SHS Science

1. Read all the articles

Reflection on some articles and websites I took a look at dealing with technology and education.  Search the name of the article to check it out for yourself.

U.S. schools lag behind in use of technology – I wholeheartedly believe that schools are lagging behind on technology application in the classroom. However, I do think budget can be large factor. I teach at a school that has a very large number of veteran teachers. Why would we spend all of our budget on computers that are only going to sit and collect dust? I think you must wait to get technology until you have a demand for it. Many of the veteran teachers are very effective, even without using a lot of technology. The lack of technology schoolwide is somewhat frustrating to me as I would love to see enough laptops on the laptop cart to at least be able to allow for 1 shared between every 2 students. We are seeing a large turnover of teachers, and next year I hope that we end up with some more technology friendly teachers.

National Education Technology Plan –I think the major thing that the report explains is that technology is being built into everything in the business world. If it is not in the classroom, how well are we really preparing our students to enter the working world? Seems like a good plan. Way to go US government.

NETS – I really don’t like the idea that certain “types” of technology be forced upon us. I am not against technology, but I am against the imposement on the creative expression of the teacher and his/her right to use whatever technology he/she may wish to use. I think that the NETS project has a very good idea in theory. However, if they do succeed in getting technology put into standards throughout the country I fear that certain technologies will be promoted while other more creative uses of technology may fall to the wayside. I think it would be good to require a specific amount of technology use within the classroom. However, I think it best to leave what type of technology up to the teachers who have to teach with this technology.

Don’t Just Adapt Technology, Adopt It!! – I think as a budding new teacher it can be pretty easy to do new thing in new ways. A veteran teacher, however, would be hard pressed to go beyond doing old things in a new way. All the years of refining their art and they have start all over with an entirely new system…I really don’t think so. I don’t think there is a large problem with doing old things in a new way. When something works, and works well because it has been tried and tested throughout the years; it would be a travesty to let it go. Leave the new things in a new way for those lessons where the veteran teacher can’t seem to get anybody engaged.

2. Apple Learning Interchange Reflection:

Check out the Apple Learning Interchange website: http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/

This is my reflection on what I thought of it:

I took a look at a particular submission by a teacher from Ada, Ok called Mitosis in Cyberspace. This last year I spent a lot of time lecturing, as this was all I was ever introduced to in my high school science classes. I lectured over this mitosis stuff, did a really good job at boring my students. This teacher teaches her mitosis/meiosis chapter by essentially turning the learning over to the students. She has them put together a Powerpoint presentation and has them demonstrate certain parts of mitosis. She put together a very nice lesson that I really am convinced may be worth a try. As long as I was able to pull out the laptops everyday, I could probably follow the same lesson plan she put together. Honestly, I have never seen such a detailed lesson plan anywhere before and really don’t know when this teacher found the time to put together what she has on the Learning Interchange website.

I shared this site with Mr. McKinney, a Woodworking and Welding teacher with Norton school district. He said the site looked like it had potential, but he was disappointed with its lack of material for his subject area. He mentioned how he did try to integrate technology where possible in his classroom, especially using internet searches of building designs. This site, however, had no resources for further tech integration in his subject area so he was disappointed by it.

3. ALTEC Reflection:

Take a look at the time saving resources on the right side of this page: http://www.altec.org/

My reflection on these resources:

I bookmarked the www.4teacher.org site under the heading “timesavers”, because many of these tools are just that. The Trackstar site is something I became familiar with as a PARA. The computer teacher in the grade school I worked at used quite a lot. I have bookmarked it as a site where I can go and look for premade online lesson plans. I imagine I will use this tool at least a couple times next year, and may switch some of my paper online quest assignments over to Trackstar for my students. Rubistar for making rubrics ….YES. Classroom architect looks pretty, but I really don’t like it, and will probably stick with the powerpoint system I use where I can easily insert students’ names and move them about. I checked out the Casa notes. Each time I had to send home notes, permission slips, etc I always spent more time than necessary putting together my thoughts. This ought to be a great help and the notes already look professional(although some of the drawings seem a little primary). Hopefully, I remember this tool next year when I have to start sending home letters again.

Mr. McKinney, the teacher I shared this with, liked this site much better than the last. He figured the Trackstar site would be a good tool to use so he could give his students links to building design websites. He was able to find several examples of shop safety assignments already listed on Trackstar that reinforced safety procedures he teaches in class. He also thought Quizstar could be helpful in preparing his students for the safety tests he has to use every year before they can use certain tools in the shop.

4. Edutopia:

The following are reflections on Edutopia videos that can be found at the Edutopia website: www.edutopia.org

Harrison Central High School –
I really believe learning should be done more in the way you see here at Harrison High. Not only just the technology aspect, but the hands-on nature of the courses you see there is amazing. I was really drawn to the outdoor Biology classroom. I think the hands-on activities give so much more opportunity for retention. If technology makes more hands-on type activities possible, that’s all the better. Probably the best example that I saw was the Physics classroom. Each of the students was doing a project based on some particular talent of theirs. I can’t think of a better way to meet the needs of the diverse learning styles in that classroom.

Mary Scroggs Elementary School –
I like the way these technology-based schools are setup using more project-based learning. I will definitely be trying to implement more project-based learning this coming year. FREE computers through the tech-at-home project for parents of students with free and reduced lunches! This would be a great program to implement here in Stockton. It is amazing how many of the kids have no access to Internet at home.

A Product of Learning –
The more of these videos I see the more I wonder about the change over from lecture-based teaching to project-based teaching; and the positive/negative aspects of this change. I really liked the cross-curricular work that went on between the different classes, all of it aided by technology. There must be a lot more collaboration in this school than I am used to seeing in our school. I think that with this collaboration, project-based learning has a real fighting chance of keeping up with the amount of content that can be covered in a lecture-based classroom.

Leading with Laptops –
Maine Learns, Maine’s Laptop initiative is an excellent program. They talked about how when they use technology, they had to get an “Oh, cool” from the students right away or that technology equipment was going to have to be scraped. A bold move that I think can often be necessary. Just because you spent a bundle of money getting the technology doesn’t mean you have to push it on your students if it isn’t effective. One thing this project did was it provided in-depth training for the teachers before the hardware was dropped on them. I think this is very important if you don’t want a bunch of laptops collecting dust. One of the things that hinder my use of technology in the classroom is the lack of computers. We have 1 cart of 13 laptops for our entire high school. These are first come, first serve – and aren’t available every hour of the day.

Toad Tracking –
I wish we could have done something like this when I was in grade school. Watching this makes me wonder why I didn’t do more fieldwork with my Biology guys last year. The GPS units sure would open up a lot of avenues for field Biology research projects. I honestly do not think that it is realistic that we would ever be able to get enough GPS units in our school, or use them enough to justify getting them. I might have to talk with the Instructional Technology teacher and see if we could go in together on a few of these units.

Wetland Watchers –
Although not about strictly technology integration one thing in this video really struck me. Service learning. How better to get students excited about Biology, than to put together some type of service project where they contribute to helping an environment or ecosystem. I have some connections with the local State Park guys, and I think I am going to give them a call to see if there is any service learning opportunities projects that we can help out with as a class.

New Tech Teaching School –
This digital microscope looks like a pretty cool device. My school just spent a bundle on brand new microscopes, so I imagine I will stick with these. However, if we did get laptops for everyone in the future I will have to look and see if there are any devices that can be integrated into the microscopes that we currently have. Some of the applications, like time-lapse photography, would be a great tool for teaching about the growth of microorganisms. The technology looks promising and I will have to do my best to keep up with future developments in microscope technology.

5. Think about this Course
Probably the most overall eye-opening thing about this course has been the wealth of technology out there that can be integrated into the classroom. Below I comment on a few pieces of technology that I will be sure to use in the classroom.

Mitosis in Cyberspace – from Apple Learning Interchange
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=483
This is a very organized technology rich lesson plan for introducing mitosis/meiosis in the classroom. I hope to be able to check out our laptops for a couple weeks when we get too this chapter in Biology so I can try teaching this chapter project-based rather than the boring lecture-based approach I took last year.

Podcasting using ProfCast –
Through out this last year I spent countless hours building PowerPoint lecture assignments. This year as I go through these in lecture format, I hope to be able to record each of my presentations using ProfCast. Then, when I get a student asking for the notes I can just tell him/her to check out my webpage where I will put my movies. I have also considered requisitioning (or just purchasing my own) video iPod so I can hand it to the said student and tell them to get after it. You can download a free trial at the following address: http://www.profcast.com

Del.icio.us
I will probably be using my del.icio.us social bookmarking site the most this coming year. My parents didn’t impart to me the any organizational genes of any kind. I do my best to hide things from myself in various odd places through out the classroom. I have been surprised at how easy it is to tag a website with several different tags and thus be able to find it from several different keywords. I consider it the equivalent of having a filing system with 3 folders, each with a different heading, for each document. No more hiding files (under obscure headings) from myself! I think this is going to help me immensely, especially as I look for lesson plan ideas. All those who are organizationally challenged check out this great social bookmarking tool: http://del.icio.us/
My Site: http://del.icio.us/LucasMoll