Skipping the podcast for a moment. YouTube has been part of my teaching for several years now…and I learned a long time ago to preview content on YouTube BEFORE sharing it with the class, or if it hasn’t been previewed then to have the finger on the mouse ready to delete!
You can find just about anything on YouTube, and my students use it habitually and faithfully. I’m sure most of them have spent countless hours roaming around YouTube (as I have), and they go to it to find video and information on just about any subject that comes up in class.
For this assignment, I found two videos on camouflage: one on cuttlefish, and another on walking stick insects. Both will be useful in introducing the concept of adaptation at the beginning of the school year, and also for discussing the nature of scientific inquiry.
Back in June before school ended, Jim St. Pierre gave me a backyard worm composter for my classroom. So, for my “How to” video I searched for and watched several posts on How to Set Up a Worm Composting Bin. Simple enough, add dirt, cardboard, food scraps, and worms.
The last video I bookmarked is one that my daughter Mary just posted. For my birthday last week, she made a storybook video, where she scanned the pictures, added music and sound, and read the story “The Old Woman and the Willy Nilly Man,” which is one of our family’s all-time favorites. It’s a bit long, but since I love it so much, I think it’s worth a look.
I’m debating the usefulness of TeacherTube. It seems to be mostly geared toward elementary teachers, and like most sites that are designed “for teachers” they are limited in their content and scope. But, thanks for the exposure. It’s another site to add to the files!
I’ve used podcasts in the classroom and for my own personal enjoyment for a long time now. In fact, over the past 12 months or so, I’ve painted several rooms in my house, made countless dinners, and reshingled the henhouse while listening to several different podcasts. One of my favorite sites is The New Yorker magazine.
I appreciate the way in which they use podcasts to hook me into listening, and I can see how both ways could be used to hook students into learning just like printed materials and video. The first way is simply providing interesting material. One of my favorite podcasts on the site is noted authors reading short stories by other authors who have influenced them. There are also reviews of films, books, and plays.
The other way The New Yorker uses podcasts is to “tease” me into reading the articles in the weekly issue of the magazine. One of the editors interviews contributing writers and journalists, discussing how they developed and pursued their stories…about politics, war, history, the arts, whatever. They don’t read the article from the magazine, but they talk about it in a way to make it interesting enough for me to seek it out and read it later, which of course means I have to be a subscriber to have access.
Finding material for the classroom will not be difficult. There are podcasts available in just about any subject area in which I teach.
Delicious seems like a fancy sort of filing cabinet, where websites are documents and the tags are the names of the files. If I want some information on “Darwin” or “Easter Island” I go to my file cabinet (My Delicious), and open the drawers and the files by searching my tags. That seems efficient, especially for someone who has traditionally kept a list of important web addresses in email files, or in my head.
(I can’t help but wonder, however, what is going to happen with the personal data gathered about me…somewhere someone or something is tracking my searches and my tags. But that’s another topic.)
From the list of Tools I chose Weebly, which makes a “drag-and-drop” website. I’m still in the process of learning how to use it, and I’m also deciding which of the many formats might work best for my needs, but I see some interesting potential here.
What I want is an easily identifiable and readily accessible home page for each of the classes I teach, where I can post announcements, information, assignments, and links to class wikis, blogs, videos, web pages, and readings. I want it to be the one place – easily remembered – for students and parents to visit to get access to everything else they need.
There’s some useful aspects to Weebly pages – it can link to Flickr slide shows, YouTube, Google Maps, and more. It can download your own pdf’s so you can attach worksheets and assignments. I’ve found that photos must be limited in size to post on Weebly pages, and I imagine there is a limit to videos and documents as well.
I’m co-chair of one of the committees for the upcoming self-study as part of the 10-year accreditation process at FA. The task of the committee is to evaluate the facilities and technology of the school, and how they support our educational mission. Now, I don’t want to prejudice the committee’s findings, and while it is quite obvious that our school has undertaken tremendous steps in recent years to improve our physical plant, the technology at our school always seems to be one or two steps behind what is needed.
The lack of functional and useful technology in the classroom is one of the loudest and most common complaints I hear from my colleagues around the school. But, when I talk to those in the administration and in the technology departments, I’m told about all the big changes that have happened and all the big changes that are coming. After many years, however, the gap between what “could be” technologically and what is “reality” in the classroom seems to be growing wider. Could it be that the leadership in our school is unaware of how quickly the revolution in education and technology is coming?
For the K-12 Online Conference, I listened to the podcast “Leading the Change:
Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations”
Scott McLeod of Iowa State University discusses the idea of “Disruptive Innovation” which is set forth in books by Clayton Christensen. The way that McLeod describes it, many existing organizations and institutions – even good and effective ones – often disappear completely in new markets.
McLeod points out many examples of disruptive innovations that have changed our lives rapidly in recent years: digital cameras, MP3 players, laptop computers, cell phones. Each one has swept aside existing technologies – and the institutions associated with them.
The organizations and institutions that disappear when the “game is changed” often die trying to make the new technology fit into an old pattern.
Now, what are the implications for the field of education?
Well, according to the podcast, the change in education has arrived. Personal learning is here. By 2019, on-line courses will have a 50% market share in high schools. One should not assume that the current educational model, built upon 19th century standards, is a “given” any longer. And, like it or not, all of this change is going to sneak up on educational administrators and smack them right between the eyes.
I take some comfort in the ways that I have seen how FA is ahead of the curve in many educational areas…in our new international studies program, in our well-established alternative school, and in our expanding AP program, for example.
But how can FA survive as an educational institution in coming years? Here are some suggestions, from McLeod’s podcast…
- Don’t wait until the technology is “good enough.” By that time, it is too late. We should be using it now.
- Start with underserved user groups (home schoolers, AP, alternative school).
- Use different measures for success.
- Allow the innovations to compete with the existing organization for students.
The lesson here is to move now, not later. And am I correct in assuming that this movement is going to come from within our school and not from the top down?
Could anything be more obvious than to search for pictures of flickers?
The Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) behaves differently from most other woodpeckers. It can often be found sitting on the ground eating ants.
Picture by freespirit5 at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freespirit5/3365881760/
This has been the most difficult and challenging task for me so far, simply because I find myself getting lost in Flickr. I have literally spent hours looking at photos, on one topic after another. I’m spellbound by the quality of much of the work, and I’m amazed and heartened by the willingness of so many kind-hearted photographers willing to share their work through CC. And, I’m relieved to find so much that is not copyright protected.
I work with thieves.
I mean that in a good way. For many years, I have worked with some very creative and supportive colleagues in the science department, and we have no qualms about stealing – and sharing – ideas and materials from any source and from each other.
As I suspect that it is in most high schools, we often take copyrighted worksheets, curricula, articles, web pages and images and modify them and make them our own. (To our credit, we do try to give credit where credit is due). And, we steal from each other. I’ll take interesting looking assignments off of my colleague’s desk. And, it is not uncommon to find something I’ve created on their desk – sometimes modified for their needs.
Please understand that not everything I do in class is a stolen idea. I have worked extremely hard over the years to create and write my own unique lessons that I believe that are, in many instances, quite strong and effective. And, I have always been happy to share what I do, and create – with colleagues, interns, fellow teachers, parents, whomever.
I’ve done all this in relative anonymity, tucked away at a quiet little school in western Maine. However, with the Web, increased use and sharing of materials involves more care and more responsibility…and less outright theft.
As I begin thinking about the use of copyrighted and uncopyrighted materials available on the Web, I have two concerns. The first deals with the quality of the material…is it useful as educational materials? The second deals with the scientific accuracy of the material…is the information provided from a primary source or from a blog?
I searched for materials using both OER Commons and CC Search, using the same key terms (“Darwin’s Finches” and “Cuttlefish”). CC Search took me to many commercial sites and blogs…some of which were interesting but not all that useful. And I had concerns about the scientific accuracy.
Doing the same search through OER Commons, however, seems to be more fruitful, taking me to sites on Darwin’s finches or cuttlefish that have educational promise. Both OER Commons and CC Search provide access to some great materials…and just like with any other source, I’ll have to be careful what I steal.
I purposely chose what I believed would be a controversial Wikipedia entry, “Darwinisim” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism.
Sure enough, there is a very long history of discussion and continual revision on the subject. And, to the credit of the page admin(s) they have maintained a civil and factual discourse on the page. That is not to say that behind the scenes, however, there hasn’t been an emotional, and sometimes heated controversy – between scientists and non-scientists alike. It is interesting to see how skillfully and artfully the administrators have kept the non-scientific statements off the page, while accepting and incorporating factual revisions on the topic. Nice job.
Unlike physics or chemistry, biology is a science based in words. One of the first assignments every fall in Honors Bio is to memorize a list of about 125 Greek and Latin vocabulary roots. These are words such as erythro- (which means “red”) and cyte- (“cell”). Students need to master this long list in order to understand biology terminology better, so an erythrocyte automatically becomes a “red blood cell” in their mind.
When I look at the wiki examples, I see that good wikis are well-defined. Rules and expectations for participation are clear. The focus is limited. Tasks for students are simple, and the identity of the group is well-known. One of the most attractive, and seemingly successful sites is Welker’s Wikinomics http://welkerswikinomics.wetpaint.com/?t=anon
Another sign of success is when the students seem to have ownership in the site, such as at http://acrospire.pbworks.com/. It is their place, their information. And the content is organized in a way that the students choose (which gives it a better chance to be useful and not just words on a page).
And, the better sites seem to be fun: http://kcountingbook.wetpaint.com/. I can imagine the enthusiasm and excitement as this site developed. I bet it went more quickly than the teacher first imagined.
So, I’m thinking that one of the first wikis developed this fall in my class will deal with the definitions of those root words. Maybe students will choose a certain number of words, define them, and then post pictures of examples of those words in use. It will be clear, simple, fun, and “well-defined.”
Erythrocyte (red blood cell): http://www.becomehealthynow.com/body/cell/erythrocytes.htm
Arthropod (jointed leg): http://www.pbase.com/merriwolf/image/76631994
Why do I feel like a salmon swimming upstream?
Wiki’s are now obsolete?
OK, Wiki’s are old news, at least according to the developers of Etherpad. What about Diigo that was so cool just a few days ago? While it’s exciting to see a new app come on the scene it makes me feel like I’ve just entered the river, there are miles and miles to go, and all of a sudden someone has put a new dam in my way. Forget about spawning…please just let me make it over the next digital hurdle. Information overload.
Instead of fighting, I guess the attitude is simply to go with the flow here. Enjoy the journey. And, like I said in an earlier post, I’ll look forward to getting back to school and trying some of these toys out in real classroom situations. In the meantime, I’ll keep swimming.
