Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
BP19_2010034_No Future Left Behind
This video is a powerful tool that might make it easier to get our students access into the amazing world of Web 2.0 tools.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
BP17_2010034_Who likes to eat soap?
Who likes to eat soap? is the title of my first children's book. I have always wanted to write a children's book and now I have using Storyjumper.
BP16_201003_Science Learning Opportunities in Second Life
Science Education in virtual worlds is a perfect match. Students can experiment safely on microscopic to macroscopic matter and learn a great deal. If practice makes perfect then working and playing in virtual worlds could improve student achievement and interest in becoming a lifelong learner.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
BP14_2010033_Interactive Wall
This is a task I am planning to use with my students, please add a post to our wall.
Monday, March 15, 2010
BP13_2010033_Google Docs-2 Share and Collaborate
Second "how to" video from a teacher currently using Google Docs with his students for word processing and collaboration.
BP12_2010033-Google Docs 1 Getting Started
Great video from a teacher using Google Docs with his current students.
BP12_2010033_Teachers and Principals Talk about Google Docs
Thank you Jenine for encouraging me to find out more about Google docs. This is a video explaining why all teachers and their students need to get on board and use Google Docs. No more lost flashdrives
1
BP11_2010033_One Minute Message
Here is my first student/teacher video about a Web 2.0 tool for royalty free music for teachers. The website is called soundzabound. You can find it at www.soundzabound.com. Enjoy…
BP10_2010033_Clay Shirky on New Book "Here Comes Everybody"
Listen and learn, Clay Shirky is definitely putting to use his excellent genes!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
BP8_2010033_Web2.0Tool4_Smilebox
If flickr does not work out for my students I want to have an alternative planned for them to use to be creative with their digital photos, videos, and music. Using the Web 2.0 tool called Smilebox, I would have my students make an invitation to the park for Earth Day and invitations to their parents to attend on the days when we have special Earth Day guest speakers. Something fun and a cool way to learn about different unique ecosystems would be to use Creative Commons images and videos to create photo albums, slideshows, scrapbooks, or a collection of make believe postcards about the positive and negative aspects of the selected ecosystem. Many of the creations allow for the addition of royalty free music right from their website. We could post the creations to our school Earth Day Wiki page.
Students could create thank you cards for a variety of people such as for our guest speakers and for people who donate things to our garden. We might even be able to turn the cards and other creations into fundraisers. Or students might learn to provide a service to create Smilebox products for their family and friends to earn money for field trips. I could assign a seasonal photo journal that students would use to document their scientific observations of the land, water, sky, and life forms that are active during the different seasons in their own backyard. The potential for creativity is infinite using Smilebox. I was disappointed to find out that the free trial ends after 14 days and after that there is a monthly fee of $5.99 per month. But if all my students could have access to Smilebox at least a couple times a month and learned from their digital creations, then it would be worth the monthly fee. The website www.smilebox.com has an excellent video tour.
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| Make your own scrapbook design |
I made an assignment scrapbook about Flower Evolution with specific questions about flowers. My students could then do the research and make their own scrapbook. Their creations could be checked, edited, and used to study for the test about plant evolution.
BP7_2010032_Web2.0Tool3_Wikispaces
I learned last month how to make a Ning website so I was hoping some of those skills would transfer over to create a Wiki website. By the way, the reason I am changing to Wikispaces is because Ning requires students to be 13 and older and some of my 7th grade students are only 12 and therefore would not be able to participate. To avoid rebellion, I have chosen to switch to Wikispaces, where everyone can participate. After watching the informative Wikipaces tutorials and a little experimentation, I have found that Wikispaces is indeed similar to Ning (at times I feel like I am speaking an alien cyberspace language). I’d like to call my Wikispace a Wacky Wiki but it’s for school so I must refrain. Instead, I called it the FMS (Fillmore Middle School) Earth Day Wikispace. The wikispace is by invitation only while it gets developed.
Our group goal is to use the Wikispace to educate our local community about environmentalism. Our plan is to prepare at least 60 different environmental awareness and education projects to take to our local park on Earth Day. We go to the park on April 22 because that is where the parents are, attending softball games. It is a beautiful location near the Sespe Creek, just down from the mountains of the Condor Refuge. We plan to post to our FMS Earth Day Wikispace, the power point presentations, the environmental slogan songs, raps, and poems, the photos and videos taken at the park, and anything else creative or educational that comes out of the project. Our overall slogan is Earth Day Is Every Day, so we want the Wikispace to continue to house new material year round. We may add environmental awareness books for children, photoessays, poetry, "how to videos", and maybe even a Science in the News TV show. The possibilities are endless once we get permission to enter the clouds of Web 2.0.
We plan to film three guest speakers, a biologist who has tracked endangered Condors near our school, a Channel Islands National Park ranger who is planning to call on their radio an Island Fox research scientist who has helped to bring back the Island Fox from the brink of extinction, and a deep sea diver, who dives below 200 feet, that works for the Santa Barbara branch of Ocean Futures Society. Ocean Futures was founded by Jean Michael Cousteau to help bring awareness about the beauty and the spoiling of the oceans (see www.oceanfutures.org). We plan to post the videos to our Wiki. I can hardly wait to get things uploaded to our new Wiki.
Our group goal is to use the Wikispace to educate our local community about environmentalism. Our plan is to prepare at least 60 different environmental awareness and education projects to take to our local park on Earth Day. We go to the park on April 22 because that is where the parents are, attending softball games. It is a beautiful location near the Sespe Creek, just down from the mountains of the Condor Refuge. We plan to post to our FMS Earth Day Wikispace, the power point presentations, the environmental slogan songs, raps, and poems, the photos and videos taken at the park, and anything else creative or educational that comes out of the project. Our overall slogan is Earth Day Is Every Day, so we want the Wikispace to continue to house new material year round. We may add environmental awareness books for children, photoessays, poetry, "how to videos", and maybe even a Science in the News TV show. The possibilities are endless once we get permission to enter the clouds of Web 2.0.
We plan to film three guest speakers, a biologist who has tracked endangered Condors near our school, a Channel Islands National Park ranger who is planning to call on their radio an Island Fox research scientist who has helped to bring back the Island Fox from the brink of extinction, and a deep sea diver, who dives below 200 feet, that works for the Santa Barbara branch of Ocean Futures Society. Ocean Futures was founded by Jean Michael Cousteau to help bring awareness about the beauty and the spoiling of the oceans (see www.oceanfutures.org). We plan to post the videos to our Wiki. I can hardly wait to get things uploaded to our new Wiki.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
BP5_2010032_Web2.0Tool2_FotoFlexer
When my students took home the video and photo release form, requesting permission to allow my students to participate in my Full Sail University action research project, a few parents refused to sign it and said they were concerned about putting photos and videos of their child on the Internet. One suggestion a student made, was to turn at least the pictures of the student into a comic or animation. I experimented with Vokis last month and liked them very much but they run ads along with the animation. See www.voki.com
I experimented with FotoFlexer. It is a Web 2.0 tool that is free and allows you to turn your photos into cartoon like images. Check out the video below for more about the website www.fotoflexer.com
I wouldn’t mind having all of our Earth Day Ning site (or another kind of website) be all comics or animations; they appeal to the middle school student and might make parents more comfortable. My students are familiar with numerous science animations I use to teach the life science curriculum and will watch them over and over again until they understand the concept. One popular animation I use is an animation of the process of mitosis. Go to http://www.cellsalive.com/mitosis.htm to see a cool biology animation.
In George-Palilonis & Belcher (2009) a physicist and a journalist collaborated to make an animation to be used to teach electromagnetism to college students and stated that “future research and development for interactive multimedia texts is limitless”. You can see their amazing physics animations that are being used this year at MIT at http://web.mit.edu/viz/EM/flash/E&M_Master/____LAUNCH.html
If you have any other ideas for making our own comics or animations please send them my way.
George-Palilonis, J., & Belcher, J. (2009). Visualizing electricity and magnetism:
the collaborative development of a multimedia text. International Journal
of the Book, 6(2), 107-114. Retrieved from Humanities International Complete database.
I experimented with FotoFlexer. It is a Web 2.0 tool that is free and allows you to turn your photos into cartoon like images. Check out the video below for more about the website www.fotoflexer.com
I wouldn’t mind having all of our Earth Day Ning site (or another kind of website) be all comics or animations; they appeal to the middle school student and might make parents more comfortable. My students are familiar with numerous science animations I use to teach the life science curriculum and will watch them over and over again until they understand the concept. One popular animation I use is an animation of the process of mitosis. Go to http://www.cellsalive.com/mitosis.htm to see a cool biology animation.
In George-Palilonis & Belcher (2009) a physicist and a journalist collaborated to make an animation to be used to teach electromagnetism to college students and stated that “future research and development for interactive multimedia texts is limitless”. You can see their amazing physics animations that are being used this year at MIT at http://web.mit.edu/viz/EM/flash/E&M_Master/____LAUNCH.html
If you have any other ideas for making our own comics or animations please send them my way.
George-Palilonis, J., & Belcher, J. (2009). Visualizing electricity and magnetism:
the collaborative development of a multimedia text. International Journal
of the Book, 6(2), 107-114. Retrieved from Humanities International Complete database.
BP4_2010031_Web2.0Tool1_soundzabound
My students are working on an Earth Day project that includes writing a slogan for the environmental asset they would like to introduce to the community. According to Alexomanolaki, Loveday, and Kennett (2007) brain based learning research indicates that mnemonics set to music improves memory retention, so having my students set their slogan to music is the added challenge. Earth Day raps, rhymes, and songs have now been written so we were on the hunt for a source for copyright free beats and music.
Dr. Deason steered me towards a Web 2.0 tool called Soundzabound at www.soundzabound.com. It is a great resource. My students quickly figured out how to scroll through the beats and songs and have started practicing putting their lyrics to the music.
Check out the video to learn more about the site.
Alexomanolaki, M., Loveday, C., & Kennett, C. (2007). Music and memory in advertising. (cover story). Music, Sound & the Moving Image, 1(1), 51-71. Retrieved from Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text database.
Dr. Deason steered me towards a Web 2.0 tool called Soundzabound at www.soundzabound.com. It is a great resource. My students quickly figured out how to scroll through the beats and songs and have started practicing putting their lyrics to the music.
Check out the video to learn more about the site.
Alexomanolaki, M., Loveday, C., & Kennett, C. (2007). Music and memory in advertising. (cover story). Music, Sound & the Moving Image, 1(1), 51-71. Retrieved from Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text database.
BP3_2010031_RSS Feeds
RSS: Earth Day Network –Great resource, for my Project Based Learning Action Research, which is to have my students introduce our local community to environmental education.
RSS: Edutopia-Excellent resource for best practices and what is new in education.
RSS: Science Blogs- A wealth of creative material in all areas of science and technology.
RSS: The Teacher Tube – Made by and produced for teachers. It still has ads but the content is filtered.
RSS: The World’s Fair- A brilliant collection of brilliant ideas from all around the world.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
BP2_2010031_EduUses4Blogs
“It appears that social species
have evolved a dual mechanism for
ensuring that social bonds are both
sought and maintained - you are
anxious until social contact is
achieved and, once this happens,
your anxiety is hopefully, although
not necessarily, replaced by feelings
of pleasure.”
Professor Keith M. Kendrick
Blogging provides a unique forum for social bonding in cyberspace. Educators have a fresh opportunity to utilize blogs to boost the education of the digital learner. Since I am a science teacher I would like to focus on the uses of blogs in science education. According to Brownstein & Klein (2006) fortunately “the focus has moved from “what” to “why". The authors recommend implementing three different kinds of science blogs, those created by the instructor, the class, and the student, to make use of blogging’s full potential. They encourage the use of a variety of blog types including video blogs, connect blogs, audio blogs, and photo blogs. Pedagogical benefits of blogs in education documented by Fertig &Tremmell (2004) include: 1.) they help students become subject- matter experts 2. ) they increase student ownership in learning 3.) they give students legitimate chances to participate 4.) they provide opportunities for diverse perspectives both within and outside of the classroom.
Right off the bat, I see science blogs offering me and my students a solution to one of my concerns about teaching in a face to face classroom, all students would have an equal opportunity to respond to the blog post, even the students who are reluctant to raise their hand in class. At times those quiet, shy students are overlooked in class but could find their voice on a science blog in cyberspace.
I am looking forward to researching current, free Web 2.0 tools that I can easily implement in my science classroom in middle school. Middle school students enjoy all forms of technology and do not hesitate to try out new web tools. My students are not keen on reading the directions, will occasionally watch a tutorial on YouTube, but most of the time they just leap into the program and experiment. Once they are immersed in the web they learn how to work the program much faster than their digital immigrant teacher. It boosts their self-confidence each time they remind me that they know more than I do. Little do they know that is a part of the lesson plan.
Brownstein, E., & Klein, R. (2006). Blogs: applications in science education. Journal of College Science Teaching, 35(6), 18-22. Retrieved from ERIC database.
Ferdig, R., & Trammell, K. (2004). Content delivery in the "blogosphere". T.H.E. Journal, 31(7), 12. Retrieved from ERIC database.
Kendrick, K. (2004). The neurobiology of social bonds. Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 16(12), 1007-1008. doi:10.1111.1365-2826.2004.01262.x.
have evolved a dual mechanism for
ensuring that social bonds are both
sought and maintained - you are
anxious until social contact is
achieved and, once this happens,
your anxiety is hopefully, although
not necessarily, replaced by feelings
of pleasure.”
Professor Keith M. Kendrick
Blogging provides a unique forum for social bonding in cyberspace. Educators have a fresh opportunity to utilize blogs to boost the education of the digital learner. Since I am a science teacher I would like to focus on the uses of blogs in science education. According to Brownstein & Klein (2006) fortunately “the focus has moved from “what” to “why". The authors recommend implementing three different kinds of science blogs, those created by the instructor, the class, and the student, to make use of blogging’s full potential. They encourage the use of a variety of blog types including video blogs, connect blogs, audio blogs, and photo blogs. Pedagogical benefits of blogs in education documented by Fertig &Tremmell (2004) include: 1.) they help students become subject- matter experts 2. ) they increase student ownership in learning 3.) they give students legitimate chances to participate 4.) they provide opportunities for diverse perspectives both within and outside of the classroom.
Right off the bat, I see science blogs offering me and my students a solution to one of my concerns about teaching in a face to face classroom, all students would have an equal opportunity to respond to the blog post, even the students who are reluctant to raise their hand in class. At times those quiet, shy students are overlooked in class but could find their voice on a science blog in cyberspace.
I am looking forward to researching current, free Web 2.0 tools that I can easily implement in my science classroom in middle school. Middle school students enjoy all forms of technology and do not hesitate to try out new web tools. My students are not keen on reading the directions, will occasionally watch a tutorial on YouTube, but most of the time they just leap into the program and experiment. Once they are immersed in the web they learn how to work the program much faster than their digital immigrant teacher. It boosts their self-confidence each time they remind me that they know more than I do. Little do they know that is a part of the lesson plan.
Brownstein, E., & Klein, R. (2006). Blogs: applications in science education. Journal of College Science Teaching, 35(6), 18-22. Retrieved from ERIC database.
Ferdig, R., & Trammell, K. (2004). Content delivery in the "blogosphere". T.H.E. Journal, 31(7), 12. Retrieved from ERIC database.
Kendrick, K. (2004). The neurobiology of social bonds. Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 16(12), 1007-1008. doi:10.1111.1365-2826.2004.01262.x.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
BP1_2010031_iGoogleScreenShots
Welcome to the first blog post for my Full Sail Online Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture class. We will be experimenting with Web 2.0 tools and figuring out how they can best be used in education.
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