Virtual Storytelling, Science in Plain English and Geocaching, Oh, My!

Whew... lots going on this week.  Lala is feeling much better but I'm counting the days until my husband arrives to start his vacation with us.  Finding time to carve out to read and reflect has been d-i-fficult as a single parent.  :)  So, I have to admit that our middle school team has done a digital storytelling project (about our town's history) for the last 6 years and I have distanced myself from it...mainly because I have been uncomfortable with the technology and with being in front of the camera myself.  I honestly have been reluctant to subject my students to an experience that would have really stressed me out at that age.  However, I am in love with Lee Kolbert's Science in Plain English projects.  My daughter did something like this for her final elementary school GT project, except that they wrote "rock" songs to do the explaining and they turned out suberbly!  One of the things that I really like it that it allows students to use their own "voice" (to use an english term) to explain.  Using the "In Plain English" format gets them to really think about what they know and have learned and how to combine it with images that help to explain without overwhelming.
 I posted a while ago about multimedia education and some research being done by Daniel T. Willingham.  One of the ideas from his research that resonated with me was that just because a lesson has pictures or other media to supplement the words it does not always make the lesson more effective.  Willingham goes on to talk about how the more you know and understand about a topic the more meaningful a more visually complex multimedia task or "lesson" will be for a learner.  Working with middle school students, some of whom my class is the first real science class they have had, I've been really thinking about how my students are really "novice" science learners.  This is where Commoncraft's "In Plain English" format really makes sense to me.  It keeps it simple-stupid!  Great for middle schoolers and other novices! ;)
So, I'm inspired to try the same type of thing with my students.  I can check out a classroom set of Flip video cameras OR... applying what I learned in tech camp:  I'd like to try using Photostory 3 to make a narrated slideshow in the "Plain English" style.  Perhaps giving the kids a choice about which medium they'd like to create with.  I played with Photostory 3 at tech camp.  We made a video about germs in a middle school- I didn't bring my computer on vacation... borrowing my dad's (thanks dad!) or I would share.  I'm going to try with my daughter to play more with some of the pics she's been taking on vacation.  I'll post if and when that happens.
Also, we've been geocaching here and it is really fun!  I may even make my 9 week elective class about geocaching!  Watching my daughter teach her grandparents how to use their GPS today was priceless!
Check out what geocaching is if you don't already know.

Glogster et al...

So the sickness lingers at "grandparents camp" here in the great lake state.  I'm still struggling and Lala woke up this morning headachey, feverish and throwing up...three hours later and a trip to the ER we had to cancel her trip to MSU for their (grandpa and her) academic camp.  She is sick and bummed now.  In the chaos, I've set up my Edumodo for my classes next year and played around with glogster some more.  It is really a neat tool but for perfectionists who are design impaired like me it is time consuming.  I'm really thinking that it may be great for hosting a virtual science fair next year.  Kind of geeked about that.  I also think that it will be cool to use a a virtual bulletin board- yes- we 6th grade teachers still do that- but one that I can get kids in to working on too... we can have lots of versions of the BB theme all posted in our Edmodo "classroom."  Usually my BB help to introduce the larger theme of my inquiry units, for example, one unit's central question is "Why do we sort plastics for recycling?"  The BB generally ends up being examples of different plastics labeled with their #s and all the questions we have about plastics.  I envision lots of kids creating virtual BBs with our class generated questions and sharing them on Edmodo.  I think that webspiration does mind mapping  but I like the multimedia-ness (not a word- I know) of glogster.  Here is the glog I made today.  It's usually one of my first BBs.  I do a lesson on the scientific method they rewrite it, make posters and and my students finally  "discover" or "uncover" the idea that it is cyclical and that becomes our BB.  Using glogster with this lesson will hopefully allow them to develop a deeper understanding of the parts of the scientific method. I'm also thinking about how glogster might allow them to collaborate on a BB.

Not ignoring tech

I'm not ignoring tech this week.... Just been really sick and then traveling alone cross country (still sick) with three kids in tow. They traveled great- me not so much. Playing with using my Ipod touch for blogging. I have access to a classroom set of those. Collecting ideas for that (and amazing cures for a wicked sore throat!)

Bots

Unfortunately, I picked up the nasty virus that my kiddos had last week and missed Geocaching at tech camp. Lala stayed with my teaching partner and had a blast. I'll have to rely on them to teach me (although I can use a Gps... I can even do it with a topo and compass... This is MT after all.)

Today is all about Bots. The students made "draw bots." I'm wondering how I can partner with our art teacher to design these in science and create with them in art. Here is a variation of what we made: http://blog.makezine.com/upload/2009/02/yet_another_drawbot/drawbot2.jpg
I'm thinking that we could collaborate on a "recycle, reuse, repurpose" project. The added science connections are electricity and, for middle and HS level students, the physics of how and why they "draw" the way they do. Students could experiment with the shape of the bot body, the length of the legs, the orientation of the propeller etc. Great critical thinking skill builder!

Day 2 @ Tech Camp

Today was kind of the goofed up day... I was signed up for a basic Moodle class. I've played with Moodle before. It does lots of things for teachers but I find it clunky just maybe too much for my kids (well, maybe me too). So... I crashed the kids' class of Comic Life.  Cool program but kind of doing "old things in new ways."  That seems to be the theme today.  Cool stuff but not really out of the box creative.  I'm intrigued by the idea of using less paper but not every kid is going to love using technology for every project.  Some just love that feel of paper.  The final class today was Science-In-Tech-Great-ion... sounds cool, right?  Not really about science at all. Just a class on using some tech tools taught using science examples: Photo Story 3, Flip Cameras   I'm kind of geeked about trying out edu.glogster.com for our science fair projects or at least offering it as an option.
Now Edmodo.com, this I think might be the "Moodle" replacement I've been looking for.  It looks a lot like face book and is simpler for kids (and teachers) to navigate than Moodle.  It does lack some of the bells and whistles of  Moodle but as I don't need to teach my class virtually... I think that I can live without them.

That's it so far... except that my daughter has started a blog to chronicle the adventures of her "hexbug."  She's been taking pictures of it at Tech Camp this week.

I Heart Ted

A teacher talk at MSU for my Physics by Inquiry class turned me on to Ted. My current faves are Sir Ken Robinson talks on creativity and Jamie Oliver on teaching kids about food. I can see the potential for using these in the classroom because they are so captivating and compelling. I also really like the TV program "Big Ideas for Small Planet." I downloaded a episode to show to my students about kids ideas for helping the planet and they were so excited that they developed and carried out 5 different service projects from making recycling bins for classrooms to protesting the use of styrofoam in the cafeteria (that didn't make me any friends) to organizing a "Go Green with Less Machines" day. Kids are amazing when they're given wings.

My husband is an avid traveler and has planned to take each of our children on a special trip to mark their 10th birthdays. Our daughter is 10 today and has been requesting a trip to Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloudforest. Check out this Ted talk about rainforests. Oddly enough... Our daughter's been telling us for 2 years that she's going to college at Evergreen State (no idea where that came from, we're just along for the ride here).. and this researcher teaches at...

Evergreen. Sometimes you kick the universe and sometimes it kicks you. Happy Birthday, Lala!

Science and Literacy

Several things struck me when reading about literacy.

1. "Students need to have a compelling reason
to read, write, listen, and speak, and meaningful
science content offers that reason."

I've always felt that way as a learner. I am not much of a writer. Reader, yes. Listener, yes. But speaking and writing has never been my thing. However, if what I am reading or listening to is compelling... that makes it easier. The "my summer vacation" essay was always HORRIBLE for me and not just because my summers were super boring. (Farm kids don't get to go on any vacations.)

2. "When you share performance expectations
with your students, you let them in on the
strategies that good learners use intuitively."

When I finally realized that "how" to learn things was not intuitive for kids that was huge. I have learned to be explicit about how to get there and where there is.

3. By writing as they read, students
also create their own study guides for review and
outlines for report writing.

Great point. I am going to have students do this for sure. I have struggled with how to make reading about science active in a meaningful way i.e. not just playing a reading strategy game.

4. "What did you find out?
How did you figure that out?
How did you get that idea?
How did you reach that conclusion?"

Love this! I'm going to make cards of these discussion questions and put them on lanyard to use with labs. Middle school kids need explicit prompts for discussions to work. Can't wait to see how it works out!


Finally, it is heartening to see that literacy standards relating to science and technical arts are being developed. I have always been concerned that both language arts and science teachers were missing this aspect of literacy. Students need technical reading, writing and communicating skills and many are not developing them. When my husband taught first year university students in general bio he used to get many a research paper that began, "The sleek, gorgeous animal flew through the warm tropical waters, flying like a mythical beast..." Gak! He likes to remind me that real scientists don't read (or write) romance.

Keynote and Alternatives to PP

This morning we started with a keynote speaker, Dr. Martin Horejsi from University of Montana.(Sound familiar? He co-authored one of our readings this week with Eric!) He writes a monthly column for "The Science Teacher" (NSTA publication) called "Science 2.0" Very interesting talk and great message- although my daughter's critique was... he didn't stay on message. (I had to talk her out of raising her hand and telling him so.) A starting place for teachers and technology is to imagine we have all the resources we could ever want... computers, iPads, whatever for every child. All the tech hook-ups. What would we want to do then? What kinds of experiences would we want our kids to have to BEST learn our content? Interesting. We are used to looking at the technology we are given and then saying... What could I do with this? Instead we should be dreaming about what- in an ideal world- would we want our students to get to do and working from there. It seems like approaching technology integration from the opposite direction than I've been thinking. Kind of an "ah ha" moment. He also talked about how no one can be an expert at everything today. We have to find what we are interested in and go with it. Collaboration has always been an important part of teaching and integrating technology is no exception.

Workshop #1...Well, this could have been more aptly called Intro to prezi.com. I've used this before and previously signed up for a free educators acct. Prezi is a web based presentation tool. It allows students (and teachers) to create presentations using zooming and panning. The kids in the class today seem to really love it. They can brainstorm or prewrite first and then make intuitive connections, adding multimedia and grouping. To me the visual experience of the final product is cleaner and more interesting compared to (most) information heavy, linear PP slides. My decidedly nonconforming non conformist daughter is loving it. It makes sense to her. I'd love to see what my students could come up with.

Playing to Learn? on Prezi

Technology Boot Camp

Although, this class certainly feels like tech bootcamp.  I am actually attending my district's version starting tomorrow.  I'm going to be learning about Alternatives to Powerpoint, Moodle (although I've got some experience with it already), Geocaching, and Robotics in the Classroom.  I'll try to blog or tweet some this week about what I am learning.  I actually like Twitter quite a bit surprisingly-I recently stumbled upon lots of great resources for parenting GT kiddos-much appreciated as my 10 year old hits 6th grade in the fall! Yikes!

On another note, "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" is a column that appears in AFT's American Educator magazine.  Here is a link to a very interesting article entitled "Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn?   You can imagine why this caught my eye!  While not exactly "guidelines" the author's four summary points are worth thinking about. 

1.  Encourage your students to avoid multitasking when doing an important task.  Younger people are not better at multitasking.  They are less bad because their brains have greater working memory capacity.

2.  If a new piece of technology is placed in your classroom with the expectation that you will use it, take advantage of online teacher communities. Just like we're being encouraged to do! 

3.  Think about what the technology can and can't do.  There are advantages and disadvantages to using technology... think about what you want to accomplish and whether the technology will get you there most effectively or not.

4.  There is nothing wrong with engagement.  Even though brain reseach does not show a correlation between having technology in the classroom and deeper understanding of content, if it just gets kids attention- that's OK too.

The video below is about Multitasking... cool stuff.  My husband has been trying to tell me this for years,  however, my response is "It is impossible not to multitask when you're outnumbered." :)

The Starship and the Canoe

My husband has badgered me into an explanation of the blog name.  So, it's a book about Freeman Dyson- by Kenneth Brower.  Freeman Dyson is a world-renowned astrophysicist. The book explores the divergent lives of Freeman and his son, George, who at the time lived in a tree in coastal British Columbia and was designing a giant seagoing canoe.  I love this book. It showed me at a pretty critical point in my life that brillance didn't have to be about achievement.  It taught me about purpose and passion and, of course balance...  I decided I wanted to fall somewhere in between reaching for the stars and feeling the firm ground beneath my feet.  Pretty radical, huh... did I mention my parents were hippies? 

Guiding Principles

I wish I knew how to imbedd this but I'm just  not there yet! But check it out- I think it adds something to the discussion.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/because-every-country-is-the-best-at-something/

Well, I'm still struggling a bit with the volume of new things and the sense of urgency that I feel emanating from the readings etc. Not sure what I really feel about that yet. I'm still questioning... Really? Technology is going to solve all of our perceived "problems?" Is it really an answer or is it more of a tool? I strongly believe that it cannot and should not replace a teacher or hands on experimenting but I am excited about how it can provide more learning opportunities to students-especially mine- who are geographically quite isolated.

I have a strong streak of Thoreau in me and I really just need to get outside and THINK a bit more on it. However, it has been raining for DAYS here on the dry side of the continental divide.  I can't even take my kiddos out for a walk.  We are all feeling stir crazy!  But here's where I am right now in my process: 

1. I will strive to use technology for making learning more accessible, engaging or creating deeper meaning not just because it is "there."

2. I will work hard to make sure my students are safe in the digital world and understand how to interact within it with respect for themselves and others.

3. I will remember that technology is the tool not the answer and endeavor to convey it to my students- because they are the answer!

4. I will learn more about technology from and for my students so I can help better guide their learning.

21st Century Skills?

So full disclosure, I am a skeptic. I'm not an early technology adopter. I am highly interested in it but only in how it can streamline or bring deeper meaning to the life I want to live.  That said- teaching philosophy... I believe much more in the art of teaching than the "science" of prescriptive or reactive education.  Yong Zhao and Michigan State University (my alma mater!  go state!) has been blogging about this recently.  So any sort of educational research that attempts to apply to all students in all classroom makes me wary.  Not to say I totally discount it, but you've really got to convince me.

So here are my thoughts: The imagery of education as a factory producing a product alluded to at the beginning of the chapter is one which I dislike intensely. But the idea of 21st century skills not only for the workforce- (really that is not the sum of a person's meaningful life)- but for successful citizenship, I am intrigued by. The examples of 21st century skills:  adaptability, complex communications/social skills, non-routine problem solving, self management/self development, systems thinking, all sound like skills that were used when family farms were the norm and people collaborated for success rather than competed against one another in their "cubes" to have the most. (The U.S. competing against the rest of the world instead of collaborating for a common good got me going a bit too.) Somewhere along the line we have "untaught" or removed the opportunity to learn these skills. I'm not sure how or where that happened.  The upshot is... I'm not sure I'd accurately call them exclusively "21st Century Skills."

Thoughts on "adapting" or applying the 21st century skill set in the science classroom:  I really get excited about these. Using authentic scientific experiences in the classroom, I agree is best practice. Giving students the opportunity to "act" like real scientists- dirt and uncertainties, arguments and all, encouraging thinking outside the box or circle or whatever- what students often miss is the importance of creativity and collaboration in the scientific world. I'm excited by how 21st century technology will come into play in helping students develop these skill sets.

Introduction

Welcome! I am a 6th grade science teacher lucky enough to live in the last best place- Montana! I grew up on a dairy farm in northern Michigan so living here is no stretch- just more cows. I've taught all science subjects 6th through 12th grade but my passion is middle school. My husband and I have three children- 10, 4 and almost 2! I love to travel, hike, and just watch things grow! I blog intermittently about our life in our mixed up multi-ethnic family at lalaandpie.blogspot.com