Blog it

I decided I was finally ready to incorporate a blog into my class.  I decided that I didn't really want to manage it too much so I'm making the kids the authors.  I had some issues getting all of them to be "authors" but we will see how it goes.  I didn't want to do a wiki because I want them to be able to comment on each others' posts.

On this blog, one student a day (for extra credit) will summarize the days lesson and do some outside research on the topic as well.  They should find pictures, videos and anything else related to the lesson.  This way, the blog is also useful for a student who was sick and wants to learn about what we did in class.  Additionally, student can comment on the original post (for a smaller amount of extra credit) by linking in articles they found, or responding to the post.

I'm launching this Wednesday so hopefully it goes well - it could also be total failure.  I've got to try it to find out!

Here's the blog in case you want to check it out: www.wheelsearthscience.blogspot.com

Additionally, my students finished their Voicethread projects last week.  It went really well! It was so much better than last year - I learned a lot from what didn't work last year and I was able to fix (most of it) the issues we had. Tomorrow we spend some time commenting.  Overall I'm really happy with the project and look forward to doing more of them in the future.

Updates

So in the time since my last blog post I've definitely been using some of these tools and not others in my own classroom... (the caveat being that we have missed the last week of school due to Sandy!)

I've become totally hooked on delicious.  I've been finding awesome animations and visualizations to use in my class and tagging and sorting them on my own page.  Also, as I've found other people who find my links and I started looking at their links - a great way for me to do even more exploring.  I haven't yet shifted to using delicious with my students but I am pretty into it for myself!

I've concept mapped a little with my students on chart paper but I definitely haven't done it on the computer with them yet...

Using google docs to make a spreadsheet and create a graph with my students was very difficult.  I think the hardest part was the varying skill levels of the students.  Some kids are well versed in using computers so when I show/tell them to click on insert, some can follow easily and some can't.  Additionally the biggest issue is that some students graphing skills period are not great.  Students need to understand how graphs work before making one - on paper or on a computer.

Starting a Voicethread project with my kids this week ... will update with how that goes!

Delicious is delicious!

So last week I created my Delicious account and tagged a bunch of cool animations I might want to use in class.  Then - I actually used it! All week I kept returning to my Delicious page to find all the cool visualizations I found.  Then I tried going to the profiles of people who tagged the same videos as me and it was super helpful.  I will definitely keep using it!

Using Data

After making my concept map on colleges, again I thought why don't I use some data I can give my student to manipulate.  This month I'm going to work with my students on creating graphs so this data is something they can work with.  We talk all the time about how much money you can make with a college degree vs a high school degree so why not let them manipulate this when working on using data?

I'm pasting in the the data table and one possible graph you can make out of this.  Data is taken from the the National Center for Education Statistics

...Scratch that - I can't figure out how to get the data in the blog!

Concept Maps

I wasn't in class for the concept map assignment (Happy Rosh Hashana everyone) so I decided to make a concept map on a different topic.  I teach a college readiness course to my 10th graders and I spend a lot of time working with them on the various factors to get into college.  So instead I made a concept map about that - and hopefully I can show this to them at some point!

New blog!

This will be my new blog for Computers, Problem Solving and Cooperative Learning.  I'll be putting up work for the mini project as well as some of the computer work I've done in my own classroom!