Melissa Wood

Well here it is– the last blog post of the course… but I can promise this won’t be my absolute last post. After taking this course I am only that much more excited about making the decision to become a teacher. By far, the most valuable piece of advice that I have gotten from this course is that technology does not make a great teacher or a valuable learning experience.  It’s the great teacher, and how he or she uses the available technology, that makes the learning valuable.  I have a much greater appreciation for the effort it requires to properly use technology to create an effective lesson. 

Let’s take a look back at how we started:  with blogging. At first I was nervous about posting my thoughts and ideas for everyone to see… but now I understand the theory behind using blogging in the curriculum. I take more pride in my work since I know anyone could be reading it, and that’s how students will feel as well. I love that using blogging as a collaboration tool allows for students to build off of one another’s ideas by commenting on posts. I look forward to using blogging in my science classroom. I think I will use a blog site as my class homepage, and will also have students blog… but I haven’t quite figured out how– and that’s probably because I’m not a teacher yet…haha. Sometimes I get ahead of myself, and actually think I can pre-meditate how I will run my classroom over a year from now.  I’m sure it will come much easier if I just wait until the time comes.

Creating wikis was another activity I found very valuable.  I think I will be able to use wikis in class by having students create an interactive glossery for class (or just having one available for the class to use). By posting terms or processes that may be difficult for my students to comprehend, I can offer a written desription, video and images for clarification.

Off the top of my head, here are the websites or web tools we were informed of in our class that I am already using and will continue to use in the future:  Delicious,  The Googles (Google Reader, Google Docs, iGoogle, Google Scholar, Google Blog Search), FlickrStorm, RubiStar, TeacherTube, Slide Rocket, LinkedIn, Wikispaces, Edublogs, Inspired Learning Community (Inspiration Search), and Audacity.

I am so excited that I finally know how to properly create a PowerPoint. Action buttons were foreign to me, and now with a little bit of practice I feel confident that I could use them in my own PowerPoints, and more importantly I will be able to teach my students how to use them. I am hoping that I can someday graduate form PowerPoint 2000 to something a little more modern so I can play with the different fonts and customizations (I know, I know… fonts and glimmer aren’t what make the presentations effective… but I am a sucker for them nonetheless– haha). I remember finding a Jeopardy! PowerPoint template online last semester and feeling like I had hit the jackpot (because there was no way I could possibly learn how to do it all on my own!) and this semester I’ve surprised myself!

All in all… I am really beginning to understand, accept, and embrace Web 2.0.  I have a much greater appreciation for the power of collaboration for learning and am excited to continue educating myself on what technology has to offer me and my future students. 

In one of my recent blogs I expressed my uncertainty for how Podcasting could be used in the science classroom, and after creating my own Podcast episode, I am more aware of how powerful the tool could be. 

I love how easy it is to drag saved photos into the episode. I think this would be really helpful to explain the purposes of labs done within a Biology class, and appropriate photos could aide in visual reinforcement for students. I remember how confusing labs could be when you rely on just reading the instructions and you don’t have clear vision of what is expected during the lab. I think it would be a great idea to have students to view a Podcast that could help them understand the lab they will be completing BEFORE they begin it (A “Pre-lab” assigment, so to say). Students could follow along and fill out a Pre-lab worksheet during the Podcast while at home or at school, which could replace the ever-so-popular Pre-lab quizzes our teachers gave us to make sure we actually read about the lab. This would mean students could take advantage of the valuable classtime for the actual lab work instead of reading about the lab. 

As we have discussed throughout our course, technology can be a much more important learning tool when students are asked to use it themselves. I believe students could highly benefit from creating their own Podcasts episodes on specific animals during a unit on vertebrates (by filming wildlife or pets, or including visuals from the internet), for example.

Science is such a visual, kinesthetic and auditory content area, that I am sure there are endless ways in which I could reach out to my students, and engage them using Podcasts.

I have to admit something:  I had NO idea what Podcasting was before watching Dr. Ransom’s presentation.  As of right now I am that much more thankful that the advances in technology have allowed teachers to post lectures and presentations online for students to review… I would have been completely behind after missing Wednesday’s class!

While I was watching the presentation on Podcasting, I was trying to think of some ways I could use the technology in my future classroom.  I had some trouble coming up with ideas off the top of my head, so did what I always do when I can’t think of something right away- I check the web. I found a website, called The Wild Classroom which allows students to subscribe to different Podcast episodes such as, “The Deadly Snake” and “Hawaiian Biodiversity.” The videos are fun, and fact-filled, and I believe students would be interested in watching them. One of the great things about science is that information is constantly changing, and what better way to keep students in tune to up-to-date information that by subscribing to Biology-related Podcast episodes that young, intelligent people are creating?!

Another website suggested that students could use Podcasting during an Ecology unit to record the sites and sounds of a certain ecosystem. The argument for using this type of technology, as opposed to pen and paper documentation was that students could benefit from hearing and seeing their own, and other students’, real-time, candid observations (found at http://fcit.usf.edu/podcasts/science_logs.html). 

In addition, Podcasting could be used while on field trips, or at museums. One of the ideas I had would have been for students to use Podcasting at the “The Human Body” exhibit at the Rochester Museum of Science, in which real, preserved, human bodies were displayed and described. 

After completing the research portion of this assignment, my eyes have been opened to the limitless opportunities for educators to introduce technology-based instruction into the science classroom. My major concern however, is the monetary expense probably required to use some of the technology, such as virtual labs and two-way interactive conferencing.

After reading about the various types of technological tools that could be used in the science classroom, I could envision myself using them based on the research I’ve found about the increased quality the students’ academic experiences. In my opinion, science is a content area in which students would academically blossom with the opportunity to experience these different technological advances.

The problem is this: While I strongly believe technology could enhance student learning and increase achievement in the science discipline, I am sure that educators in the fields of English language and literature, U.S. history and government, global studies, mathematics, and music could also make the arguments that their students would benefit from the opportunities just as much. With that being said, it is highly unlikely that most schools have the funds available for each content area to take part in these types of experiences.

I absolutely loved reading about the Whyville study (in which students created avatars which would become citizens of the virtual community that were able to contract infectious diseases through contacts with other avatars). I thought the idea of “immersiveness” in a participatory simulation, such as Whyville, was a strong argument made by Neulight, Kafai, Kao, Foley and Galas (2006). They described immersiveness as the user’s feeling of presence in the simulation. I am a more kinesthetic learner, and therefore had more success in retaining knowledge and understanding concepts that I was able to experience, rather than simply read about. I believe this experience probably resonated in many of the students memories, and will be carried with them throughout their lives. They were able to experience getting ill without physically having to endure the ailments related to the illness.

One method of incorporating technology into the science classroom that I would have liked to study more in depth is the use of the Smartboard (or any other type of interactive whiteboard). Unfortunately, I was unable to access scholarly or professional journals featuring the impact of using Smartboard technology in the science classroom.  I would be interested to know if there has been research done to support an increase in student achievement when Smartboard technology is properly utilized in the classroom. My educated guess would be that it would.

While I found Sidawi’s article very interesting (regarding designing technology in order to better understand the science behind it), I feel like in today’s education systems it may be very difficult to incorporate his ideas into the curriculum because of time contraints. Designing technology and physically creating the end product (which was argued as a crucial part of the process) sounds like it would take quite a bit of time out of schedule!

After doing my first observation of the semester at Wilson Magnet in the Rochester City School District, I have already heard some teachers reflect on their responsibilities to “teach to the test.” It is unfortunate that there are so many ways we could improve the academic experiences of children because of the ever-improving technological advances, and it seems as if we will be limited due to the standards in the “real-world” of teaching (at least at some schools).

One of the most powerful, technology-related educational experiences I have witnessed took place earlier this year during my observation with East Rochester Junior-Senior High School. I observed several Living Environment classes and was able to join along during their annual visit to the BUBL at the Rochester Science Museum. Students spent half of the day taking part in hands on activities relating to research being done in Lake Ontario.  We all put on fake life vests and entered a capsule with surround-sound audio, rocking capability, and video and ”dove to the bottom of Lake Ontario” (I think some of the students actually believed we would be entering Lake Ontario). Were were exited out the other side of the capsule into a hallway decorated like a secret, underwater observatory, and we entered the BUBL laboratory. 

Once we reached the laboratory, the kids created Podcasts, viewed microscopic organisms on digital microscope from actual lake water samples and digitally recorded their findings. They participated in virtual submarine rides to find artifacts at the bottom of the lake, tested samples of lake water for contaminants, and created topographical maps using data gathered from Lake Ontario. I was amazed by the enthusiasm the students had when partaking in these activities. By the end of the day, we had all learned more about Lake Ontario, and the science relating to the lake, than we realized we could. 

Doing the research definitely supported my beliefs that technology could allow students to increase knowledge and understanding of the sciences.

While racking up my bookmark count in Delicious, I came across my all-time favorite (at least, so far) classroom blog site.  I’m warning you that my concentration is biology, and therefore I find anything involving the biological sciences fascinating, which could play a part in my favoritism towards this site. 

Check it out:  Mr. Barlow’s Blog: A Bunch of Interesting Stuff

Mr. Barlow also posted a quote which I believe sums up a lot of what we are learning in our Introduction to Educational Technology course:

“HE WHO LEARNS FROM ONE WHO IS LEARNING,

DRINKS FROM A FLOWING RIVER.”

-Native American Proverb