Collaborative Technologies

One of the many reasons that I love science is the exploration and discovery involved.  More than just a search for answers, science searches for reasons.  In real life scientists take a problem, learn about it, think about it, make hypothesis, test their hypothesis, reconfigure, test again, consult colleagues.  I always have my students preform a scientific investigation where they develop the hypothesis and decide how to test their hypothesis, what data to collect and how to collect it.  I usually have them work in small groups.  After reading in RSS for Educators about the use of wikis to increase productivity and how many organizations use it as an intranet I got the idea to use a wiki as a collaboration site for the investigative teams and a place where they could publish their findings for peer review.  Most often the groups have similar questions to start their investigations, though each group may be looking a the efects of different variables.  The use of a wiki would allow students to see what their classmates are doing, to share resources, and ask questions of each other.  The wiki allows the teacher to be aware of each groups progress every step of the way.  This would increase the chances of catching students who have gotten off topic or derailed in some other way and getting them back on track.  I really like the idea of having students "publish" their findings for peer review.  This would give them an introduction to publishing in professional journals.

This could be done for free with the free wikis out their since my students have access to laptops and wireless internet at school.  However, I think it would be good to look into some of the k12 subscription packages offered.  Wikispaces, for instance, has packages that cost $2000/year for a school or $4000/year for a district.  Both of these packages offer unlimited users, unlimited wikis, private wikis, SSL security, and single sign-on.  Being able to make a wiki private and secure would help with some of the issues about student privacy on the internet.  Single sign-on integrates wikispaces with an existing system so students could log-in through another already existing system. 

Movies in the classroom

I first used iMovie on the mac laptops in a free fall lab.  A common subject in Physics, it is hard to analyze because things fall so quickly to the ground.  The students and I took some objects that could be dropped safely to the stairwell and a background drop marked every 10 cm.  Students spread apart up and down the stair well.  We had droppers, filmmakers, catchers.  We took the two video cameras back to class, loaded them onto a laptop, and burned 2 c.d.'s.  The students passed the c.d.'s around the class and loaded the movies onto their laptops.  The students could then analyze these clips to determine the approximate distance that the objects fell for a given period of time.  Using the background to determine distance and the the frame number to determine time, students could determine the average speed at that point and graph distance vs. time.  We had a lot of fun that day and the students really got into it.  They felt like they could "see it".  It also sparked a good discussion on how the angle of the camera could have affected our ability to read the results.    As Lever-Duffy and McDonald mention in Teaching and Learning with Technology--"Visuals are, for most learners, a necessity."
I have found the use of multimedia in the classroom since then to have a positive impact in many ways.  I have had my Physics students (usually junior and seniors) create their own movies for class before.  The Mac laptops with iMovie, a built in camera and microphone on them make this very easy.  It is often mentioned by students as one of their favorite parts of class and a project that really helps them remember the content.  For my lesson I decided to take that idea and work it into a 9th grade biology class.  During the ecosystem unit we concentrate on the flow of energy through ecosystems.  There is knowledge that is supposed to be memorized, but the main idea is the process.  By having my students create a video on energy flow through an ecosystem they can internalize it and put themselves into it. 

Audio Multimedia in the Classroom

Classrooms have traditionally had a strong audio component.  The lecture based class is auditory in nature.  One of the drawbacks of a lecture based class is that it does not intrinsically support differentiated learning.  One of the things that most interest me about audio multimedia use in the classroom is the idea of podcasts made by the teacher for the students.  In A review of Podcasting in Higher Education: Its influence on higher education, McGarr lists three major reasons for using podcast lectures--flexibility, accessibility, and enhancement.  Students can download lectures to their mp3 players and listen when they have time and as often as necessary.  I think that creating podcast as reviews for units would be quite helpful for students.  This idea would be hard to create a lesson plan around as I see it more as supplementary material than part of class.
Another example of using audio technology int he class that piqued my interest was the idea of creating a newscast.  Lever-Duffy and McDonald cite the example of Wendi Telemota in Teaching and Learning with technology.  I have read about other similar examples before.  They are usually done in a history class.  I thought about I could use this idea in science class.  The history of science is often glassed over.  So I decided to have the students do a podcast about Galileo. Imagine how the events of the inquisition played out and report o n it.

Data projection in the classroom

Over the last week I have been reading a lot of data projection in the classroom.  Many of us use this tool on a regular basis in our classrooms.  We know that it often makes things easier and it helps with student focus, but how often do we think about why it does these things.  Everything I read talked about how communication is key in education and data projectors can be a great tool in helping to achieve this by adding a visual (and sometimes audio) element to our teaching.  Increasing the ways that information is accessible to students has a direct connection to the numbers of students that can be reached.  As pointed out in Teaching and Learning with Technology by Judy Lever-Duffy and Jean B. McDonald, a traditional computer monitor is too small to share with an entire class (p. 147).  Data projection allows an entire room of people to share something created on that computer or something on the web.
Utah
There are some really good websites out there that can help students visualize what they are learning.  Biology is often the favorite science of many students.  there is not as much math as in Physics or Chemistry  and you can picture what you are learning about easier.  One topic that students struggle with is DNA.  DNA is also one of the hardest things learned in a typical Biology 1 class to visualize.  With that in mind I set out to create a lesson that would help students imagine in their minds what is being discussed in the classroom.  The Learn Genetics site by the University of Utah has many interactives to help make genetics more comprehensible.  I have decided to utilize on of the interactives and a few of the short video clips for a lesson on DNA.
The interactive whiteboards sound exciting to me, but I decided to create a lesson I could use right now.  I have the computer and the projector so it will cost nothing to do this fall with my students.  I do think the lesson could be easily modified to utilize an interactive whiteboard and that the use of an interactive whiteboard would make the lesson even better.  The mimio Interactive Xi Bar and Stylus appeal to me because they are portable.  This would allow me to use them in multiple rooms and they would not take up alot of space. To get the mimio Interactive Xi Bar and Stylus would cost just over $600.

handheld technology lesson plan

Students enjoy using technology in class, especially technology that they like to use personally.  I really wanted to explore ways to use iPods or iPads in the classroom.  iPads start at $499, iPod touches at $199.  Both are fairly expensive.  Their compact size and available apps make these technologies very intriguing for the classroom.  Text books could be downloaded, the internet can be accessed, the paperless classroom becomes more of an option.  While I could think of many ways to utilize these applications in my classroom, but I was really interested in finding a way for the students to tap into their creative side in the science classroom.  I think being creative helps the students remember the information as more than just a fact.  It also gets the more right brained students involved in science. While I was looking around for ways to use the iPod or iPad in class I found a free app called Story Kit.  Story Kit lets users create a digital story.  I made a quick little Father's Day one for my dad and it was fun.  Learning about the cell organelles is a tedious topic in biology.  I thought "why not pair up the fun app and boring topic?"  After the students spend some time learning about the cell organelles they are going to create stories where the characters are organelles.  I think that the students will get a lot out of creating something fun.  The students can then take their stories to the elementary school across the street and share them with the students there.

Supporting Diverse Learners

There are so many technologies out there and new ones coming out all the time that we have a superabundance of resources, often at our fingertips, to help diverse learners.  The one-to-one (in theory at least) laptop program at my school provides me with access to a multitude of web-based resources in addition to the software on the macbook itself.  One of the greatest tools that technology has given me is flexibility.  I like to have my students tap into their creative side to help them think about the science we are learning.  I used to give an assignment and that was it.  Make a poster about..., some would create works of art and some wrote some words on a big piece of paper instead of a piece of notebook paper.  Now, when i do the same assignment the students can create a poster, an animation, record a song or skit, or anything else they gt approved by me.  One student, who is a bare minimum type of guy, will spend hours at home creating an animation of a physics topic using doink.com (a free animation creation site on the web). 

I would really like to get more Vernier probeware to use in labs for my classroom.  To get a class set of any puts you in the hundreds of dollars range, so I buy a little each year.  Vernier does a good job of keeping their older stuff usable while the improve and come out with newer versions.

Top 10 elements of a 21st Century Classroom? The Learning Environment and Resources

1. Innovative
2. Open
3. Aware
4. Rspectful
5. Flexible
6. Cooperative
7. Differentiated
8. Global
9. Integrated
10. Focused

I would like to create a classroom that is open and encourages learning, thinking, and sharing.  The 21st century learner is one who uses to technolgy to enhance their learning and communication.  Also, as differentiated instruction becomes more and more the norm I hope to see classrooms reflect the idea that not only do indivduals learn at different paces and in different ways but that these differences can be stengths that balance each other out. 
A strong 21st century classroom will reflect these differences and utilize them to build stronger collaborative teams that are greater than the sum of the parts.  Technology will play a large part in the classroom and will be used more and more as it becomes an even more integrated part of our society.  It is important as this integration grows that we still remember how to communicate with each other as people.  However, by using technology we can expand our classroom to the entire world.  This will help prepare our students for the global society they live in.
Currently I have a few desktops in my classroom and the students have the option of "renting" a laptop for the school year to use throught my district's one-to-one laptop program.  These computers allow us to utilize many web-based programs for online collaboration and virtual labs.  We also have vernier labware that can be used in live labs to obtain more accurate and precise results.  Many students carry their own cell phones and .mp3 players.  I would like to see educators start to use these as educational tools instead of just thinking of them as educatinal nuisances.