“Setting the Stage” Revisited

As I reread my initial “Setting the Stage” post, I sensed four distinct feelings or thoughts I had at the start of this course: nostalgia for “the good old days”, a sense of being overwhelmed by Web 2.0, a fear of learning new web tools, and a view of technology as something I have to do to keep up with the 21st century.  I am happy to report that except for my feelings of nostalgia (memories are a good thing, right?), my feelings in the other three areas have all changed thanks to this course, Eric, and all of my course colleagues.

My feeling of being overwhelmed by 2.0 has transformed into a feeling of being amazed.  That is a huge change in state of mind!  Being overwhelmed makes me “freeze,” while being amazed gets me excited.  The fact that the Web is incredibly vast has not changed in the past seven weeks, but my frame of mind about that fact has.  Now I feel like I am focusing less on how scary it is and more on how incredible its opportunities are.  I guess you could say that I have moved from a state of apprehension to a state of appreciation!

Fear is crippling.  My fear of learning new web tools prevented me from stepping out into the web tool jungle much prior to taking this course.  Now I am not only wading through that jungle, but I am doing so with much greater confidence.  Maybe someday I will even be running through it!  What really helped me overcome my fear was the supportive environment offered by this course and the knowledge that this support is not ending even though the class is.  I now understand why Eric emphasized the importance of our PLNs.

The last paragraph of my initial “Setting the Stage” post was heavy on the need for me to learn and use web tools in my teaching.  Now I actually want to do so!  That just might be my most important transformation yet.  Desire is a powerful thing.

As I finish my last “official” post for this class, I want to thank Eric and all of my colleagues for helping me grow both as a teacher and as a student.  All of you have played a part in broadening my view of teaching and learning.  When I signed up for this course, I thought I was just going to be adding some new tools to my web tools belt.  Little did I know I would also be gaining a new perspective and a new Personal Learning Network!

D2L Discussion Reflection

I enjoyed our group’s discussion on D2L. The D2L discussion format is straightforward, organized in threads and easy to navigate. Unlike commenting on individual blogs, posting on this discussion board allows us to view all posts and replies in one place. It is much easier to follow and flows more coherently. That is not to say that we should not be commenting on blogs…each format has its own benefits.

The consensus of the group was that this class not only taught us a lot, but it also made us think about how we teach. Many of us, although excited to try out the new web tools we have explored, realize that we need to take it slowly. We agree that we should not use technology for the sake of using it, but as a means of helping our students learn science. We must constantly ask ourselves and re-ask ourselves what it is that we want to accomplish in our classrooms and which web tools (if any) would best help us reach those goals.

Although much more confident than when we started, many of us still feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of web tools available and the knowledge that that number is only going to keep growing! We worry about the time commitment required to learn the new tools ourselves, implement them, and teach our students how to use them. Yet we are relieved to know that our PLN’s have expanded, thus making us feel more connected and supported by others dealing with the same educational issues we are. And isn’t connection what it’s all about?

My Final Project!

I decided to work on my Moodle class page for my final project. For the past few years, my Moodle site has simply been a spot to send my students to link to websites for projects and activities. I had never taken the time to explore all that Moodle had to offer. This course encouraged me to do just that. My first goal was to get my class page set up and organized; my second goal was to include documents and links for my first unit, ecology. I like what I have accomplished so far and am excited to continue to incorporate other web tools and Moodle aspects throughout the school year. Below is a screencast I made to show you my Moodle class page so far. An additional item I had meant to discuss (but ran out of Jing time!) was that I do not plan on having everything for a unit visible from day one; instead, I will hide items until they are needed. I do not want my students to get overwhelmed, nor do I want them to be able to access course content before it is appropriate. That is one thing I really like about Moodle.



You may also access the screencast at: Kocian Final Web Tools Project

Week 6 Web Tools Exploration 3: Create a Graph

I am in the process of revising my ecology unit. In the past I have shown them a predator/prey graph of the snowshoe hare and the lynx and asked them to interpret it, but this year I thought I would have them make their own graph using data I provide. And then why not make the graph online with Create a Graph? I found some data at http://www.biotopics.co.uk/newgcse/predatorprey.html and then made a graph to try it out. Here is my graph:

Week 6 Web Tools Exploration 2: Microscope Camera

I just returned from a 3-day trip to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY in which I attended an ASSET (Advancing Secondary Science Education with Tetrahymena) summer science teacher workshop.  I would recommend this experience to all of you who are biology teachers!  We got to work in one of the veterinary medicine labs on campus and preview ASSET laboratory modules using the very lab-friendly protist, Tetrahymena.  My computer was connected to a microscope camera and then I used my iPhone to videotape my computer screen.  This particular clip is from a phagocytosis lab we did with the protist.  We fed our Tetrahymena black India ink, took a sample every 10 minutes, placed a drop of each sample on a microscope slide, and counted the number of food vacuoles that had taken up the ink in 10 different organisms.  I plan on using this lab and others we were able to sample next year in my biology classes.  This set-up with the microscope cameras allows students to collect real data on a living system!  Wow!

Here is the website for ASSET: http://assetprod-lamp.cit.cornell.edu/blog/.
They are airing a webcast at 5:45 PM (EDT) on Monday, July 25 of The ASSET 2011 Summer Teachers’ Workshop Panel Discussion if you're interested.

(For some reason I could not get the video to download onto my blog, so I made a screencast of it through screenr and downloaded that!)

Week 6 Web Tools Exploration 1: screenr

I have been using Jing to create screencasts, but I decided I would try screenr today after it was recommended by my department instructional supervisor. It is very easy to use. Here's the quick screencast I made today to show my students how to build a food web on a webpage from http://teacher.scholastic.com:

Week 5 Web Tools Exploration 3: PLN and Family!

I spent three days this week visiting family in Kentucky, working on my grad classes whenever I had a few minutes.  Little did I know that a GREAT addition to my PLN was right in my family!  I had forgotten that my niece's husband,  in addition to teaching math full time, is the technology coordinator for his high school while working on a master's degree in educational technology.  He gave me lots of websites to look at and some tips from his own experience.  I got a bit overwhelmed by everything he showed me, but I was so excited to know that I had a relative that could help!  I just wish I had realized that about 5 weeks ago!

Here are a few web tools he introduced me to that look interesting...


Gapminder - view fact-based world data

Quizlet - find/make flashcards to help students study for quizzes and tests

Yola - make your own website

Week 5 Web Tools Exploration 2: Exploratree

Thanks to a post by Sarah Tabor, I looked into Exploratree and made a very simple one to try it out...and to try to decide what to do for my project! I like using concept maps in my biology classes and this web tool looks like a great way to make them. Exploratree calls them "Thinking Guides".  I tried to link mine here, but it didn't work.  Let's see if I can make a screencast image of it...

Week 5 Web Tools Exploration 1: LiveBinder

Thanks to Mary's mention of LiveBinders in one of her posts, I decided I wanted to try it. So I started my first binder...

Linda Kocian Websites

Week 5 Reflection: Blogs and Wikis...and Moodle?

I have been thinking a lot this week about how I want to set up the online component of my biology courses this fall.  Should I use a blog, a wiki, Moodle, or a combination of all three?  The Science 2.0 articles on blogs and wikis make good cases for both.  All of these platforms allow students to be active participants both inside and outside the classroom.  But after reading Eric's reply to a question I asked him... (http://teachingsscience20.pbworks.com/w/page/42245268/onlinediscussion), I decided to keep Moodle as my class page (teachers at our school are supposed to do so anyway) and maybe link a blog and/or wikis to that.  I just haven't figured out yet how best to utilize those in my courses, or if I even need to since we use Moodle.  One of the things I thought I could do with a blog was to have a different student responsible each day for posting a summary of what we did in class.  Those posts, along with comments from classmates, would give us a complete record of the entire year.  As for wikis, maybe they could be used for projects since students can be collaborating on them at any time from any location.

Generating an Argument Activity

I thought I would post the link for my DDT and Malaria activity here as well as on the class wiki...

http://teachingsscience20.pbworks.com/w/file/42296180/Generate%20an%20Argument%20-%20Linda%20Kocian.pdf

Simulations

I love using simulations in my biology classes.  I find students have much more success understanding certain concepts when there is a visual attached, especially one that is interactive.  Chapter 3 of the text does a good job of discussing why computer simulations enhance learning and gives helpful guidelines for their use.  The learningscience.org website is a great resource for so many topics.  I have used many of the websites listed on that site.  The BBC Interactive Human Body would be useful as a review and the johnkyrk.com cell biology animation site looks good (I had never seen that one), but I like the Cells Alive site better for my students.  Although ExploreLearning.com looks like it has interesting ones, I shy away from sites that are not free.

Here are some that I have incorporated into my curriculum in the past and found to be useful:

Food Webs: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/be_an_explorer/map/line_experiment14.swf
http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/frogs/chain_reaction/index.cfm
http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/kids_web.htm
http://www.vtaide.com/png/foodchains.htm

Virtual Pig Dissection:
http://www.whitman.edu/biology/vpd/main.html

Circulation:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/heart/heartmap.html
http://www.ehc.com/vbody.asp

Digestion:
http://kitses.com/animation/swfs/digestion.swf
http://exhibits.pacsci.org/nutrition/noflash_nutrition.html

Evolution:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/evolution/
http://www.becominghuman.org/

Cells:
http://www.cellsalive.com/index.htm

Genetics:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/ (home page –great website!)http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/karyotype/
http://nobelprize.org/educational/  (this is a great website, not just for genetics – scroll down on this page to see a list of some of the interactive games!)http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sheppard/analyze.html (DNA fingerprinting)http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/dna/

Rainforest:
http://www.mbgnet.net/sets/rforest/index.htm

Population:
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Week 4 Reflection: Using Online Data and Generating an Argument

Using Online Data:

Chapter 6 of our textbook has encouraged me to use online data in my biology classes.  I have never really done so, at least not to that extent.  The text makes a good point that online data sets “extend the possibilities of inquiry beyond the limitations and constraints of available equipment and geographical locations.”  I think this is particularly true in biology since labs involving living things are quite restricted.  I was happy to read that research shows all levels of students “increased their science content knowledge and improved their inquiry performance” because this is a major concern of mine.  I still think it is valuable for students to generate their own data in the laboratory, but I recognize the benefits of using online data sets as well.  Each type of lab experience has its own advantages and I would think a course that utilizes a combination would be “the best of both worlds.”

I was not aware prior to reading the text that there were so many data sets available for teachers and students to use.  I appreciate the list of websites in the Life Science section at the end of the chapter.  They will be a great place to start!  I also found the Guidelines for Best Practice helpful.  Some of the topics I found particularly suitable for my students to analyze are migratory routes, tap water, population trends, and water monitoring.

I looked at some of the online data sets linked to the wiki.  The Atlas of the Biosphere maps and data sets through iteachSTEM would be excellent resources.  I especially liked the Human Impacts and Ecosystems sets. 

Generate an Argument instructional model:

I can definitely see the value in the Sampson and Grooms model to support scientific argumentation.  I agree that it is important for students to learn to think more like scientists and this model does a great job of encouraging that.  The four steps flow logically from one to the next and students are held accountable for their progress, both as groups (steps 2 and 3) and as individuals (step 4).

Putting this model into practice by designing my own classroom activity will be challenging, not only because it seems like it will take a long time to do so, but also because I might have to modify it to make it less daunting for many of my students who are very concrete learners.  I am curious to know if any research has been done concerning using this model with different levels of students.  I do think that this model will be easier for students of any level to follow than the Argument-Driven Inquiry model since the data is already provided for them.  The other concern I have is the amount of class time it will require for full implementation, especially as this same procedure should be used often to allow students to improve on these scientific and communicative skills.  I might be able to spend the time in one of my courses since I am the only teacher of that course, but in the other course I teach I am restricted by a curriculum and schedule that all the teachers of that course must follow.

I like the "Backward Faded Scaffolding" approach mentioned in the wiki.  I can envision designing the first lab experience of this method using the Generate an Argument model and then gradually leading the students through less teacher-centered and more student-centered activities.  I would think this tactic would make the students feel more comfortable as they participate in what might be their first inquiry-based course.

Web Tools and My Smartphone

I am slowly catching up with the 21st century.  I have owned my iPhone for a year now and am finally connecting it to the web, thanks to my daughter.  I am currently in Seattle visiting her for the 4th of July weekend and she is trying to get me more smartphone savvy.  Yesterday we downloaded the Twitter app and tweeted two pictures, one from the beautiful Kubota Gardens and one of her dog.  By the way, I learned a lot more about using the camera on my phone, giving me more image experience!  We also downloaded Google Search app which allows me to get to Google Reader, which has helped me keep up on all the blog posts from wherever I am at.  I finally connected my gmail account to my phone as well.

I just e-mailed myself a picture from my iPhone to include in this blog post.  These are horsetails that were growing at the Kubota Gardens.  During our plant unit, we talk about horsetails and now I will have an image of them that I took myself. 

I can see using my iPhone now to capture images that are biology-related to use for class.  I am also planning on connecting my phone to our school e-mail, which many teachers already do.  I guess it just takes me awhile to get going!

Jing Rocks!

This is my first attempt at using Jing. I made two short screencast videos that I could use to show my students how to get into our class Moodle page and how to submit an assignment. I really like this web tool! I can envision many ways to use screencasting in the classroom. Having students create their own would be even more beneficial.

Logging into Moodle


Submitting an assignment on Moodle

Week 3 Reflection: “In Plain English”, Creative Commons, and Digital Storytelling

“In Plain English”: I enjoy the videos from Common Craft that Eric has put on the wiki.  They simplify web concepts and illustrate them in an easy to follow style.  Lee Kolbert’s students did a nice job of using that style to tell their own “stories”.  I can see how this could be an effective way to help students understand science concepts since they must physically make their own pictures, graphs, etc. first before putting them together into a video.  We know that the best way to learn something is to teach it and that is exactly what these students are doing.

Creative Commons: I hate to admit that I am not very knowledgeable about copyright laws.  Skimming through “The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use” made me nervous!  I will definitely have to look this over and talk to school administrators to get a handle on all the regulations governing creative commons.

Digital Storytelling: I have always been a fan of storytelling because I think it is a wonderfully engaging and more personal way to learn about a topic.  Why not do so in a tech-savvy way?  Chapter two of our textbook, Technology in the Secondary Science Classroom, gives some compelling reasons for using digital images and video in our classrooms.  I agree with the cited research that visuals help students comprehend and recall the text better.  I can say from personal experience that pictures, diagrams, and graphs help me understand difficult concepts much better than words alone.  Attending to different modalities is an important component of effective teaching. 

The text does a nice job of outlining four guidelines for using digital images and video such that the experience will benefit the students educationally.  I agree with all four.  They must be appropriate to the content and instructional goal; they must be accompanied by effective discussion that promotes meaningful interaction; they must not replace the teacher; they must follow copyright laws.  I like the examples of questioning strategies mentioned in the chapter.  The statement on p. 13 is so true: “The difference between good and bad class discussion is often questioning versus telling.”   That fits in quite well with an inquiry-based classroom.

Although I have used images and videos in my classroom all along, I have not taken advantage of the many digital means of “storytelling.”  The idea of students making their own video recordings intrigues me, but I am unsure of the time commitment this would require in an already cram-packed curriculum.  But I am willing to investigate this further and I look forward to seeing how others are using digital storytelling in their science classes.

Practicing Embedding a Video

My first embedded video in this blog! It worked!
This is a TED video on bioluminescence.

Web Tools Week 2: Breadth Rather Than Depth

This week I was a dabbler…a little of this and a little of that.  I tried to get a broad scope of the web tools available so I could settle on a few to more deeply investigate.  It certainly can be overwhelming!  I am hoping I become a more efficient “surfer” soon…I feel like I am still just making baby steps even with all the hours I spend online.  Here are a few of my thoughts so far…

Google Reader: I love it!  It has definitely streamlined my viewing of the blogs.  I have not used it for any other feeds yet, but I’m sure I will.  It’s probably the only thing keeping me relatively sane right now!  Being alerted on one page about all new posts for all blogs is quite a time-saver.  I also like that I can search for something specific and all blogs will show up that include that.  Thank you, Eric, for recommending we set this up!

Twitter: I set up my twitter account and have been following some of Eric’s suggested accounts as well as some of the students in this class.  I made a few tweets, but have mostly just been observing.  I am notoriously bad at keeping up with e-mails at school, so I doubt I will be good at keeping up with tweets, but I will keep an open mind!

Delicious: This is one tool I will definitely keep using.  A friend of mine at school has had a Delicious account for some time and so I was already familiar with it, but had never set one up myself.  Now I’m glad I did.  I was always e-mailing websites back and forth to myself from my home computer to my school computer and visa versa.  This will be another time-saver and great resource base.

PBWorks: I set up my first wiki, but didn’t get very far with it yet.  I had used PBWorks before as an editor on another teacher’s wiki for our biology classes, but had not ever been the original author before.  I like using wikis in the classroom, so I am sure this is one tool I will start using on a more regular basis.

Google Docs: Our school is big on using this web tool.  I have set up a few surveys through Google Docs for my students in the past, but not recently.  I like it for that purpose.  I need to research it some more to understand all the ways it can be used.

Glogster: I opened a Glogster account and lurked around the site a bit, but that’s as far as I got.  Someone asked to be my friend and I got a bit weary.  I thought I was in the educator’s Glogster…I guess I better look at that again.  Anyway, I can see how it might be a good tool to add to student projects.  We have them make online posters in Word, but Glogster has many more interesting ways to embellish them. 

Overall this has been an enlightening week.  I am definitely a rookie when it comes to many aspects of Web 2.0.  Our school uses Moodle, so I do have some familiarity with that type of tool.  The nice thing about Moodle for the students is that they can get to all their classes from one spot. I like d2l for that reason as well and find it easier to get around on that site than having to have so many tabs open on my browser at once!  Maybe I’ll learn a more efficient browsing system in the coming weeks!

Science and Literacy Reflection

After reading the article “Science and Literacy Tools for Life” by Marlene Their, I thought about the various strategies we have tried in our lowest level classes in all disciplines to bring up our students’ reading levels.  For a while we used a computer reading program which seemed to build their reading fluency and comprehension skills within that context, but failed to transfer over to reading in the various content areas.  Last year we began using a program that has students read short passages (in a book, not on the computer) related to each specific content area (science, history, etc.) and answer different types of questions about the readings. The jury is still out as to whether or not this program has made a difference.  We might have burned the students out, though, because many of them were spending one day a week in each of possibly three classes just focusing on reading passages.  I lost an entire day each week of science content time.  Next year we are using the same program, but less frequently.  We will see what happens.

I agree with the article that my “primary task as a science educator is to help students master science concepts, and processes” and that my “secondary task is to help students improve their language skills within the context of science.”  I can see how the three strategies the article discusses, performance expectations for students, explicit teaching strategies that support inquiry-based learning, and student metacognition strategies support these tasks.  I feel like I employ such strategies or similar ones intuitively without putting a name on them, but I do benefit from seeing it in writing.

One repeated point the article makes resonates well with my own philosophy on education: students need to “take charge of their own learning.”  I agree that we as educators need to guide students to do just that.

Draft of Guiding Principles for Using Technology

My use of technology in the classroom should…

·         Be appropriate to the task

·         Improve students’ understanding of the content

·         Further the development of science skills

·         Engage the students in meaningful learning

·         Help the students do “new things in new ways”

·         Encourage inquiry

Setting the Stage

I began teaching in the early 80’s.  I recall that we had one typewriter in our department that all the science teachers shared.  That being the case, I wrote almost all of the papers I handed out to my students by hand.  The only Xerox machine was in the main office so we copied all of our handouts on a ditto machine.  (I wonder how many of you have no idea what a ditto machine is.)  I must admit that I loved the smell of those freshly printed papers!  I also enjoyed using different colored carbons to make my handouts more visually appealing.  One downside to using a ditto machine was that the original document only made so many copies, so every year it had to be rewritten.  Grade computation was also done manually.  I can remember how frustrating it would be when I would lose track of which assignment I was on and have to start counting the numbers all over again.  Lesson planning was simpler back then in a way because there were not as many easily-accessed resources from which to glean ideas.  My planning usually involved a trip to the local library after exhausting the textbook.  Ah, the good old days! 
 

Teaching has certainly changed.  Computers and the Internet have definitely made lesson planning, document creation and grading much more efficient.  Over the years, I have developed good computer skills, but I have only slowly incorporated the Internet.  The first time I heard a lecture on Web 2.0, I felt instantly overwhelmed.  Although I am comfortable with e-mail and online research, I have shied away from the many other uses of the web.  I do not have a Facebook account, and before this class did not have a blog or a Twitter account (which I have not really figured out how to use yet).  But I took this class to “get with it” and try to allay my fear of social networking.  I am still not getting a Facebook account, though!

As I reflected on the readings, I came to the conclusion that Web 2.0, as overwhelming as it seems to me, is a necessary component of education today.  I am sure my students are much more versed in web technology than I am and I do see the need for me to “catch up.”  Web 2.0 is here to stay and I know I need to keep abreast of and use the new tools, otherwise, in the words of our textbook: it “would be unfair to students growing up in the 21^st century.”  Thomas Friedman says it even more emphatically in his “It’s a Flat World, After All” article: “This is the beginning of a crisis that won’t remain quiet for long.”  I especially liked the reading “A New Challenge for Science Education Leaders: Developing a 21^st Century Workforce.”  It was a very informative, practical article that succinctly summarized the 21^st century skills our students will need and the ways we can help them achieve those in the science classroom.

Introduction

My name is Linda Kocian.  I teach biology at Glenbrook South High School (GBS) in Glenview, IL, a suburb of Chicago.  I have been teaching our two lowest level biology courses for a number of years, but this coming fall I will also be teaching our regular level biology.  I taught at GBS years ago, left to raise my children, joined the business world for awhile, and then returned to GBS ten years ago.

My First Blog!

This is the first time I have ever blogged!  What an adventure this will be...