Guiding Priciples Revisted

Below are my original guiding principles with comments, additions, and changes made!

• Address my 5 E's: Engage, Enhance, Excite, Explore, Express - this is really a guiding principle for my teaching (I have it up in my room) so it has to also guide my use of technology. I think the second and fourth (Enhance and Explore) and integral when incorporating technology. The technology has to be able to enhance the lesson and reach the students in a different way. Also, this class has reinforced the idea that the students need to explore on their own as much as possible. If technology can supplement labs (particularly to address time and equipment constraints) then it's definitely worth incorporating.
  
• Use "new things in new ways" when appropriate and applicable - still true
  
• Make the technology fit my lessons instead of making the my lessons fit the technology - I think this is the most important for me to remember. When I'm looking into new technologies no matter how cool it is - does it fit my objectives or am I trying to force it in because I want it to work?
  
• Address the needs of my particular students (with mild to moderate learning disabilities) particularly their various learning modalities - I need to always keep my student population in mind and take into account their accommodations and assess whether what I'm asking them to do is going to add to their learning or detract because other interferences are preventing them from utilizing the technology.
  
• Allow my students to become more independent thinkers - Always!
  
• Ensure that the content is still the focus and that the students are not getting bogged down in the mechanics of the applications - I also found that simplification is key. Incorporating technologies but making them accessible and user friendly will be key to mine and their success. If I'm having trouble with something or think it's too complicated, chances are at least some of them will have the same trouble - then how do I help them?? I need to think about my least technology proficient students - will they be able to use this effectively?
• Technology integration needs to be supported and understood by administration and other teachers. Without this my projects will get derailed faster than they got started. Luckily I have the technical support and equipment and I think as long as I can demonstrate how these integrations will benefit our students, others will buy in (and want to incorporate new things as well)

I think these princinples will continue to morph and change slightly but I think they provide a good foundation for my foray into utilizing more technology in the classroom.

Final Reflections

I signed up for this class at the last minute and felt (arrogantly) that I wouldn't really learn new things but really just improve on technology skills that I already had. It was a big blow to the ego when I discovered I pretty much knew nothing and was swimming upstream without a paddle. However, it was comforting to see and hear that many of us were in the same boat and that together we could navigate uncharted waters. Thank you to everyone in this class in my new PLN for providing guidance and encouragement when I needed it.

In looking back I think my key word this summer became balance; balancing classes, summer school, and life; balancing many new technologies coming at me from all new channels; balancing my desire to incorporate EVERYTHING with my understanding that it just can't happen; balancing my perfectionism with practicality; balancing my excitement about new technology with the awareness that there is going to be a learning curve for me AND my students. In the end I think I came out fairly even. Luckily I still have a few weeks to relax (vacation to the Adirondacks), regroup, and refine before starting back to school.

I look forward to school getting started and seeing how my projects as well as those of my classmates evolve throughout the year. I'm sure we will "see" each other in the virtual world soon!

All Good Things...

...must come to an end. With the end of our class approaching I'm left with the daunting task of incorporating some of the things that I have learned. Below are my technology incorporation project plans. I've been trying to really get A LOT of the leg work completed because I know once school starts, I will have less time to "tinker". Luckily, I now know definitely what classes I'm teaching next year (3 Algebra 1, 2 Biology --- Yay!!) so I'm better able do some real integration plans. So without further ado, here are my ideas.

1) The Catalyst - A class wiki for my Biology classes that will serve as a collaborative hub for the class. I created the wiki using Wikispaces. I've been pretty happy with their features (particularly quickly providing a complimentary educational upgrade that removed the ads from the wiki) and have found the editing features easy to use. One of my big issues with wiki's in general is the boring layout. Therefore, to spice it up a little, I used Glogster Education(another tool brought up in this course) to create a poster for my home page.

2) CA Teacher Resources - Another wiki created as a collaborative space for the teachers at my school. I think one of the most powerful outcomes of this course (second only to my personal development in technology integration) is passing many of the tools and tricks I've learned on to my fellow staff members. The wiki includes a lot of the information that we've discovered during the class. Teachers can explore this as well as add their own information. Hopefully throughout the year, teachers will add links that they come across.

3) Ms. Theobald's BioBlog - I decided to also create a blog for my Biology class. It will serve as a place for class discussion about articles, class topics, etc. My students have a lot to say but sometimes have trouble expressing themselves. I've used discussion boards before but I think this will open up so much more to them. There's link to my the blog on the wiki so they can easily get to it. I decided to go with Edublogs because of their focus on educational blogs and their numerous features for monitoring and moderation. Your account also allows you to set up student accounts that you can monitor as well as change student permissions. Later in the year (after the students have become familiar with the blog), I plan to alternate making them "contributors" to the blog which means they can go in and write a blog post but can't publish it. I can then edit it if necessary and publish it. I'm excited to give the students ownership of the blog as an assignment and think that will just further their interest in blogging.

4) Screencasts - I had never thought of using screencasts for class before taking this course. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm very interested about exploring their capabilities particularly because of my student population. Many of them have trouble when dealing with a task that has many steps and therefore may struggle even trying to use some of these technologies. I think screencasts would be a great way to introduce these tools (How to navigate the class wiki, how to comment on a blog, etc.) and then they can reference them when they are having trouble. Also, as I said before using them to present to students who are absent or to serve as a review for tests could be a very useful tool. I will definitely be using the screencast I created for class to allow the students to review concepts outside of class.

5) A little more - I plan to actually pare down the number of simulations I use (I think I use them too often without really examining their value and effectiveness) and bring in more inquiry based activities. I plan to use the CIESE: Human Genetics Project and a few projects on the WISE site. I also plan on using Glogster and Voicethread as alternative ways for students to express themselves and as alternative ways to assess understanding.

Please take a look around at my plans and let me know what you think. Thoughts? Modifications?

Week 7 PLN

As I mentioned last week, I'm excited to see how my PLN will transform once school gets in full swing. Hopefully, it will become a place where I can get quick, helpful to answers as I try to incorporate my new tools in the classroom. I got more into the Classroom 2.0 groups this week. I think that's another place that will open up many doors once school starts.

My other big triumph (which is not really a triumph at all) was to actually join the Biology listserv on the NSTA website. Several people had mentioned it here and I kept meaning to do it and then would forget. So now I'm set up and ready to go and even though it's still summer there are some valuable things coming through and I think it will prove to be a great source of information.

I know for most of you this isn't your medium but does anyone know of good PLN resources for teaching students with learning disabililties. My school caters to students with learning disabilities and I was looking for some PLN resources to tap into for that. Any thoughts??

****Edit: Just opened my Google Reader and there was a post about a website for teachers of students with special needs. My PLN coming to help again. However, if others have resources, I would still greatly appreciate them!!! Viva la PLN!!!!****

Webinar

Well, I finally attended a webinar this weekend. As I mentioned on the class wiki, I participated in the Classroom 2.0 Live session called "How to Create a Great PowerPoint Without Breaking the Law". The archived session can be viewed here.

This session was my first foray into webinars and Elluminate. Because I was paranoid about having trouble, I watched a screencast about the features the night before. Logging in and getting set up was very simple. I found Elluminate very intutive and easy to navigate. It provided a very good platform for the session.

In regards to the content, it was pretty good. Having worked with PowerPoint quite a bit, some of the tricks I was already familiar with. There was a lot of information about ways to best draw in (and not lose) the attention of your audience. Working with mostly ADHD students, retaining attention is key to my success. The other focus of the presentation was copyright. Every time I've tried to hash out the copyright situation this summer, the same pattern has emerged. About half through, I have a moment of clarity where it all makes sense and by the end that clarity is a distant memory that has been clouded by what appears to be contradicting and confusing information. However, I do believe that each time I'm exposed to it, I pick up something new that sticks. The presenter did a little "is it legal or not" series of polls at the beginning and then explained the answers. These real world examples were very helpful for me.

Overall, it was a very good experience. I love that all this information can be so easily accessed now. I don't have to find the time to attend a seminar or be constrained by where something is taking place. From the comfort of my home (in my pajamas if I so choose) I can participate in a live session on topics that interest me. Love it!

Powerpoints, Screencasts, and VoiceThread

Well one thing that was reaffirmed this week is that I'm a perfectionist who hates the sound of her own voice! Luckily, I found the screencast, made through screencast-0-matic, very easy to create (particularly to redo or edit when necessary). I'm curious what applications this could have. Here were just some ideas that I've been batting around.

1. Using screencasts for pre-arranged absences. I'm planning to attend the NSTA conference in Florida this fall and would be missing two days of school. Typically (because we are a small school community) we just cover for each other when there are absences and those days would probably be spent doing seat work or independent work. This would allow the class to move foward without me there.
   
2. Using screencasts for students who are absent (particularly ones who are chronically ill and out for many days). This would allow them to stay current with class material.
3. Using screencasts for students with presentation anxiety. Along with learning disabilities that my students have often comes a presentation anxiety that prevents them from comfortably making class presentations. Allowing them to do a screencast would allow them to do it until they are happy with it and present to the class without getting up in front of them.

I think VoiceThread is a really interesting tool. It would allow for some interesting discussion and conversation and I look forward to using it.

All my materials can be viewed on the class wiki.

Week 6 PLN

One of my biggest issues with my PLN this summer is that my use of it was all centered around how I could use it, what applications it could have, and how it could fit into my guiding principles throughout the year. While I have identified many positive aspects over the past several weeks, it's all been hypothetical as I'm not currently in school. I think that over the past few weeks I've learned to manage my PLN and and use it effectively in my current situation (of being out of school) but that will all change once school starts. So now I really need to think about how I can best utilize my PLN to it's and my fullest advantage once the busyness of school has kicked into full swing. I don't want to abandon it as I think that a network of people with common threads is a very powerful and helpful tool but I also don't want it to become another thing on the to-do list that I have to deal with or that distracts from other objectives. I think PLN management will need to be incorporated into my guiding principles as I think the shaping of that over the next year will need to be a focus if it's something I want to maintain and effectively utilize (which it is - at least at this moment!)

Data and Inquiry

I really like the idea of using real world data in my Biology class but would need a few guidelines for implementing it: 1) It would have to be simplified so that there was not so much going on that they don't understand it. 2) They would have to be able to make the connection from our class work to the data. 3) Not using that in place of lab data but rather in conjunction with it.

I think one of the ways that it would be really helpful in my classes would be to choose data that corresponds to a lab that we are doing. One of the problems that we have in labs often is that in 45 min. classes my students aren't able to get results or enough results. Having a data set that goes in conjunction with the lab would allow them to do some real data analysis. Also, if they did get good results, they could compare them to the data set information and comment on differences in information.

I have done some web based inquiry activities before and they've gone fairly well. I really like the WISE site and CIESE and will definitely be incorporating them into my lessons. The hardest part I have with the inquiry activities is taking a more hands off approach and letting the students actually inquire (and even make misktakes!). While I've used those kind of activities before I think I need to examine my implementation so that the students are getting the most out of the activities.

Week 5 PLN

Between 2 classes, summer school teaching, and plain old life - I feel like I've abandoned my PLN this week. However, as I discovered today, they have not abandoned me. I wasn't able to peruse Twitter as much I would have liked. I have to say that despite my extreme skepticism, I think Twitter will prove to be a useful enough resource to maintain as this class is over. I won't ever be the kind of person that posts regularly or interacts with many people on a routine basis (just not my nature) but it's been such an easy, quick way to find some very useful information. Once school starts up again, I think I will pair down some of the people I'm following in order to maintain a manageable core group of people that have helpful, interesting things to share.

In my non-Internet world the other thing that kept me annoyingly busy this week was a complete overhaul of my classroom. Due to floors being refinished, walls being painted, and repairs being made, I turned my room upside down. In this process I stumbled upon some books and resources provided to me by a former teacher at my school (that sadly I hadn't ever really looked at). One was about book about teaching Biology to student with learning disabilities (PERFECT!) If you're interested, you can get a copy online if you ask for an enrollment key. This of course led me to other resources online which led to other resources, and on and on and on! So my biggest PLN contributor was a teacher I no longer work with who left me some really great materials that I'm just now discovering. Now I'm really glad I cleaned out my room!

Thoughts on Week 4

Can't believe this class is halfway finished! It's funny because when I started I really felt that I had an average to above average handle on educational technology, and I've found that I was only touching the surface. Many of the applications and tools I've come across in the last 4 weeks will not only make my life easier (big plus!) but will definitely (when added appropriately) enhance the experience and understanding of my students.

In regards to this week, I enjoyed revisiting simulations I've used in the past and re-evaluating their effectiveness as well as finding new ones with the assistance of my classmates. Since we have access to Smartboards in our rooms, simulations are a really great way to add to a lesson. What I've struggled with in the past though is that students sometimes have trouble with the directions or just click through buttons without trying to understand what they are doing. This led me to do many of the simulations in class as a group which took away from the individual investigative approach to the simulations. Therefore, I need better structure for them in the future.

While I find Google Earth fun to play around on, I'm not sure if I would actually incorporate it into my lessons. I'm having trouble coming up with useful ways to incorporate it into Biology particularly because we remove the Ecology sections because we have an Environmental Science class that students take in 9th grade. If I end up teaching a section of Environmental again next year (small chance), I think it would be something that I could utilize. We are currently incorporating GIS software into our Environmental curriculum and Google Earth could be a good supplement to that. Biology teachers, what ways are you thinking about incorporating Google Earth??

My continually developing PLN has provided me with many new and interesting resources this week. I spent a few days this week trying to organize all the new information that I'm taking in and after making headway on that I feel a little less scatterbrained. My big fear is that I'll learn about all these new, interesting resources over the summer when I have time and then either forget about them when school gets busy or not remember where to find them. How are others organizing all this information?

Simulations Galore!

I use simulations a lot in class because I have a LOT of students who are very visual learners. Here is a list of some good resources I've come across (many of which I've used before). I include a brief description for many of the sites.

General Science

Exploratorium - Some simulations as well as some cool science information and activities
Nobel Prize Games - Science "games" (simulations) listed by subject

Biology

Databases

Here are four databases that I have pulled a lot of information and ideas from over the last few years. A lot of the simulations that I highlight below came from these sites: Biology Corner, The Biology Binder, TeachOne: Biology, and Interactive Biology.

Simulations

BioCoach and LabBench - Online labs and detailed tutorials through Prentice Hall
Koshland DNA - Online DNA exhibit created by the Koshland Science Museum (in DC).
Howard Hughes BioInteractive - The "Interactive" and "Virtual Labs" tabs are great!
Learn Genetics Lab - Online labs for genetics
Genetics Web Labs - Another database of genetics online labs
Biology in Motion
Virtual Microscope - Great supplement to microscope activity
Virtual Electron Microscope

Math

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - Math manipulatives
Illuminations - Math Simulations
Algebra Fireworks - Real-world application of inequalities

Honorable Mentions - not really simulations but worth mentioning/sharing

Math Bits: Math Caching - Online "geocaching" with math problems. The Math Bits website also has lots of good math information
Bugscope - You send them bugs and they will put them under their electron microscope and set up a time for you and your students to view them

Shout-Outs

Once a Teacher Blog
Bang Goes the Theory - new BBC series coming soon

Too Funny NOT to Share

Why Would you Knit That
Rejected Elements


Enjoy!

Check it out (if you haven't already)

I know several people have mentioned the Free Technology for Teachers blog. If you are not following their blog, I would recommend it!! What's nice is not only do they introduce some cool technology BUT below each entry is a little section on "Application for Educators" and "Related Resources". The site is a quick way to learn about a new tool, find possible applications, and explore other resources.

The reason I mention it is that today's entry is about enabling Google Earth Flight Simulator. Also, it is mentioned that they are creating a list of built-in layers that can easily be used in the classroom (something to look out for in the future!).

Alright, that was my plug - back to teaching summer school!!

Something to look forward to?

Saw a funny article on Twitter on the 46 stages of Twitter.

I think I might be headed down that path! I'm honing the ability to limit my time and accept that I can't read everything and am enjoying the articles and stuff that I do have time to read. We'll see how I feel about keeping up with it now that I've started taking another class this week.

That being said - funny video below expressing some of the sentiments that many of us have expressed about Twitter in the past couple weeks.



So which guy am I?? Hmmmmm....

Homo Sapiens Digital

Read an interesting article today by Marc Prensky about the benefits of the emerging digitally enhanced person or "Homo sapiens digital". Below are some interesting excerpts. It's definitely worth a read.

Digital technology, I believe, can be used to make us not just smarter but truly wiser. Digital wisdom is a twofold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity and to wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities. Because of technology, wisdom seekers in the future will benefit from unprecedented, instant access to ongoing worldwide discussions, all of recorded history, everything ever written, massive libraries of case studies and collected data, and highly realistic simulated experiences equivalent to years or even centuries of actual experience. How and how much they make use of these resources, how they filter through them to find what they need, and how technology aids them will certainly play an important role in determining the wisdom of their decisions and judgments. Technology alone will not replace intuition, good judgment, problem-solving abilities, and a clear moral compass. But in an unimaginably complex future, the digitally unenhanced person, however wise, will not be able to access the tools of wisdom that will be available to even the least wise digitally enhanced human.

I do not think technology is wise in itself (although some day it may be) or that human thinking is no longer necessary or important. It is through the interaction of the human mind and digital technology that the digitally wise person is coming to be. I believe it is time for the emerging digitally wise among us, youth and adults alike, to embrace digital enhancement and to encourage others to do so. With our eyes wide open to enhancement's potential harm as well as its benefits, let us bring our colleagues, students, teachers, parents, and peers to the digital wisdom of the twenty-first century.

Note: This article was originally published in Innovate (http://www.innovateonline.info/) as: Prensky, M. 2009. H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. Innovate 5 (3). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=705 (accessed July 4, 2009). The article is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, The Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University.

Happy....

4th of July!!




Hope everyone has a happy, safe holiday!!

Reflecting on a 3rd Week

Thoughts on the new stuff:

• I found the copyrighting material a little confusing (am I breaking the rules or not?). I felt like the logic kind of went in a circle.
  
• I enjoyed playing around with the photo editing material but am still exploring ways to use it. I think it would be helpful in documenting the things we do in class. I often take pictures of labs and activities and then to be able to edit/arrange/etc. those photos and post them on a blog would be nice. Students LOVE pictures of themselves! However, are there restrictions on posting pictures of students on the internet. We have pictures of them on our school website, so I would assume that some sort of waiver has been signed. Do I make them sign something???
• Perusing Flickr and Creative Commons provided many images that I can easily incorporate into my lessons. Creative Commons simplifies the whole copyright process which is nice.

In Other News

• It's been nice to have a week that had less new stuff because I really feel like it gave me time to settle into the "old" stuff.
  
• I do a lot of what Kelly referred to as multi-tagging but often open many windows and not get to everything and find myself bookmarking a lot for "later" (and for me later doesn't often happen). Recently I've found myself (because everything is there in front of me) reading more things on the spot instead of sending them into the abyss of later. (Sidenote: I started a delicious account but am still finguring out the particulars of that - I think it might just feed my "saving for later" addiction).

On the Twitter front

• I have established a healthy amount of people to follow and am really beginning to see the advantages. A tweeter (?) (@jameshollis) offered recently to help create or provide ideas for Smartboard lessons on tricky topics. I have also come across a lot of great articles that have led me to other great things. It's interesting because what I find often happens is that a link on Twitter ultimately starts me down a path where I find many more links and then suddenly I have many windows open and have read many interesting things that might now even be related to the original link. It opens a lot more avenues and channels to explore.
  
• While I've gotten quite a bit from the people I'm following on Twitter, I don't quite feel like I'm holding up my end of the bargin. My tweets have been few and far between. Part of it is my nature of not putting myself out there. I feel strange jumping into others "conversations" or throwing my ideas out there. I also seem stuck in the process of continuing to seek my own answers to questions or concerns instead of opening it up to people in my new PLN.
  
• So while I think I've gotten down a system and routine of getting information from others through these various routes, I need to work on getting my own information out there and utilizing the resources that are there. Less lurking!
  

Just Plain Fun

Came across this link in my Google Reader (from Farr-Out Links to Learning) and thought it was hilarious!



There are several others by the same group (Pong, Space Invaders, Pole Position). All quite entertaining.

Farr-Out Links also has some good educational sites and every Friday has a top 10 links/sites/videos/articles/etc. from the past week that they've come across. Some are funny/entertaining (hence the video) and others are educational.

More Photo Phun

I looked into the photo sharing sites recommended on our class page.

Flickr is great because it has a lot of searching options and you can find some really interesting images. I did some searches and started a Favorites list. You can post a slideshow of photos to a blog. Let's see how it goes!


Preliminarily it looks like you can do the same thing on Photobucket and Bubbleshare but I found the search options and quality of images better on Flickr (but admittedly haven't looked into the others as much).

**Just in case you were wondering, I have all the cell phone pictures because when I start talking about evolution in Biology, we talk about the evolution of the cell phone. It's fun and accessible. I even show a clip from Saved by the Bell with the really big cell phone.**



I think I'm having way too much fun with this!

**Edit: Also, when you add new photos to your favorites, they get added to your blog automatically**

Travel Reminiscing

Still having fun with Picnik and thinking about classroom uses while I'm familiarizing myself with the tools. Makes me want to travel more!

Having a Picnik!

Finally had a chance to get on Picnik this afternoon and really enjoyed playing around. I put together a collage of my trip to Maine last week. I found Picnik very easy to use and very intuitive.

Not sure yet how I would use this in class to add to a lesson. Images are always great to use in class but I'm not sure how using Picnik would add to that. Would love to hear how others plan on utilizing it.

Twitter tales and my new plan

Being an avid Facebook user for my social networking, I was relatively (or highly) disinterested in adding Twitter as I felt that it served a similar niche in my world. However, in the past couple days I've begun to see it in a new light. I've been able to read many interesting articles, discover many new resources, watch many new videos, etc. without having to put in the effort to find them. They have also caused me to stumble on other resources that I might not have before. While I still find the sheer number of updates that come in overwhelming, I'm accepting that I can't read/see/find everything.

New plan:

Follow a lot of people (that I believe could be a positive, contributing member to my PLN) and spend this time that I have in the summer monitoring the quality and usefulness of their posts as it applies to my objectives and then by the end of the summer or end of the class make some cuts. This will allow me to fine tune and establish a true set of individuals with skills, talents, and information that I can utilize.

Questions/thoughts I still have:

If you are following someone on Twitter and subscribing to their blog, is that overkill? Often many people update that they have a new blog post. Not sure if I need that if I subscribe to their blog in Google Reader.

Shout Outs:

Twitter4Teachers wiki. Randy posted this (thanks) on one of our class threads. It has several twitter accounts and blogs to follow group by discipline or interest. I was able to find some really great, helpful people to follow.

Smart Board Revolution A Ning set up for Smart board users. I found this by following @jameshollis.

Rush 2 Knowledge Lots of information about ways to incorporate various technology tools (including utilizing the Smartboard - which we have in each room). Found by following @starden

A What? Oh, a PLN!

Going into this week - I have never heard the term PLN. For all I knew it could have been anything. What I quickly discovered is that I have many PLN's for various things in my life but my virtual PLN (specifically my science PLN) was very small to nonexistent. Last week introduced me to blogs and wikis and I'm excited about their use in the classroom. In fact, I've signed up for an edublog account and have begun working on a blog for my high school Biology class. Hopefully throughout the summer I'll be able to create and save enough posts to have a good foundation going into the school year. My biggest concern with a blog is that I'll start it and then after a month or so fail to maintain it. So if I have some posts already ready to go, then I think I'll have a better chance of keeping it up throughout the year.

This week I worked on developing a PLN and finding ways to ensure that I keep up with it. I'm interested in websites like Classroom 2.0 and The Synapse (Biology Network) but fear that I will not keep up with them. I need to become familiar with what the sites have to offer to make sure that I use them effectively. Then when I need information throughout the year, I'll know where to look without a lot of fuss. I hate fuss!!

Google Reader and iGoogle has been very helpful in managing everything for me. It allows me to have a one stop shop for the information I need. However, having it all there makes me want to look at everything. Before at least if I checked my e-mail - I didn't have blog and Twitter updates staring me in the face begging to be checked as well. That being said, I really love having it all there I just need to put in personal time limits on the time I'm willing to spend looking through things. I have been away from my computer for a couple days because I was travelling to a wedding in Maine and I opened up iGoogle and had 360 news items in my Google Reader and that gave me a little anxiety. While I know that don't have to read everything, it's a little overwhelming!

Twitter -- hmmmm? Not sure about it yet. What I really like about it is that I feel very connected to people with similar interests. I thought it would be very similar to Facebook (which I use for social networking). I like that Twitter gives me a place for personal networking that I have have separate from the social. Like other posters have said I think it provides a great forum for articles and information and I also like the person that said - you are in control and if you want to stop following someone then do it! I also need to accept that I can't nor do I need to read everything. Katie, walk away from the computer!!! What I need to examine is what I hope to get out of it. That will help focus my efforts and give it more meaning.

Alright - off to wedding stuff. Have a good weekend to all my new virtual world friends.

The Great PLN Adventure

Step One: Examine the state of my current PLN.

In doing this first I had to mentally separate my general PLN from my science PLN. In doing this I basically discovered that my science PLN was very small. For one I'm at a very small school and while I can (and do) consult with other teachers regarding general education topics and struggles, we only have 4 other science teachers and none of them teach the subjects that I do. Therefore, they can't really provide me with as much information to fit into my science PLN. Therefore, one would logically think that I have sought outside networks to fill this science PLN void. Not really the case. This caused me to examine why.

Everyone always says don't recreate that wheel and I've always had a hard time with that because I always want to do and make my own things and I don't always step back to see what's out there. This is partly because I just want to make my own things (and make my wheel new, different, and exciting) but also because I feel like (whether it's always accurate or not) that it's too time consuming to sift through others' stuff and find something that's useful. I would rather just spend that time making it myself. Sometimes I'll stumble upon something but will forgot to look there again. This has always been a struggle of mine.

Step Two: Attempt to expand my PLN.

Thankfully, due to summer break (although I start teaching summer school next week), I have this time to examine and look for resources. My major objective in beginning this PLN expansion of 2009 was to remember that anything that I added needed to not only make my life simpler but more importantly make me better able to teach my students.

Through this what I have discovered (or reaffirmed) so far is that

• Two heads, 20 heads, 100 heads are much better and more efficient than 1
  
• Google Reader paired with iGoogle might be the best thing ever
• In order to get the most out of my network, I need to be part of the conversation instead of watching while the conversation goes on around me; making comments, responding to blogs, asking questions instead of just saying them privately to my comptuer.

Step Three: Share, Share, Share

Here are some things that I've come across or begun using to build the Katie PLN empire that you might also find useful **short description included**.

1. iGoogle - Coordinating your PLN. Marta has a great post about using this and I just want to put another plug out there. For me (who struggles to check things that are scattered in many different places) having my Gmail, Google Reader, Twitter, and other fun things like the weather, picture of the day, and to-do lists all in one place is great!
2. The Synapse - This is a network for Biology teachers (I know many of you teach other sciences - sorry!). One of the admins is Stacy Baker who has Miss Baker's Blog that many of us have looked at. Another one is Elissa Hoffman who many of us are following on Twitter. I found information about Synapse on Miss Baker's personal page about using blogs in science.
3. Finally here a couple more blogs I came across that are proving quite helpful. Successful teaching has a lot of good information on various tools to use in the classroom. Lab Out Loud has podcasts done by two science teachers who interview scientists.

Step Four: Continue the journey

On that note, I'm going to stop rambling and call this post finished.

Boy do I love YouTube

I went to find a video to post to try out embedding a video and found myself sucked into the YouTube vortex for way too long. My oh my.


The video is the first part of the movie Gattaca which I show to my Biology students. What I'm toying around with though is somehow doing it through a blog format where the video is posted (problem one: YouTube has it but it's in segments). If they watched a segment or two a night, they could post about it and answer questions. This would help to free up those days because it often takes me 4+ days to watch it in class (mainly because we spend several minutes at the beginning finding where we were and several minutes at the end doing end of class wrap up things). I'm not sure if this would work and would allow them to get the most out of the movie, but I will continue to think on it. Hmmm....

My Blog and Wiki Quest of '09

Here are some things that I came across in my searching --

Blogs first. In looking around I found a lot of the same blogs that other classmates had posted about. I also found a lot of info on incorporating blogs in the science classroom. I included a little bit of both in this post.

1. NSTA article about incorporating blogs into science teaching. It's from the Journal of College Science Teaching but it has really good information particularly rules for an effective blog in a science classroom. This is helpful because (for me) one of my main objectives is exploring effectivesness and ensuring that I'm incorpating technology effectively. It also has a table to addresses the modalities that a blog can address
2. I also found a site that has several science blogs that you can search through (I know - more searching). Not sure how useful it would be but I found a couple interesting science news sites that would be helpful when I have my students do current events.
3. As previously mentioned on other blogs, I liked Miss Baker's blog. It was a classroom blog in the true sense in that both the teacher and the students seemed to have an ownership and partnership of it. I'm still struggling with the upkeep of something like that. I think it would start off well but I don't know if it would be properly maintained throughout the year. Miss Baker also has a personal blog where she writes about Using Blogs in Science which I looked around on and had some cool and interesting tips, ideas, etc.
   
4. When thinking about using blogs in my room, I really like the idea of using them for discussion forums. I found a blog that is used for that same purpose. It's described as a place for high school biology students to discuss current topics, post articles, etc. I like the structure of it. It appears that clear guidelines were outlined (which I think is really important). Also, on the comments (some were in the 150 range which could get overwhelming) there were broken down by which paragraph the student was commenting on. This one was done on Edublog (which I haven't yet looked into) and that must be one of their features. I like the idea that you can comment on a particular part of an article and then maybe only read comments that people have made regarding that particular part. Then you don't have to read all 150 comments (unless you want to!)

Ok...on to the wikis. Here was my issue when searching for wikis - you are unable to actually see the process that played out in the creation of the wiki. When you search for them you are often seeing a finished product. While some of the final products look nice and have given me some ideas about possible uses in my class, I'm not able to see the evolution of the wiki. How did it get to where it was? What kind of facilitation went into its evolution? That being said, I found a couple things.

1. While I'm not a Chemistry teacher, I found this wiki useful. It involves a periodic table project where students were required to research an element and then update the wiki with their information. On the left sidebar directions, possible research sites, a rubric, and other things were provided. It seemed to be very organized and while I was not able to see how it all came together, the final product was interesting. Using it for a class project I think might be an interesting application.
2. The other helpful site I came across was on the TeachersFirst page. It has Wiki Ideas for the Classroom. What I like is that it provides ideas by subject of ways to incorporate a wiki. While I'm not sold on the wiki yet as something that I could use, it provides some interesting ideas. I like the idea of a student made glossary with definitions and illustrations created by the students. I have a lot of hassle with vocabulary and this would be an interesting, interactive way to compile all the terms that are so important in Biology.

Many ideas are playing out in my head right now and I will continue to post as thoughts and possible applications come to me. I like that so far there have been good discussion and helpful suggestions. The only big problem I'm having now is keeping up with my blog, the blogs I've posted on, the class wiki forums that I've posted on, as well as the class material. Lots of things to check. This then made me think of my students. If I try to incorporate all these things - is it just going to be a bunch of things for them to check and follow and get confused by. Hmmm...what's that about all things in moderation?

To Add or Not to Add?

My guidelines for incorporating technology (web tools in particular) center around the idea in the title. When is it appropriate to add technology? What tools can I (and my students) truly utilize? What are my motivations for incorporating technology?

I desire to (through technology):

• Address my 5 E's: Engage, Enhance, Excite, Explore, Express
• Use "new things in new ways" when appropriate and applicable
• Make the technology fit my lessons instead of making the my lessons fit the technology
• Address the needs of my particular students (with mild to moderate learning disabilities) particularly their various learning modalities
• Allow my students to become more independent thinkers
• Ensure that the content is still the focus and that the students are not getting bogged down in the mechanics of the applications
  

Hopefully through these guidelines (which I'll continue to refine throughout this course), I'll be able to address the question: To Add or Not to Add?

My Vantage Point

I've been teaching for three years at a small (~100 students grades 6-12) private school that caters to students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. It's a school that possesses and utilizes (or attempts to utilize) a lot of various technologies. We have Smartboards in each room and a strong emphasis is placed on incorporating technology into the classroom.

Because of that, early on, my approach was to haphazardly incorporate any and all technology that I could fit into my lessons. What I usually got in the end was a lot of frustrated students, confused parents, and an exasperated me. I thought I was enhancing the lessons by incorporating a million things but have discovered that I need to more closely examine and evaluate the effectiveness of the things I'm using.

While I'm still formulating eloquent guiding principles, my main focus with this course and with the broader notion of technology in the classroom is to answer the question: To add or not to add; What are effective additions and what am I incorporating (or trying to incorporate) for the sake of "being technological"? How can I use this wide of array of resources to truly enhance the experience of my students?

Starting to understand why...

the students often have to help me with things related to technology (because I dive in head first and then realize that I can only doggy paddle).

I think I'm finally getting on track on am looking forward to learning a lot.