Symbaloo Website for Masterpiece Project

Well, I created the website for the masterpiece project and now we are diligently working to add sites to each strand.  Dr. Heigle had mentioned adding guidance for the sites so that parents and students would know the function of each site.  I am not sure about how we could do this.  Any suggestions?  There are going to be many sites and I am unaware of any way to add information about sites on Symbaloo.  I will keep everyone posted.

Here is the link to the site: http://www.symbaloo.com/

Masterpiece Project and Google Docs Discussion

I was so excited and proud of myself for creating a smaller discussion group on Google docs for our masterpiece project.  I have said this many times before, but it seems that every week I learn how to do something new with technology and I am becoming very proficient in using different tools.  I just spoke with Jason and it seems that we have decided to create a Symbaloo site that includes all of the middle school science strands.  We are envisioning a site that has resources for both parents and students that can be used by all middle school students.  I am soo excited about creating this site and being able to provide this to my incoming 6th graders and science team members.  Since I am more familiar with Symbaloo I will be setting up the site and both Jason and I will be working together to add simulations and high quality websites.  I will keep everyone posted through my blog.  Let me know if anyone has suggestions about making this Symbaloo for our masterpiece project.

Symbaloo and Weebly

I haven't blogged for about a week, but I have been busy working on the projects for my two classes.  I wanted to write about the success I have had with using two of the web 2.0 tools that I learned about this quarter.  For my teacher leadership class I was assigned an action research project and decided to incorporate a web 2.0 tool into this project.  I had my team at school complete a survey monkey to show a need for a common website that we could all use and add to with our favorite websites.  The team agreed that this would be a great idea and I started the Symbaloo website.  Here is the link to the website: http://www.symbaloo.com/

The other web 2.0 tool that has been a huge success is the weebly website that I created for parents and students.  In just one week I have over 100 hits to my website!!!  The parents and students have found it helpful to have the plan for the week posted to the site along with the homework information.  I have discovered weebly to be very user-friendly and have suggested it to many of my colleagues.  Well, that's all for now!

ISTE Article: Save the World with Web 2.0

I enjoy reading the ISTE articles because I gain a wealth of information from them.  I decided to read the article titled “Save the World with Web 2.0” in the November issue.  The article first explained that students can use the social web 2.0 tools to participate in our global society.  Experts then discussed the five problems facing global citizens today and asked teachers to help students with these problems.  According to the article and Neil Postman, global citizens need to improve on stewardship, spirituality, democracy, diversity, and language.  For each of these five categories a panel led by Walter Parker created six questions that global citizens should try to meet.  Two of the questions that stood out to me include:

1.  How should we balance the right to privacy with free and open access to information?

2.  How should we develop shared global values while respecting local values?

The article then went on to provide examples of how teachers can use web 2.0 tools to promote these categories and questions with their students.  Since I am a science teacher I enjoyed reading about how teachers can incorporate Earth stewardship with their students by having the students read and comment on blogs, such as, the “Green Thing,” “Groovy Green,” and “Daily Green.”

I thought this article presented a lot of great information, but I think the suggestions may be too high level for my 6^th graders.

Dan Meyer: Class Needs a Makeover (TED video)

I enjoyed watching this video as I am certified to teach math, but do not teach math in my current teaching position.  I agree with the speaker, Dan Meyer, that many math students struggle with math reasoning and being patient problem solvers.  Dan included 5 symptoms of students that tell teachers that they are teaching math reasoning wrong.  These symptoms include:

1.  lack of initiative
2.  lack of perseverance
3.  lack of retention
4.  aversion to word problems
5.  eagerness for formula

Dan went on to explain in his lecture that teachers need to take textbook questions and turn them into questions that promote math reasoning along with patient problem solving.  Dan also stated that we need to insist on better math curriculum for our students and include the following five suggestions into our teaching to help our students be better at math.  Dan's suggestions are:

1.  use multimedia
2.  encourage student intuition
3.  ask the shortest questions you can
4.  let students build the problems
5.  be less helpful

What a great informative video and captivating speaker!

I just made a new Voki. See it here:

Do Web 2.0 Right

I have been so fascinated by all of the Web 2.0 tools that I have learned about so far in our technology class and I wanted to read an article about how to better incorporate the tools into my classroom.  The article I read was about a study that was done to see what teachers have found to be effective when using web 2.0 tools, such as, blogs and wikis.  Most teachers have found that is best to use the 2.0 tools as a daily practice instead of using them for a specific project.  It is important to note that the tools were not used the same way that adults would use them in the “real world,” but instead were used for communicating and sharing ideas.  The article then went on to talk about individual and classroom blogs.  It discussed that having a blog that was private between the student and the teacher seemed to be best.  However, classroom blogs proved to be effective when used to explore prior knowledge and /or generate interest in a topic.  Lastly, the article explained how essential it is that students understand to display appropriate behaviors when typing on a blog or wiki.  It is the goal of the teacher to strategically set up strong in-class communities for students to share ideas and respond to others.

Thought this was a great article and I just wanted to share!J

Here is the link to the article in the “Learning and Leading: With Technology”:

http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201102?pg=1&pm=2&fs=1#pg12

There's an App for This!

I have enjoyed getting to know the ISTE website and I chose to read an article about a teacher that was given the opportunity to use iPod touches with her students.  The teacher was able to have students access the internet, streamline videos, and download applications.  Also the teacher strived to use the iPod touches as assessment tools and classroom response devices.  This article went on to explain that the teacher utilized the Mobile Learning Assessment (MLA) to create her assessments and surveys of student learning.  Here is a link to the site: http://www.gwhizmobile.com/Desktop/MLA.php.

           

I thought this was a good article, but I am not sure that it apples to my teaching much because I do not have access to iPod touches.  I would like to use MLA to create pre-assessment and formative assessment questions, but I would use a digital response device instead of the iPod touch with my students.

TIP Presentations (Cubing)

I have truly enjoyed listening to my classmates the past two weeks present their TIPS and I am excited to implement some of them into my classroom.  Since I teach a section of 6th grade advanced science and I am always looking for ways to enrich this particular group of students, I decided to try the cubing method that Jason presented on in class.  Instead of playing a review game or giving the students review questions that I created, I came to the conclusion that I was going to incorporate cubing.  The students were given a cube template and some question starters for the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  The students had to create questions for each level using the Energy Unit that we were concluding.  The students worked in groups to fill their cube template with the questions they created along with a key of sample answers to their questions.  When the students were finished I had two groups share their cubes with one another by rolling the cube and trying to answer the questions created by the other group.  The students seemed to really enjoy this activity and I felt that it was an effective way for the students to prepare for the upcoming assessment.

Socratic Seminar

I was excited to read about the Socratic Seminar because this was not a teaching model that I had previously learned about.  Even though this is a method that I am unfamiliar with, I know feel after reading and partaking in the Socratic Seminar in class that this is a method that I would like to use in my classroom.  I teach a section of advanced 6th grade science and my gifted students truly enjoy having discussions over topics, ideas, article readings, etc.  I would like to find a higher level article for my students to read about cells, which is our next unit, and have the students discuss questions that I create for the socratic seminar.  Before implementing this with my students, I would have to discuss some rules for the Socratic Seminar.  I would like to focus on having the students interact in a respectful manner by listening to the other classmates without interrupting (this will be a hard task for my advanced students!).

I will write another post soon to let everyone know how my experience goes with using this method.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Instead of discussing how I would use one of the different instructional models I have read about, I decided to blog this time about the article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants."  I found this article to be very informative about how students today are different than the students years ago.  I liked how the article titles students today as Digital Natives because they are native speakers in the digital world.  Also, the article brought up teachers that have been teaching for awhile should be titled Digital Immigrants because they have learned like all immigrants to adapt to the digital world as an adult.  Being a younger teacher, I feel that I am in the middle because in the latter part of my schooling I was exposed to the digital world and it is more comfortable to me to include it in my teaching.  However, I believe that I need to keep in mind that the Digital Natives that I am teaching like to receive information fast and multi-task.  When I teach my lessons I tend to take time explaining each part or step and now I realize that I may be losing my learners by doing this.

I just found many "aha" moments in this article and I am going to post it in our teacher lounge at school so that my colleagues will have a chance to see our students in a new light.

Teacher Work Sample Insights and Instructional Strengths/Weaknesses

While completing the Teacher Work Sample, I have been able to reflect on the instructional strategies I have been using in my classroom.  I have found that I am really good at creating pre-assessments and implementing them with my students.  This process has showed me new ways of creating pre-assessments and the importance of analyzing the data collected in order to make sure that I have appropriate learning goals for my students.  Also, I have found that I am able to create learning goals based on the standards, but I struggle to find activities that fit with the learning goals.  My last "aha" has been that in order to be an effective teacher I need to spend more time on planning instructional strategies that are appropriate for the students in my class AND the learning goals that I am trying to have each of my students master.

Concept Development and Concept Attainment Models

Since in my last blog I described how I will utilize some of the Cooperative Learning strategies, I will focus this entry on the Concept Development and Concept Attainment Models.  A colleague had introduced me to the Concept Development model, but it was not until I read the chapter that I truly understood the steps involved.  For the next school year, I would like to incorporate this model when introducing our Energy Unit.  I would allow the students to list as many items that they can think of that are associated with energy.  Then, the students would find a way to logically group the items and label each group.  The last step would be to have the students reconsider their previous thinking and labels that they created.  Students will also justify their groups and any regroupings that they made.

Another way to intrude our Energy Unit would be to use the Concept Attainment Model.  I would like to model the classroom scenario that was in the chapter for introducing energy as the "capacity of a physical system to perform work."  I would have to identify the attributes of energy that I want students to understand like 1) a force that can be converted, but not destroyed and 2) a force that can change from one form to another.  I would then have to select some examples and non-examples of energy that I would share with the class.  Some of the examples would be a bicycle, a toaster, a solar panel, etc.  Some of the non-examples would include a brick, a desk, an old tire, etc.  I would then walk my students through some examples and non-examples while having students list the common attributes.  The students would finally hypothesize what the concept is after looking at all of the common attributes of the examples.

I think both ways that I have described here would be great for introducing the Energy Unit in my 6th grade classroom!

Cooperative Learning - The Graffiti Model

After reading about the graffiti model and actually going through the model in class, this is a teaching method that I am excited to implement in my classroom.  I teach 6th grade science with four sections of regular science and one section of advanced science where I have many students of high-ability.  My advanced science students are reaching the end of our energy unit and I was thinking about a way to quickly assess students informally before moving on to the unit assessment.  I will break the class of 24 students into 6 groups of four students each.  I will post six questions around the room on chart paper and each group will receive a different colored marker to write their responses on the chart paper.  Each group will have 3 to 5 minutes for each question and will fold the chart paper up after writing their answer.  Once all groups are finished, we will look at the responses and share.

Here are a few questions that I am thinking about for the graffiti activity:

1.  Provide an example of when you have observed the Law of Conservation of Energy and explain how it demonstrates the law.

2.  Use your knowledge of energy resources to persuade the President of the United States to invest more money in one renewable resource and explain why you think it would be the most beneficial to the United States.  Make sure to defend your decision and include one disadvantage of the energy resource that we will have to overcome.

3.  Pick one object/item that shows energy transforming as it is in use.  Write down the object that your group chooses and explain how the energy is transforming in the object.

4.  Explain the role of the Sun in creating fossil fuels.

Test

My six year old cousin told me this joke during our family Christmas and I thought it was rather funny.

What kind of car does Mickey Mouse's wife drive?

A Minnie van!