Monday, July 18, 2011

WISE simulation

While doing some reading for my inquiry class I discovered the WISE - Web-based Inquiry Science Environment.  I played with one of the simulations and it looks really promising.  Students complete simulations including reflection questions which are sent to a teacher section.  They're set up for a pair of students to work on together.  Here's the link in case you're interested: http://wise.berkeley.edu/

Working on my wiki project and I think that it'll turn out like I envisioned.  My only question right now is how I give parents access -- I'm using the education version from wikispaces.  I like that it's private with no adds since I always have students that can't have pictures or work on the internet.  Also I can set up student accounts with no email accounts.  I'd really like to have students do some kind of current event and/or famous scientist reading and reflections at least once or twice a month.  The challenge is to move all my kids through this on our four computers -- I know that I'll have to change around the way I teach things, I'm just not sure how.  It might work if I add in a chunk of time, like a warm up, for students to work on a computer assignment or some other type of individual or small group work.  Maybe the first 10-15 minutes of class?  A combination of electronic and paper reading assignments, with groups assigned to computers on certain days?

I was a little too over-thrilled that I embedded a video into my wiki.  My goal for this video is to have students look at it and think about how the mountain bikers use scientific inquiry when building their trails.  It's a cool video -- lets see if I can do it here... nope, it's not on YouTube so here's the link Mountain Bike Freeriding - OPB


No comments:

Post a Comment