It’s all about the science baby

I have not spent a lot of time viewing You Tube videos, but  I have been amused to say the least with some that my children or peers have pointed out to me. I have not heard of Teacher Tube until this THING. Being the old guard I punched up something on dissection, which brought me to a lower extremity cat muscle dissection. Come to think of it, I did a YOU TUBE video last year when one of my students filmed me doing a partial dissection and put it up on you tube. It was quite cool. Didn’t get a lot of hits, but I have not checked it out recently. This obviously has abundant potential with my students having an alternative source to view supplemental material on various topics, including dissections, which I continue to do every second semester in anatomy.

It’s also a great place to view scientific commentary and the like, although I much prefer “TED” videos to YOU TUBE. However, I will readily admit that my students are much more familiar with YOU TUBE and would be very willing to include that into a curriculum assignment. Most likely, another THING that I will employ into my teaching next year. See ya.

I have had the hardest time trying to get my podcast through the various stages of  broadcasting it to the world. Lots of roadblocks and I kind of gave up given the short time I have left to finish the 23 things. I certainly went through the motions,  but could not publish the final product because of techno glitches. I could envision my students doing a podcast concerning a breaking story in biological circles and updating it on a weekly basis to some kind of end. It would be like a roving biology reporter getting the scoop on the latest from the CDC on swine flu outbreaks or something. That would be really sweet.  I may try this one if the opportunity comes up this year. I bet I would have a lot of takers! Later.

I was introduced to podcasting last winter when I got real interested in “TED TALKS.” Nate Wahlgren showed me how to download these podcasts through iTunes and I have been checking them ever since. Like many of these “THINGS” over the past two months, I find great value, at opportune times in my teaching to use podcasting as a pedagogical tool in my classroom. Not only could I use this as a teaching moment, but also letting my students create their own podcasts dealing with the subject at hand and utilizing that as an integral part of my curriculum during the academic year.  The possibilities are infinite at this point using one’s accumulated imagination. The downside to all of this for me and something that I have struggled with for many years is where do you draw the line utilizing all this technology? Where is enough, enough? In my disciplines of biology and anatomy, there is a plethora of information that I must cover during both semesters and using any or all of these “THINGS” takes time. So, the bottom line is to carefully scrutinize when and how one utilizes these Web 2.0 tools and in what context. As wonderful as they all are, you still have to cover the material and some of these weapons may take a just little  too much time. I will definitely play around with podcasting this year and experiment at appropriate intervals. See ya.

Yet another example of incredible layering of information. Quite an amalgamation of book compilations! I do not personally see a value of this for me at this point in my life, but I see getting into something like this in my retirement years. I can see myself scanning “Library Thing” to see where book readings and signings are taking place at various bookstore venues and my wife and I taking a road trip to listen. I do see some value for a high school or college English class seeing what their cohorts are reading and comparing notes on an assigned novel. That would be neat and valuable for all involved for creating really good dialogue that could be brought back to each participant’s classroom to share. I found the layering of groups, reviews, and member collections to be a bit cumbersome to handle. SO MUCH INFORMATION! It is really neat that all these people have taken the time to list their collections, joined groups and are willing to share just about anything about everything. I will keep this one in mind for my golden years. See ya.

Another good example of time savings. Not only is delicious a great place to save sites, it gives you a wild array of places to go search what other people have interests in and yet again, raises the communication bar for everyone. I see this as a great opportunity for my students, letting them have access to my delicious site and letting them realize the kinds of sites that I visit and get information  from. I could also create a whole new list just for my students to access in their dealings with my assignments, etc.

Professionally, a separate list could be used for my department members to access to explore their needs in their classrooms or professional growth. Once tapped into a site, also a great way to see what fellow teachers are thinking and accessing in their daily practices. All these tools have great value for teaching professionals and for their respective students. Good stuff! Later

I perused through a few of the tools and they all seem to have their place as an enhancement for any classroom, faculty organization and sharing, and as interactive communicative websites. I often have my students conduct random polls or surveys around the school campus on topics such as: abortion, stem cell applications, birth control and assorted other hot topics during the school year. One tool, polldaddy.com seems to be a simplistic and free methodology of accomplishing that and having the poll published for all to see. I see the value of this for my classes as sharing thoughts about what their peers seem to be contemplating, but more importantly as a means of getting conversation spawned between different disciplines in our curriculum by acknowledging common themes and venues of discussion. The data is generated, published and then commented on by a plethora of students and faculty alike. These surveys/polls could also be shared with administrators, parents, etc. to demonstrate what the students are thinking on various topics that may be viewed as confrontational or controversial. I think it to be extremely valuable for administrators and parents to be aware of what the populace of the school is pondering and commenting on. God knows, it may lead to very important dialogue and meaningful changes. The other tool that I am including in this post is quizlet.com, which is mostly student focused. I see this as a wonderful alternative to the “study date” that I was so fond of growing up. This site allows students to create games, flashcards, quizzes, etc. on the topic that they are studying and share these with their peers. By all getting on the same page the group can have a meaningful and fun studyfest on some major exam, SAT, AP test coming up with all sharing and benefitting. This could also be utilized by a faculty member as an on-line assignment for students to partake in and use as a tool to see where weaknesses lie on a particular topic before a major assessment. Really neat, usable material for the betterment of the learning curve. Later.

I perused quite a few of the k-12 conference sites from the 2008 conference and I had a hard time trying to find one that interested me. I settled on the strand of “Leading the Change Keynote”, entitled “The Voices of School 2.0: School Reform as described by the words and images of the people of the Science Leadership Academy.” I find it very interesting that what I have strived to accomplish in my classroom over the last three plus decades is continually captured in pieces that I come across in my reading. This experience was no different. What was being taught and modeled at the Science Leadership Academy as an ostensibly portrayed break from the norm is something that I have witnessed in my department for many years. It was obvious that the students and faculty alike seemed to be on the right track in achieving real thought processes to come to some kind of realistic conclusions for a variety of science undertakings. These students were at a slight advantage with all the bells and whistles to work with at this Academy, but the pedagogy of really trying to get the kids to understand the science by probing their minds for real and probable solutions is really quite admirable. Screw the worksheets! Oops, can you say that in a blog?

In a nutshell, I am thoroughly on board with what was being portrayed in that session and an entity that I am continually trying to strive for in my teaching year to year. The years are surely withering away, but I surely hope that part of my legacy, if I have one, is simply that “C squared sure as hell gave it his best shot!”

The K-12 conference seems to be a great forum for global communication and I would like to tap into the 2009 get together if time permits. Thanks. See ya.

This “THING” was the most unintuitive thing yet and it took some patience on my part to get through some of the directions, which were a little nebulous in places. I think creating slide shows and incorporating (embedding)  them into powerpoints or the like is a great eye catching teaching tool. I also see this as a great tool for students to spice up classroom presentations, not to mention faculty presentations at a faculty meeting or school assembly on certain topics. I am also glad that I made hard copies of all the THING pages so I can go back to them to refresh my memory on how to access these tools for the 09/10 school year. Lots of stuff to remember to say the least. I embedded my slide show into “My Bucket List” sandbox page for all to thoroughly enjoy! Ha! Anyway, a really neat concept once I got the hang of capturing the slide show. See ya soon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65542850@N00/227030816/

Truly, what an amazing resource for someone who has always tried to spice up his talks, powerpoints, passouts, etc. The amazing piece is the depth of categories that you can tap into. The way that the pics are set up makes it pretty simple to find exactly what you are looking for, not to mention putting your or your students’ work on Flickr. I have inserted pictures for years into my teaching materials, but never really bothered to look on-line for sites like Flickr . This course has opened up new horizons for the media part of my pedagogy and my students will definitely be the lucky recipients of the new insights.

The theme of my pictures were selected topics in life science, i.e. genetics, photosynthesis, and cell biology. The pic that I chose for this blog was pretty cool. The study of genetics has always fascinated me and this depiction of DNA seemingly crawling up the forearm of this person struck a chord with me. Every iota of that limb owes its existence to this nucleic acid and it just spoke volumes to me. It’s also fun searching the site and the subset, if you wish, of Creative Commons Flickr entries makes it that much simpler in include various artist’s works into your work or your students’ work without the fear of not knowing the copyrights to that particular picture.

I also agree that it’s extremely important to educate your students to the correct citations that must be used in their research. They are a cut and paste generation without a thought given to what they are copying. I will be spending quality time with my kids on this one at the beginning of the school year. It was fun. Later.

Ya know, it’s about time they recognized the importance of “CC!” C-squared’s 15 seconds of fame. Yeah! Back to my blog and off of my soapbox. I have never heard of CC before except for yours truly, but in the back of my mind I know I’ve seen that icon several times over the past few years in my literary travels. I will definitely be visiting the sites with high school topics and lesson plans to match up what I have been doing all these years with what the rest of the world has been doing. The MIT site sounds fascinating with its high school strand.

I have often struggled with the “copyright” thing. I have probably downloaded or used media that I assumed  was public domain because there was no inherent copyright attachment. Illegal? I don’t know, but I only did it with the thought of increasing my student’s knowledge base. I have used NOVA videos for many years and they finally came out with the dictum that these videos could be used for one year with no copyright violation. After that they had to be destroyed. That never made any sense to me since other classes down the road could certainly benefit from these, at least for a few years.

This obviously has wonderful potential for educators and their students. The teaching of “copyright” to students should not be restricted to English and History classes. When I get my students in the research mode, I harp on the whole copyright thing and this “CC” revelation will certainly shed light on my teaching of copyright and its implications. Also, intense possibilities for students from around the world sharing and combining original ideas for publishing their work on-line without the threat of persecution from the copyright police! Neat stuff and I’m getting psyched to share these new tools with my kids in the fall. See ya. I welcome comments and this blog is been stamped “CC”