Podcasting in the Science classroom by Paula Taylor

Paula Taylor – Surrey Science Teacher – Blogs in the Science Classroom
Paula is a teacher that believes ‘I have to keep changing as my students keep changing’
Kids are coming to highschool already publishing to the read/write web.

In starting a blog last summer, in one semester she had 19 000 hits instead of the 800 in a semester with a static web1.0 webpage. There may be 200 posts the day before a test with students helping each other.

I loved how several times Paula talked about how her students and colleagues were a community of learners. The learning doesn’t stop when an assignment is complete.

A way of integrating blogs in the classroom that I have not heard yet is to attach a word document template for students to work on. Then they respond with a blog and attach they work in the comments

Here is here blog with assignments for 4 different classes.
http://web.mac.com/pptaylor/iWeb/home/Blog/Blog.html

Paula also highlighted the changes of being a teacher. It was nice to see the changes that have and are being made listed clearly.

Thank you Paula for sharing exciting teaching with technology from a teacher that admits she knows very little about technology.

Catalyst Conference - Genes in a Bottle

Genes in a Bottle by Bio-Rad


The world of technology is often considered to be "computers."  It is refreshing to see how "analog" technology is still valued.  This session was over-flowing.  Something as "high-tech" as DNA extraction is possible in "low-tech" ways. 
 
It really comes down to using the right tool within the resources available.  While the session was low tech, teaching it and the activity process was greatly supported with a slideshow presentation and digital projector.

Cool Facts I gleaned:

Each cell has 2 meters of DNA inside it

Light will go over DNA if it was laid out because it is so thin.

TLITE - April 19, 2008

I was privileged to attend part of SFU Surrey's TLITE event on April 19, 2008.  Alan November was the Keynote speaker.  I have heard Alan a number of times and the themes continue to be similar.  The two biggest themes are students having authentic experiences and students owning their learning.

While hearing his presentation, I was able to interact with my own wiki and make updates.  It is heartening to know that we are making progress in Surrey.  Many of the examples that Alan was using could have been examples from pockets of users in Surrey.  We do have a long way to go and 70 of our teachers were in attendance.

I had to work with my Masters class as well so I missed the gallery walk and final demonstrations of learning but heard great stories about their success.

I look forward to when all of the examples could be from several Surrey schools ....

Continuing to Continue

My computer died back in January and my iWeb blogging was lost with it.  I have finally had time to recover and repost all of the previous posts.  I have missed being able to blog...

I have moved much more extensively into the world of google.  I resisted having another account to deal with but now I use Google for Docs, GMail, Reader, Scholar, Earth, Custom Search Engine and Blogger.  

I really appreciate the feature of being able to directly email posts to blogger.

Student Showcase of Learning

Jennifer Rossi shared with me after the May 23rd, 2007 meeting an idea about hosting a Student Learning Fair like Science Fair or Speech Meet.
 
I love the idea and have started the creative juices flowing in my own mind.  The questions I have for you:  
    What would it look like?
    Who does it benefit?
    When should we host it?
    What categories should we have?
    How do you select a winner?
 
Here are some of my initial thoughts:
    We could host it at SFU Surrey campus in one or two of the labs.  
 
    The event would be for students much like Science Fair and Speech Meet.  Students could work in their classes on projects and representatives be selected to represent the school.  I say representatives because many projects are class projects or class learning and selecting a ‘best’ doesn’t really get at the learning.
    I realize that the event could easily lose focus on student learning.  We would need to make sure that students get a chance to see what other students are doing and share their ideas at the event and with their class when they return.
 
    I think it could be hosted in the first week of May.  There would have been lots of learning during the year and any project throughout the year could be chosen.
 
    Categories is kind of a leading question.  I would want to use the IML capacities.  The event should be about learning not about the best product.   Having categories would just help to identify how teachers could use the ideas back in their own classrooms.
 
    Selecting a winner is a trick question.  I don’t believe we need to select a winner.  I can see we would have entries in various categories and perhaps provide participation awards / recognition.  I am not sure that you can select winners when we are talking about learning.  I see it more as a celebration style event.  The part of Science Fair I like is having the judges talk to the students and have them explain their learning.  Ribbons are secondary to those conversations.
 
I invite your thoughts.....
If you are interested in helping, please let me know.
 
The more I think about it the better it sounds.  Maybe part would be sharing in a large group and part in ‘poster sessions’ where 30 presentations would be going on at the same time in a large room.

Is it okay to be technically illiterate?

Are you literate with the language in the image? Do you need to know what it says?

I sort of get the same feeling today about technology. It's acceptable to say "I don't really get computers"

If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.

Quoted from Karl Fischís FischBowl Blog
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html

Do we accept teachers not being able to read and write? It is not acceptable in society.

Is it acceptable to be technologically illiterate in todayís society?

A favourite story that I share from a previous principal relates to my work with a fantastic primary math teacher. This teacher was incredible teaching math. Students were engaged, exploring ideas, and learning beyond most other primary math classes. In sharing with said principal, I said, "I think it is OK for this teacher to not integrate technology into her lessons. She is already a fantastic teacher that is doing amazing work and students are learning."

His response was priceless. "Think of how much more her students could learn if she was able to incorporate technology as well."

That has continued to challenge me over the past 5 years. I look at situations with different glasses. I do ask the question as to what the value added parts of integrating technology really are. There are some activities that donít add value but these activities should be planned to scaffold the ones that will take the learning that much further.

While we donít need to be exceptional readers to teach students the basics of reading or the joy and love of reading, teachers do need to have the basics of Information and Media Literacy to meet the BC Ministry of Education Prescribed Learning Outcomes.

The Value of the term "Digital Native"

"I'm sorry, but I don't go for all this digital natives and immigrants stuff when it comes to this: I don't know anything about the internal combustion engine, but I know it's pretty dangerous to wander about on the road, so I've learnt to handle myself safely when I need to get from one side of the road to the other.

The phrase may have been useful to start with, but it's been over-used for a long time now. In any case, after immigrants have been in a country for a while, they become natives. We've had personal computers for 30 years, and I was using computers in my teaching back in 1975. How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is part of life, not an add-on?
Quoted from Karl Fischís Blog on
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html

I understand the push to have digital immigrants learn and speak as a digital native. I think the value of the terms remain in needing digital immigrants to be willing or want to learn to speak "digital."

I like the analogy of knowing how to behave safely even if you don't understand the internal workings. †As adults and especially as parents we need to know to behave safely ourselves and how to teach others to behave safely.

A personal pet peeve is watching parents of young children either drag or push in a stroller their children across streets while not at an intersection. The habits we teach from our modeling impact children.

I argue that while digital immigrants can learn the language they may always have differences between digital natives, but those differences (or accents) do not need to stop communication or learning.

Kevin

Gaming

I had the privilege of listening to Suzanne de Castell today. She has done a lot of work with gaming and learning. Currently working on several projects including one with York U.

She encouraged us that we need to learn to make curriculum but not jam the text and content into new boxes. We need to not just buy someone else's work. Years ago teachers created curriculum. With the powerful tools now available, educators can be creators of games and interactivity with students.

An interesting comment was that gaming should not be for motivation. It is a misuse of students, learning, games and motivation. Gaming is an interactive tool that people can learn. New technologies such as a GPS utilize the gaming display technology.

It is amazing that in our session with several hundred teachers. When asked how many play games, it looked like less than half. Suzanne raised the question about a culture gap between students and teachers.

Where do you fit? †Do we understand the games that children play and the influence on their lives?

I believe gaming has a place in education; however, the filter for that belief is how gaming impacts their learning. I am dead against drill and kill types of games. Problem Solving, Interactive, Collaborative, Community Building, Critical Thinking - These are the marks of good games for education.

Pushing Writing Literacy

Writing Literacy
Following the post on
http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/pushing-writing-literacy/

I realized that the ways I write today are very different from 10 years ago.
I write this blog, I maintained a weekly podcast for a year, create presentations and I still create newsletters as well.

The newest edition to my repetoire is posting to wikis. I have contributed to Wikipedia and maintain 3 other wikis on wikispaces.com.

Will Richardson is an inspiration to quote and follow up with.

"Makes me wonder, with all of the different ways in which I write, all of the different audiences I write for, all of the different ways I attempt to communicate and engage in conversations and connections around my ideas, it makes me wonder whether we'll ever see these many modes of writing as important enough to teach our kids."

I couldn't agree more. I do see some teachers valuing multiple modes of writing, but they are seen as leading edge or special. Shouldn't preparing our students to be literate be common practice?

Networking

Quoting Steve Dembo (Teach 42)
http://www.teach42.com/2007/10/18/building-out-the-choir/

[I] now believe that the most important thing you could teach a newbie would be how to build out their network. How to connect with other teachers and resources that will push their boundaries. And most importantly, how to support themselves when they stumble.
http://edtechlife.com/ Mark Wagner pitched a variation on this theme to http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/

NECC, and I hope they take him up on it. Regardless, I love the title he used. "Learning to network, networking to learn." Catchy, eh?

Falls right in line with that old phrase " Give a man to fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. Connect him to networks of hunters, and AllRecipes.com and he'll be able to eat a tasty fillet of tilapia with mushroom risotto and spring vegetables with lemongrass today. And tomorrow, maybe he'll start off with some smoked salmon and capers before moving on to."


The image above is from a network diagram that I created looking at how my network has changed in just the last 3 years. It is amazing how my life has changed with facebook, delicious, other online communities.
A recent story was shared with me about a student posting an essay frame to Wikipedia. Three days later the story was written. I asked a group of teachers how they would respond:
-Well, divide the mark by the number of contributors...
-No accept it as they didn't write it...
-Make sure that they quoted their sources

I look at it in a different way. Kudos to the student for being able to get the job done. This student knew how to work collaboratively, to draw on his network, and work in a timely fashion. Providing the essay was done well, they would have full marks in my books. I am not the creator of all information that I share. Why would I expect students to have to be the creator of all of their information?

Perhaps the assignment could even be tweaked to have the whole class work collaboratively to write either individual essays or create a content resource - such as a WIKI !.
Kevin

CUEBC Conference - Reaching one at a time

At the CUEBC conference hosted in Maple Ridge BC, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Will relating to how to meet the needs of educators. It was a refreshing and hones conversation.

At one point, the question came up as to whether to spend purchase laptops for students or for teachers. The answer was to focus on the teachers. Thirty teachers that have a laptop to integrate into their personal and professional lives will change teaching far more than a class of students.

I found this fascinating and started thinking about it. We recently did a project with providing 10 laptops to 7 schools. We were looking at how that improved student learning and in particular writing. As positive as the results were, I now wonder how different it would have been to provide laptops to even 10 teachers in each of the schools (or 3 schools with 20 teachers) Instead of impacting 14 teachers practice and 350 students each year, our impact could have been 70 teachers and 1750 students.

As we drove deeper into conversation, I realized how much more valuable working with the teachers and building their capacity was. We can change the way we think and teach in the classroom that prepares students for what they can do at home. 1400 more students can take what they see modeled in the classroom and apply it at home.

It is fair to say that some schools do not have the same access at home for their students; however, most schools still have at least a computer lab and a classroom computer. (Not ideal but better than no access at all.)

Once the teaching has been empowered, there will be a better readiness for 1 to 1 laptop initiatives in the school. Currently our district would need to invest 5 million per year into just the hardware to impact 1 grade level. Instead, an investment of 200 000 would provide all of the teachers in a grade with a laptop. (Again not ideal, but with an impact of 5000 students)

A conversation with Will stretches your own understandings. The next thought that I had was that a laptop is not enough. To integrate effectively you also need a projector to share and demonstrate with students. That would involve a projector. Double the investment and we have a projector provided as well. I think for year one of the project that would be an amazing goal to have them integrating technology and impacting the learning of 5000 students in easily imaginable ways.

The next step that I can see is to provide SMART boards the following year. Maybe not all teachers will want them, but I would hazard after 1 year of being immersed with technology, most teachers would be ready for the next leap.

Is an investment of $3000 per teacher worth investment in student lives. (Assuming a life of 4 years on each of the 3 items, this boils down to $3000 / 4 years / 100 students or $7.50 per student.

As a parent, I would very happily pay $7.50 for my childrenís teacher to have access to tools that will prepare them not for yesterday but for thinking in the world they will be living in.

The Power of YouTube

I just read a very interesting article from the Washington Post Online.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071802528.html?hpid=topnews


CNN and YouTube are sponsoring the next presidential debate. As part of the debate, they have requested questions submitted in 30 second video clips. They had more than 1479 submissions. Twenty-four were selected to be aired during the debate and to have the hopefuls respond to it. This is a very high profile option. Instead of letter writing as the communication method to participate in the debate, the ability to record and upload a 30 second video is the level of literacy required. (If you were living in the US, )

Are you literate enough to participate in this debate?

Are you literate enough to use youtube to educate yourself on what the canditates have said?

http://youtube.com/youchoose Are you literate enough to call candidates on their beliefs and statements with direct access to their statements on youtube? Being literate has shifted. Paper and Pencil have their place, but so do other communication technologies.

How information and media literate must teachers be?

"...teachers must learn what these technologies are and can do, and understand them, but without necessarily becoming proficient in their use." Marc Presnky 2007

Marc Prensky (2007) raises the important point in the sidebar. As teachers, we do not need to be proficient in all the emerging technologies. We are responsible to know about the technologies and how they can be used in teaching and learning.

His second point is, "But what all teachers should learn to do comfortably, though, are those things we can do without "looking stupid". This (we certainly hope!) is to evaluate their students' uses of the new technologies, and teach our students the important lessons about those technologies. Teachers can and should be able to understand and teach where and how new technologies can add value in learning."

Instead of trying to be experts in everything, we should focus on teaching and learning. The key is that we are looking at how the new technologies can add value to what we do already. I recently read that the power of technology is doubling each year. This means that there will continue to be an explosion of new technologies.

I do not expect teachers to know every new technology; however, I do expect teachers to become experts at finding the best tools for learning. This can be done in concert with students. We can make learning relevant by including students in the process. Students don't have to just receive what we tell them. We can empower students to be leaders in our classroom and school. Should we respond in fear and block or ban new technologies, or empower students with a statement such as, "If you can show me the educational value of this new technology then you or we can use it."

This creates an environment of relevance.

If we block and ban, we create an environment of irrelevance.

Teachers that fear and don't understand a technology demonstrate not understanding the importance of new technology to this generation. That sends a clear message that learning in that classroom is irrelevant. In the end, teachers do not need to be proficient at all things technology. They do need to have an understanding and acceptance that technology has the power to add value to learning experiences. That understanding should stretch into classroom teaching allowing students to learn with the powerful tools available to them. http://partners.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies07_chapter4.pdf

Data Literacy

When looking at literacy, the tide is changing to understand text as oral, visual, and written language forms that we interact and construct meaning from. (Adapted from the new English Language Arts 8 - 12 IRP)

Does this include being data literate? I believe so.

Last year I heard a student that had been using computers in school for 6 years and not used a spreadsheet. I find this just amazing. I use spreadsheets and other data tools daily. The spreadsheet is not the solution to all data learning, but it is a broad tool for data literacy. Understanding relationships between data, calculating, summarizing, organizing, searching, sorting, are all concepts teachable through spreadsheets.

An extension and even more powerful tool are databases. Many schools have access to online databases.
Here is an example:http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/catalogs.html

I realize there is too many things to learn everything; however, we are responsible to prepare to be self-directed learners. If we donít provide students a foundation of data literacy, how will they be able to be self-directed learners later. I can only imagine trying to learn what I know about spreadsheets and databases from scratch. It would turn me off and I would see a different solution.

An example for me recently is that I was learning InspireData a new product from Inspiration.com. †This software tool is a student friendly spreadsheet, database and survey tool. †Trying to learn this without background knowledge would have been difficult for me. †I was able to learn the software in short order and make it do what I wanted it to do. †
†
I was able to be self-directed because I have a firm foundation. †I would not have stuck with it to create the surveys I needed trying to learn all of it new.
†