Ramblings from a Scientific Techie

1:1 Netbook

2010-11-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

Finally got report cards done, so had some time to read background material for 1:1 Netbooks today. Will share with staff:

1. Chatterous (http://www.chatterous.com/)
As a group chat / backchatter tool, I'm trying this tomorrow with my InfoPro students, as a "Tech Help" idea.

2. Advantages/Disadvantages of Netbooks (http://tech4teaching.org/wpblog/?p=551)
A good summary to share with the staff. Especially found the link to "Doug Belshaw's Google Preso" near the bottom to be good to share!

3. (maybe) Middle Years Math Review at TutPup (http://www.tutpup.com/)
Students can improve their math skills, and compete with others around the world.

4. Need to follow Dean Groom (http://deangroom.wordpress.com/)
Good ideas, especially "Wiki Tag" as a way to start the year off by 'building community'.

5. Subscribe to 'Best Content in Teaching with Netbooks' (http://groups.diigo.com/group/teaching-with-netbooks)

Another Successful iSITS Day

2009-10-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's always good to meet up with everybody on this committee. I find that many others are in the 'same boat' as I am... looking to incorporate as much as possible, in meaningful ways.

I'll need to share with my staff some of the Database information I got today; the ability to download articles should help out some of my teachers.

IT Summit - Databases for Educators and Students

2009-03-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

What are the 21st Century Skills Students Need?
- at center, 'core subjects'; integrated within those are the '21st Century Themes' (what our curriculum calls cross-curricular competencies (thinkning, identiy, literacies, social responsibility)
- on the outside of the circle are life/career skills, learning/innovation skills, technology/media/information skills
- focus of this session is the technology/media/information skills

Our Challenge: Targeting Reliable Information!! (not just 'googling')

Framework:

Newspapers and magazine databases
Encyclopedias and e-books
Experts
Directories (subject directories)
Search engines

Multitype Database Licensing Program
- allows schools to have a number of newspapers/special libraries/journals

Various Databases to try:
KidsInfoBits (Gale Databases)
- good for differentiated learning (different reading levels)
- some magazines are even spoken aloud for the students, or download in PDF

Discovery Collection
- only contains reference books
- multimedia link in the collection contains audio files, podcasts, radio broadcasts, etc

CPI.Q
- Canadian content the focus
- click the "limit results to documents with full text" so that brief abstracts don't show up
- the 'Related Subjects' on the left side may help students

Gale Virtual Reference Library
- the suite of e-books, organized by subject area
- good site! (make sure to use the boolean operators AND, OR)

ProQuest
- contains all the Canadian newspapers and daily/weekly newspapers. Current, local information. Is available with a 2-day turnaround.
- more for grades 7+
- good for teachers: CBCA Education database
- again, make sure to look at 'full text documents only'

Britannica Online
- organizes the articles by elementary / middle / high school levels (and teacher resources, too)
- current health informaiton at "Health and Wellness Resource Center"

These databases are available from home... they are available through the public library (as long as you have a library card)

David Warlick... 'Video Games as Learning Engines'

2009-03-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

Games with educational potential... good idea. I've used a chemistry "game" in my Chemistry 20 class called "Mixed Reception" (http://www.chemcollective.org/mr/) with good success. It does work.

I have to disagree, however, with a point Mr. Warlick made about (to the effect) that the environment is not as important as the 'problem solving' aspect ("playing tag, more than the military aspect"). I think environment is far more influential in students' minds... I'd hate to desensitize students to the long-term effects of some actions by highlighting short-term (entertainment) benefits.

I'll need to check out these links: http://seriousgames.org/ and http://gamesforchange.org/ for more info...

Use http://scratch.mit.edu/ (demonstrated) and http://www.alice.org/

How to use the qualities of games that students enjoy in the classroom:

Native Information Experience:

Is responsive
Provokes communication
Is fueled by questions
Values personal experience and identity
Demands personal investment
Values safely made mistakes
Measures accomplishment
Rewards with audience and attention

"Plugging It In".... Identify role of teacher and role of students. (Good strategy: "I'm having trouble... can YOU (students) make a movie trailer to excite next year's students?"). Students solve problems in this way...

http://www.notsonoisy.com/

David Warlick... 'Personal Learning Networks'

2009-03-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

As I was listening to David's polished presentation about Personal Learning Networks, I was struck by two main ideas: 1. there are a lot of tools out there, and 2. does this recreate the definition of the word 'content'?

1. There ARE a lot of tools. Thank you for showing some of the increased ways to incorporate this into my classroom.

2. My fear? Teachers begin to think that as PLN's in the classroom increase, content gets shuffled to the side; creating more connected-to-one-another students, but less-connected-to-the-issues students. The phrase 'bring today into the classroom' was a great concept I appreciated, to help teachers who have these concerns appreciate the value of incorporating (even in small ways) on-demand information into their classrooms.

I'm glad I attended.

IT Summit, Day 1 Reflections

2009-03-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

Wow... what a day. I was tired at the end of it, b/c of so many new ideas.

As I reflect on yesterday's sessions, I wondered what place 'content' plays in the technology of it all. I appreciated Darren Kuropatwa's thoughts about having students write the notes/text. That's a good idea.

As a chemistry teacher, I always struggle with the time it takes to use technology with the time required to teach the substance. I'm pretty sure that I've got the balance close to OK... students need the 'substance' before they can successfully network in scientific ways; otherwise, they're just chatting and 'off-topic'.

I'm looking forward to David Warlick's presentation; I've heard a lot about him...

IT Summit - Ten Disruptions to Transform Your Classroom

2009-03-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

TEN DISRUPTIONS TO TRANSFORM YOUR CLASSROOM

1. Smart Phones
- one school in province… class of grade 8’s (?) given SmartPhones (by SaskTel) to see how/if to use it in classroom

www.polleverywhere.com
free service (text plans apply) 172million texts in January in SK

2. Low Cost Computing
- ~$200-250 for a netbook. Replace textbook budget?

3. Cloud Computing
- no need to store it locally (GoogleApps)

4. Live Streaming
(ustream) or skype

5. BackChanneling and MicroBlogging
- sharing the ‘notes’; learning from it
- benefit: more attentive… public forum/chat

6. Immersive Environments
- teen second life

Pedagogical Thoughts:

7. Privacy
- how do we deal with the fact that a good chunk of our lives will be online?
- rate my teachers . com

8. Time Shifting
- what is ‘face-to-face’ good for?
- Notes/podcasts for lecture. Classrooms are for working.

9. OpenCourseware
- ‘Academic Earth’
- Entire courses online
- CCK08 EC&I831 (these are courses)

10. Outsourced Instruction
- differentiated instruction

VoiceThread training today!

2009-03-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

For our first T3 meeting (Technology Tidbit Tuesday), we're looking at using VoiceThread in the classroom, and talking about the benefits of Professional Blogging.

So far, the VoiceThread works well, but I just can't figure out how to get our Vostro 1510 laptops to save the video (audio works well).

We'll see how things are going as the after-school agenda develops...

My Personal Learning Network...

2009-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

... currently focuses more on the needs/skills of my students than on my own personal needs. I hope to develop the latter and watch the former grow.

In keeping up with how to successfully implement coursework via technology, I thank all those in the ISITS group for the assistance and demonstrations of various technologies, so I can add my own flavour.

My question (you're welcome to comment): now that we use what the Ministry of Education calls "Curricula" (and not Curriculum Guides), how do the guidelines match with expanded PLN's for students? Does something suffer? Or does quality outperform quantity? Or is a balance between these two needed? Is it "bad" if a PLN is school/classroom/content based?

2008-12-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

Phwew. It's been a while since I've blogged, but we had a really good day today. 'Technology as a tool' was reinforced in my mind as we discussed matters in small groups. We need to move teachers towards using technology more, but give them the credit professionally to find their balance (hopefully in using technology more)

And a good afternoon with the Digital Citizenship. Like a teammate said, digital citizenship could more forcefully be represented as 'citizenship' alone; the principles that underly good citizenship in any setting underly good 'digital citizenship'

Ciao.

United Streaming

2008-02-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

The website works very well. The benefit of using the streaming is the ability to preview the sections before hand with students, then show them specific sections. I'm using this extensively with the Grade 10s to help them develop chronological thinking as they do classwork.

I did a little 'critical evaluation of websites' lesson with the students (a motivational set, really), and they were amazed by the waybackmachine site and the analysis of the martinlutherking.org site.

Today's Blog

2008-01-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

Final exams are winding down, so amongst the correcting, planning for Semester 2, and assisting all the staff with updating their marks/classes/info, I found a little time to write this quick note:

Updates since last time:

1. I'm starting Information Processing on Monday... Grade 10, 11, and 12 at the same time (as we mostly do, I suppose). I'm setting up a Moodle course to handle the assignments, etc. This should reduce/eliminate paperwork for handing in assignments, etc.

2. To do this, I've added my PowerPoint presentations to SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) for easy web access. The content/webpages/lessons in Moodle allow for embeddable slideshows. Quite handy. SlideShare rules! I'm going to get students to use this feature, too.

3. To prevent 'editing' others' work, students will be creating PDF files using an online PDF generator. (www.pdfonline.com)

4. Student portfolios will include:
- WIKI -- for notes and uploaded work (like online slideshows)
- BLOG -- for personal journal/reflection
...... I'm still debating whether to use Edublogs or ClassBlogMeister. Being able to view blogs before they go online (as with ClassBlogMeister) may appear "anti-Internet", but for my students, this may be necessary...

I can't wait for the whiteboards to come in!

Joy of Technology

2007-11-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

Today, I found out that another teacher on staff, as part of a PLC, has obtained her own notebook-webcam-microphone setup. As we talked about the potential for WizIQ, Skype, etc, etc, a student walking by noticed our "joy of technology". This was the same student who responded on her own to a discussion thread in my http://hacklscience10.wikispaces.com arrangement, and who said "I read all the posts that are there".

I think the 'joy of technology' is contagious...

Teaching from Afar

2007-10-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

So I found myself in a dilemma this Tuesday/Wednesday... how to plan/teach without actually being near the building.

With the death of my wife's dear Grandma (which is why I missed the first online meeting we'd scheduled as part of a technology learning committee), I found myself in Maidstone, SK trying to plan/teach a class in Spiritwood, SK (close to 2 hours away).

Online content worked out well. Emailing plans appeared to work. As I move towards implementing wikis and Moodle into the course delivery, this should make such unplanned events even easier.

1st Message, 2nd Time 'Round

2007-10-23T11:16:00.001-07:00

I admit it. I've lost the original blog listing. But that's OK. I've made another.

I guess 'bookmarking' sites really IS a good thing :)

The Focus? The Focus!

2007-10-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

So as I've been thinking about (but not writing on) blogs, I've wondered to myself: 'what should the focus of this blog be'? I've run across enough out-of-school-scope blogs to know that not all blogs are worth reading. Kind of like 'to the making of many books there is no end'. Random thoughts (like this one, I suppose) may give insight into the thoughts at the moment, but some pre-thought needs to be entered.

The result? The focus! Using technology to further enhance Chemistry/Physics/Science 10 processes.