience a deeper appreciation of the nature of science as well.

Thing #13 Post:
I have been eagerly awaiting this lesson because there seemed to be many references to it while I attended the technology conference in February. I am very happy to have moved from my junky, repetitive "bookmarks" list on my browser to this organized, useful delicious 2.0 tool. I am fascinated by the sharing capacity and am eager to know that I don't have to have my personal home laptop with me for all of those bookmarks! Along with my RSS feeds, this will be a way to stay on the cutting edge of technology and web2.0, while I work on other computer things. I want more people on my network list because it really divides the workload! My colleagues will be looking at similar things because of our shared needs. My friends outside of work will be looking and tagging things of interest that I share with them. The same with family... really cool. I almost shared a website of a computer programmer who is helping with the coding of iPhone applications. I wouldn't be surprised if we are moving in that direction, where teachers start coding their own applications for student lessons. But for now it looked a little scary :/.

I think we should have an MISD Science delicious account that teachers can share links with. This would invite our science teachers to share sites they think will be helpful to other teachers. We could keep important links like the TEA website, and also links to all the professional organizations, science vendors, etc. on it.

Thing #7a Post:

I found on a June 1 post from Tech& Learning reviewing a technology product called DigiMemo. The reviewer is a professor from Turkey who teaches classes and is responsible for other managerial duties on his campus. The DigiMemo is a tablet that costs under $100. It is made of a flat plastic pad that places a medium size paper notepad at the center. The pen is electronic and can sense the movements of the writers hand motions. Everything you write is saved on the pad memory. This image can be sent electronically by email or flash drive or whatever. There is software available for your computer that will transfer your handwriting into word text, but the author felt like this feature was cumbersome and difficult to make use of.

As an instructor, the author reads student work and writes the correction comments on the notepad. He can tear off the paper pad to give to the student, but he saves a copy on the tablet. If a teacher wanted to keep track of student progress in writing samples, this would be an effective method of accomplishing this.

I think this little notepad which is much easier to carry around than a laptop, would be great to have because I like to doodle. My notes often end up having lots of arrows and dates that are not especially neat. My problem is that I find it difficult to keep up with these notepads with notes from various meetings. I would benefit greatly from the sense of organization this tablet could provide me! I could also share this information without having to retype or scan the page!

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.