Skype

I "skyped" today for the first time and it was much easier than I thought it would be. There was virtually no set-up, and it walked me through how to do it. I skyped with one of my friends just to get the hang of it, and then went to web 2.0 and skyped an educator there. I think it could be very helpful for students, but it's hard since you both have to be on at the same time. Eventually, it could be neat to have "office hours" where the students know you will be on at a certain time each week to ask questions or review. This would be helpful the night before a test or before a big project is due. I could also use it for a student who is absent for a lengthy period of time (illness, etc.), and have then tune in each day during their class. I think I will find it most useful for personal use, so my out of town family can see Dylan grow up:).

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

I feel like I am constantly trying to push my students to use higher levels of thinking in my classroom. It is easy to incorporate this into lab activities because I ask them "what they think will happen if...". With labs, I am always asking them to apply knowledge, add on to knowledge, and evaluate what happened in the lab. I do have trouble finding other ways to incorporate some of the higher levels into my day to day teaching. I really liked the reading "Bloom's Digital Taxonomy" because it gave me ideas to use higher level thinking in technology projects. It's sometimes difficult to grade students on technology assignments, but this reading gave many rubrics to use. I see now that it's not just important for the students to know how to use the technologies, but also to use analyze, synthesize, and evaulate their work when doing this. I don't really agree with being able to start students at any level - I feel like they need to start at the bottom and understand the concepts before they can move up the pyramid.

I really feel that my photoperiod project already uses higher level thinking skills, but I would like to use those skills for the technology part. The students will be using search engines, google docs, and will have to evaluate information that they find. Some of these rubrics will be helpful for the students to see what they should really be doing when researching, and maybe they won't just use the first piece of information that they find.

K-12 Conference

I viewed the session titled "Probing the Prospects of Paperless Pedagogy" by Jason Neiffer. I had trouble finding a session that would be helpful for my teaching. In this session, the speaker discussed how he made his high school history classes completely paperless. It was very interesting to see how even though it was a lot of work to begin with, everything is so much easier for him year after year. He brought up some good points about paperless classrooms like saving paper, time, and being able to stay up to date on information. He mentioned that usually by the time textbooks are printed, the information in them is already outdated. This way he can easily update or change his readings and activities. He did mention that it is challenging for students without computer access at home, but I think students have that challenge in a paperless classroom or not. While I don't think I'm ready to go completely paperless, I did get some good ideas for how to reduce my usage and do more things on the computer. Of course, having daily computer usage would help greatly.

I like watching the online conference. Going to the actual conference costs a lot of money, is time consuming, and is often times overwhelming. This made it easy to view a list of sessions and pick the one I wanted to view and I could view it at my convenience. It is also such a pain to miss work and leave sub plans, so this made it easy.

Screen Cast

http://webcast.mariemontschools.org/

The screen cast was much easier to record and upload than I thought it would be. I recorded an example photoperiod problem, which is a large project that the 7th graders do every year. We begin practicing photoperiod months before the project begins, but there are always a few student who still cannot calculate photoperiods during the project. I end up spending many lunch bells working with students on this, so this screen cast should help to reduce lunch time for both me and the students. It was so easy to use - I can't believe I have been afraid of trying this for so long. I hope for next year to screen cast much of what I do so that I can stop repeating myself so many times a day:).

Scriblink & Etherpad

I spent some time investigating both scriblink and etherpad this past week, and I like finding even more real-time websites to use in the classroom. It is a little overwhelming because I don't know when I'm going to have the time to incoporate these things into my classroom. But I like the idea of cutting out paperwork (for both the students and myself), and allowing the students to easily collaborate outside of the classroom. I also think the students enjoy doing things on the computer more than they do on paper. I think that both of these tools would be great to use in the classroom. Scriblink would allow the students to draw and share their ideas in real-time. This could be useful for my communications project so that all students could add to the drawing. In science, I could also use it for my energy project, if the students wanted to add their own pictures into the presentation. It seems easier to use than drawing in word, and there are more tools available. I also like that you can upload your own pictures. Etherpad seems similar to Google Docs, but I really like that each student is automatically given a different color. It saves a step from Google Docs. I also like that everything is auto saved, so even if a student erases something, I can go back and see it later. I also really like using etherpad to have students sign-up for projects. This would be great for the students (and teacher) who often forget which group they are in.

Screen Cast

My goal this week is to get my screen cast finished. I am going to screen cast different examples of how to calculate photoperiods for different cities. Every year, no matter how many times I show the students how to do the calculations, and no matter how many times I remind them to come get help, a handful of students still miss the calculations. This then affects the outcome of their project (and their grade). So, if the examples are online, the students can refer to them if they need help. I think they would rather watch the screen cast online then come meet with me at lunch for help anyways:)

Photoperiod Project

I'm trying to cut out all of the paperwork from the photoperiod project and condense it into a google doc. I created a research sheet: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfwtzkm9_1cnqkzwfd for each group to use. In the past, each student had to fill out a research sheet each week while working with their group. Now, it will be much easier for groups to communicate if they are working at home. Also, it was always difficult for me to tell who had done most of the work, so now I can grade them individually on what research they have found. Instead of giving each student a research sheet each week for 5 weeks (52 students), I can have absolutely no paper work to grade. I can just make comments on their google doc. Also, it used to be that I wouldn't see what they had done until the project was over with, but now I will easily be able to track what they are finding. I think it will make the project much easier for me, and more interesting for the students.

I have been looking at google docs and I think it would work really well for my photoperiod project. The students have to do a lot of research as a group, and it is sometimes hard for me to tell how much work each student is doing. By using google docs, each student could write in a different color so I could see the amount of work they are doing. Also, it would save a lot of paper. The students could also easily communicate on the weekends, breaks, etc.

Photoperiod Project

I would like to use a blog in my seventh grade science class for our photoperiod project. It would be a great place to do a "practice city" for the students. They could help each other out on the blog and explain stuff to each other, and I could post helpful hints and answer questions. It could possibly save me a lot of time later, once we get the actual cities.

First Blog

This is my first time blogging, and it is much easier than I thought it would be! I think that learning these web 2.0 tools will be very helpful for my classes.