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




Simulations

A week behind and trying to get caught up... but the simulations were great.  I made it through the ones in the book that seem to pertain to my curriculum areas.  I think I'll have to print off the ones from the comment page -- there are so many!!

I started with Gizmos at Explore Learning and probably shouldn't have.  They look wonderful and I can see a lot of differentiated instruction time with these for both science and math.  Unfortunately something this wonderful is probably going to be spendy (especially if they give quotes by building or district size).  I'm waiting for my classroom quote from the region rep. before I get too excited about it (but it did look really cool).

PBS Try it Out was okay but pretty basic.  I did like the tech timeline, it was interesting and might be a good lead in for out tech design unit.

Learning Science had a great simulation for the geologic timeline from the U Cal. Museum of Paleontology.  It hits a number of concepts from my Earth history unit.  In the Biology are I looked at a genotype/phenotype simulation with dragons but it was a bit complicated.  The Zoo Matchmaker gives some hands on examples of breeding and inbreeding with tigers but you'd have to have definite goals for the simulation.  It took some time to complete the four generations.  Mendal's Peas looked like it would be really good for cross-breeding simulations.  I like that they had an activity at the end to practice the concepts.  The Tech Design section looked like it had good stuff for that unit but I need to wander around in it longer.

johnkyrk.com site had an impressive evolutionary time line but you can't see the whole thing on one screen and it could be a bit of a visual overload.  Also, I try to steer away from the human/primate portion of evolution if possible.  The meiosis simulation isn't too bad.

U of Colo. site, or Phet site had some interesting stuff.  I've wandered around in there a little before.  I like that some of the simulations are about things my students are already into, like skateboarding and force.  Unfortunately there's not a lot in there that hits my particular curriculum.

Love the simulations, off to find some more.

My science nerd moment in Vegas

I had a truly science nerdy moment last week in Las Vegas.  We were at the Bellagio to see the fountain (one of my favorite things) and they had mini-fountains inside that were amazing.  They shot arcs of water across this little pool but the really amazing part was when the water would be cut off at the base, but the tube of water would keep its integrity while it finished the arc! It looked like a clear plastic snake/worm arcing across the pond.  I know it much have something to do with the water pressure, force, and probably some surface tension but to see it overcome gravity and keep the integrity of it's shape was really impressive.

A little bit of knowlege can be a dangerous thing

I'm brainstorming projects to include more tech into my existing units and I think I've come upon a slightly brilliant idea.  Problem is, I don't know if it's something I can implement.  What I think I'm going to do is rattle off in a bit of a stream of consciousness fashion and see what comes.  If anyone would like to comment, help, etc. -- please feel free :)

There is one place in our curriculum where science and history meet and that is the geography of Washington.  In history they study the various maps/resources of the state.  In science we interpret land forms and the past geologic events that created them.  History has dibs on the NOVA video Mystery of the Mega Flood (very good if you haven't seen it) about Glacial Lake Missoula.  As I was wandering around in Google Earth I started to wonder if there is a way to have students build their own map or overlay of the area that the lake covered and the extent of the flooding after the ice dams broke. But then how much front loading or training will be required for students to be able to do this?  They don't all get computers at the same time and I'm pretty sure that Google Earth wasn't covered for them last year.  How long would it take to do this, four students at a time?  Is this something that I could screencast for the class?  Is there a way I could create a webquest for them to complete that uses the components of Google Earth?  Or would a wiki be better for something like that (just looked at a couple webquest pages)?

Still not having a great inspirational thought but I do think I need to play with Google Earth more and see if what I have in my brain is possible.  I'd like students to see the actual sites depicted in the video if possible -- sort of like a virtual field trip.

My new TED addiction

The more I watch TED, the more I like TED.  This is a clip from TEDxNYED 2010 of Dan Meyer talking about making over math class.  If you teach math or have any connection with math, you should watch this.  Also, he includes some modern tech and inquiry components.


http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html

Seems to be working again, so far

Testing again to see if I've worked the bugs out of this.  I spent part of yesterday with 400 Error messages and unable to access blogger at all, in either Firefox or Explorer.  Finally figured out it was the Adobe flash update that Firefox wanted, after backtracking and taking off everything I've added in the past couple of days.  I think that it downloaded the IE version instead... I think.  What I've gotten reinforced through all of this is that technology can really take up a lot of time.  You can spend a lot of time catching up on the latest news and updates, you can spend two hours just trying to search out the little thing that gumming up the whole works.  On the bright side, though, I guess I've been conducting my own mini-inquiry experiments.  My hypothesis is that this is the problem, remove, test, reevaluate -- and I've got a concrete real world example to share with my class ;)

week 3 reflection

Okay -- trying this a second time, cross your fingers...

Reflections on this week's stuff...



I really liked the section on plain English. That seems to me to be an important consideration in today's world of standards. Are we really telling students what the learning target is if we can even break it easily down into student-friendly language? I also liked the student videos in this section. We don't have a lot of technology so I can see this as something I could actually do with what I have. I also like the idea of students creating the pictures pencil/paper before shooting the video. It's good for their brains to do that kind of work.
 

The copyright information was interesting and eye-opening. I'm sure I'm not alone in the world thinking that things published on the internet were part of the fair domain. It seems like almost everything is covered under copyright. It's definitely a good thing to discuss with students in addition to plagiarism.  I do wonder, though, how sites like Facebook are able to add links to your page from anywhere (news, videos, etc.).  It would seem like that would be a copyright violation.


I like how the editors have created a pretty straightforward, yet informative book.  One thing the really impressed me was the research on the benefits of pictures and movies that date from the 1950’s!!  Our profession always seems to be on a pendulum going one direction or the other.  It was reassuring that the best practices from the 50’s – 80’s still make a lot of sense today.  I’m also glad to have the research resources.  I don’t know about anyone else in the class, but in my building it’s important to have the research that shows how practices benefit kids.