Video project in my science classroom

Instead of just watching a Power Point lecture about birds of North Carolina and taking a test on it to see what students have memorized, my students are using digital tools to create short reports. The hooks was I showed them an animation of a character similar to the South Park characters. After seeing the intro animation, one of them mentioned that they would like to learn how to make their own animations.

I need to take the time to write up the instructions on how to do this. Instead of giving the students written instructions, I used a digital projector and modeled each step on a screen. The most interesting aspect of this activity was that a couple of students finished their project and volunteered as peer tutors.

Students had to present their project to the class using a digital projector and telling about their birds as a oral presentation.

Students used a performance rubric to assess their projects and learning. This video below is not complete. However, the other individual projects will be posted on Google Video.

Using Wikis for Relevant Resources

In thinking about how science teachers can make instruction of middle school topics, I ran across the TeacherTube.com site. The site has many useable videos. However, when I searched the web for topics like plant cells, or chemical change, I keep getting YouTube references. I have used YouTube in my classroom, but found that after students played the video clip, they wanted to immediately search for Rap, wrestling, or anything to "entertain" them. YouTube does a great job keeping middle school students, and adults, clicking on their site. Clicks equal revenue for YouTube and I understand all that.

I found a neat little trick when embedding YouTube clips. It customizes the embedded clip. After making your selection, copy and paste the embed code above. The code changes based on your selection. Select "Don't include related videos." This trick lets the video play and then when the clip ends, other "related" links do not appear. This takes a couple of extra steps, but it well worth the effort when trying to keep my students on-task. I thought about using the online sites that convert YouTube video, but that takes hours and lots of storage space.

How will students relate to the videos and are the concepts they show verified for authenticity? What strategies did I use to evaluate the information?

On-line sources such as radio archives can turn up news stories that you can play using streamed audio players. Listening to a speech by a major science figure can provide nuance and context missing in printed accounts. Streamed video make it possible to watch television newscasts and documentaries archived on-line. Chat can be a frustrating and uneven tool, but used properly, it can help you find tips or even quotes relating to a story.

In looking at YouTube and trying to evaluating a clip, I used this basic strategy. Hypertext establishes links to banks of information, leading to the assumption that ideas are always backed by evidence. But a hypertext discussion can be manipulated by the choice of those links. What appear to be inevitable connections to related facts are actually *choices* made by page designers and video producers whose views are reflected in their selection of links and scenes. A key component of digital literacy is wariness. The links that are missing from a web page or video clip can tell you as much about the author's intentions as the links that are present. Notice whether the links made available point both to other sites as well as to the site you're looking at; if they're all inward pointing, you may want to ask why the site's developers haven't chosen to contrast their work with the ideas of others. I also used the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and searched YouTube, TeacherTube, and other sites using keywords from the objects.

Wikimapia in my science class

This looks like something teachers could use. It is free. This example shows our campus. I can see my students could use this to illustrate blog posts as they research coastal resources, landforms, changes of earth's surface, freshwater, and much more.

Surviving Spring Cold-Motorcycle Rally Week-EOGs

Coughing, scratchy throat, chills, no energy and to top that off- gas prices that border on insane. These days it is a challenge to stay positive. This week has been motorcycle rally at Myrtle Beach, and at 11 p.m., I can hear the rumble of their motors as they pass along the highway nearby. I am not really sure what a spring cold has to do the motorcycles, much less what it has to do with education. But, it is what our classroom must be like to our kids. They have the rumble of their personal lives pounding in their heads much like standing beside the highway and watching to flashy bikes parade to the beach. They, like me, have their minds elsewhere. Still, high stakes testing, and the fear of failure, hovers over their environment like a spring cough. Never able to get comfortable. Then when they think they have it under control, it is something else.

To make my spring cold bearable, I my antihistamines, cough drops, expectorants, and soft tissues. I can pull up videos of motorcycle riders on the web and watch news coverage on a South Carolina TV station. Most of my needs are meet. On the other hands, the needs of my students, preparing for their EOG and EOCs is not very warm and fuzzy. We make them sit in a classroom, drill and practice, review and recite, and feed them popcorn and pat them on the backs and tell them how well they will do if they just try.

Teachers are not just sources of information, we have to coach students. Sometimes, it is not pretty. Surviving EOG and EOCs in North Carolina is like trying to stand be side a highway with a group of puppies on motorcycle rally week with a spring cold.

If it don't kill you, it has to make you stronger.

Science Teachers Resource

This is a really interesting article to me. About tens years ago, a group of educators received a tour of regional factories. It was part of an initiative to help teachers better understand the demands industry placed on their workforce. One of the plants we visited made nuclear fuel pellets. They look like dark gray mini marshmallows to me. Today, I read that researchers have learned that reshaping those pellets by basically cutting out the holes like Krispy Kreme dough nuts, will increase their efficiency by half. So, if that is true, them maybe we should invent a doughnut shaped everything. How about dough nut shaped food in our school cafeteria? Doughnut shaped pizza would increase student's efficiency to learn by 50%. How about doughnut shaped coffee cups for teachers. Now, I would be for that. Then I could finish my lesson plans in half the time. I wonder if I invented a doughnut shaped textbook, classrooms would become 50% more efficient? Or, how about a doughnut shaped computer...yeah now that is the ticket...Hey! Steve Jobs!-- I know you read my blog (yeah right-- in my dreams), how about a dough nut shaped iPod? It could increase its efficiency 50%.



I think I need some coffee. Check out this resource for your environmental classroom at http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/index.html

It may be a little over high level for most of my kids, but if you teach AP Environmental, add it to your list of required reading if you have not already done so.



ES Online News: Reshaping nuclear fuel

Reshaping nuclear fuel

Doughnut-shaped fuel can cut nuclear energy's environmental impact.

light-water nuclear reactors

Westinghouse Corp.

When used as fuel for light-water nuclear reactors, the hollow 14-mm cylinders shown here can increase efficiency by 50%.



By reconfiguring nuclear-fuel pellets into "dough nuts", scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way to boost the amount of energy that nuclear reactors produce by 50%. The new design also helps diminish the chance of meltdown by slashing the temperature at which reactors must be operated, and it renders the spent fuel more proliferation-resistant.

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Classroom Podcasting in the New Year

This past September, I purchased a new iPod Video. Thousands of them have been bought, and so far it is working fine. My Belkin microphone word fine. I do not like the way it sounds when it is set on stereo. My favorite audio recording device for classroom podcasts is not my iPod and Belkin mic. I prefer recording directly into GarageBand with a USB headphone with mic. My students rehearse their podcast using the built in mic on our classroom iBooks. To prepare for their segment by reading, researching, discussing, and writing about their assignment. If we are introducing a chapter in science, instead of outlining the chapter, or reading it out loud, students are assigned short answer questions and are asked to correctly answer on the tape. I know, you are thinking, but this is nothing more than using technology for as a worksheet.

This criticism is true. However, this is a strategy I have been using with that are reluctant readers. I discovered that when given the proper topic, they can develop questions, and conduct very professional interviews. One that worked for me surfaced last year. Our district developed a student dress code. After the students listened to the newly board approved rules, I turned on the recorder in GarageBand and backed away and just observed. They interviewed each other and discussed their feelings about the new dress code. I was blown away. They did not write a word down, it was all live. After they listened to it, they commented that they wished they had remembered to say "this and that". The teachable moment: I reminded them that a good interviewer makes a list of questions before conducting their interviews. If I had made them write ten questions before they started recording, they would have wined and complained and probably never completed the podcast. So, my constant struggle with having students create podcasts has been pre-writing and rough-draft stuff. My students want immediate gratification. They are all about "playing" with computers, and do not like "doing work." I have used the podcast templates from Willow Radio. I was not able to find the link to their page. Must have been moved.

Try it, you will like it. Bottomline, podcasts are not easy, but the kids like them if they think that someone is listening.

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Cool Site for Teachers

The winners of the 2006 Edublogs Awards were announced this week and although TeachingTeachingTeachers didn’t win. The award organizers did post the voting breakdown.

Check out the results of the Edublog Awards 2006

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The Earth Science World Image Bank

The Earth Science World Image Bank is a service provided by the American Geological Institute (AGI). This Image Bank is designed to provide quality geoscience images to the public, educators, and the geoscience community. Click on one of the images below to browse that category or go to the Search Images page for an advanced search.

January 2006 - The Image Bank now has over 6,000 images available to search, making it one of the largest sources of Earth Science imagery available on the web! So start searching today!!!

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