Learning continues

This month I conducted a new class in PODetc entitled "Focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math): Instructional Technology Strategies for Science and Math." I also decided to participate as a student in three other PODetc courses occurring concurrently but taught by other teachers. I also am a full time teacher and department chair in science so how I survived is a minor miracle!!! But that is not what I want to address here. The courses I participated in were:

• Survey of Emerging Technologies taught by Theresa Stanley
• Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom taught by Connie Jaeger
• Technology Literacy 102: Building Knowledge Management Systems taught by PODetc founder and CEO, Tammy Stephens

First, I have to say that I am lucky to be working with such knowledgeable and versatile instructors. They make the courses interactive and meaningful for all students coming in at all levels and experiences. It was really a great opportunity for me to participate in the discussions and activities both with the other students and with the instructors where my role this time was a student.

While I have of course reviewed all of our PODetc courses and have regularly lurked in the background to keep current with our offerings, participating as a student was a great learning experience. Among the four courses we built blogs, wikis, nings, delicious networks, diigo lists, interactive lesson plans, collaborative rubrics, Intel lessons emphasizing critical thinking, collaborative concept maps and more. Not only did we build them but we put them to work and found applications to each of jobs outside of the course. Instructors helped me stretch my use of these valuable tools and guided me in linking them together for ease of access and application. In our discussion groups we addressed the challenges of teaching students in this age of technology when our backgrounds, budgets, audiences, and resources span the gamut of possible combinations and complexities. We evaluated samples of each others work and each found growth and improvement through the feedback we received.

I cannot emphasize how valuable this month has been to me in terms of really fine-tuning and motivating my own skills as an educator!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to our fabulous instructor and students!!!

Wikis

I like wikis and have used them in my high school classes for a variety of group projects. One thing I've done with a general bio class is to assign each student a topic of review for an exam. I make a page for each of them to edit in advance and they have a rubric of what is expected for the page. On the due date, the entire class reviews each page and then we can add to it as needed and get an active review while peer editing for each other. I've had some interesting results with this and am going to use it again this year to review for our final exam.

More thoughts on RSS feeds

In terms of using RSS feeds with my students, I think we could do current news/events by connecting to a science feed. Every day as a start up to class my students could select one of the new headlines to explore. I have a SMARTboard so I could just have the Google reader opened up that feed and then let them decide which one to read about as a warmup. It would keep the topics current and give them some choice in exploring things that might be of particular interest to them. It also will serve to broaden some cultural horizons as those feeds come from all over the world and often are about things you might not have expected if you confine yourself to your normal neighborhood (in other words the culture in which you grew up)! I will continue to think of more ways to incorporate this into the class!

RSS feeds

I've seen the RSS link on blogs and other sites and I've had RSS feeds through various news agencies, but I did not fully realize that you could also do an RSS feed on anyones blog!!! I think it is very cool. I still feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that comes through at a constant pace, but it is nice to be able to filter through headlines and look for those things that might be particularly applicable.

This starts to make me think about how important that head line is in terms of being descriptive and concise!!!

I've signed up for two new blogs - one is Curious Cat: Science and Engineering Blog and Science Blog Channel. The first gives links and information on STEM related education which is an area I'm strongly interested in. The second is science as it happens and it allows me to really find active, current news to use at the time in classroom - kids like to feel they are first to hear it!!!

Social bookmarking

I've been gradually getting hooked on social bookmarking. I love the fact that I can store my bookmarks on the web and therefore access them anywhere. I also like the use of tags although I don't think I've developed the "best" system of tagging yet - at least in terms of later remembering what I saved something under!

I'm just starting on the social side of it in terms of sharing and looking at other people's favorites. I do like the fact that you can "piggyback" on the work someone else has done to find a site they think worthy of saving even though we may not all respond to the same site in the same way.

As with the other tools, I'm thinking of how I might use social bookmarking to help my students learn.

Blogging 101

I've been asking my students about blogging and twitter and have received a range of responses. Some at least follow some twitters (or is it tweets???) and a few do blogs, but noone has admitted to a full time passion for it!! This makes me think that most avid tweeters and bloggers are working professionals. Which brings up another question for me - time!!! I get frustrated by feeling like I don't have time to make relevant posts or tweets and who would want to read them anyhow!! Is it something that you learn as you go and get better with practice?

So I am trying to find ways to use blogging with my students in science - what can I do with my chemistry students to help develop those communication skills my science students need to compete? Do we dialogue about chemicals in the environment? Do I find a research scientist willing to "blog" with us?

Tell me how others are using blogs effectively with high school core subjects and how you regulate use of the tool and measure its results!

Time in the 21st Century

I know that this thought has crossed all of our minds at frequent intervals, but where does all my time go. I love technology but it is often hard to keep up with the emails and blogs and podcasts and.... But it is a great tool. It provides a space to "wax poetic" on a topic of interest to me and then allows others it might catch to interact. I work with high school students and am not yet sure how I might engage them with it but I'm eager to learn more!!

I welcome some ideas that any of you have employed to engage students of varying age and ability in active blogs with an educational focus.

Academic blogs

I really like Jenkin's blog about student blogs. I have only played with blogs but even with my minimal participation in this "sphere" I can see how much it would do in terms of connection. What a great way for students to learn to express themselves articulately, get feedback from a large audience, improve and eventually get noticed!!

I have not tried this with my high school students yet - I think some of the them would do well with it but I can also imagine that some would not know what to do. I have successfully done wikis so maybe I just need to take the plunge and try it!