Presentation Tools

In my short years as a teacher and as a student I have not been exposed to many presentation tools. To have grown up in the "computer age" I am fairly computer illiterate. I have used Microsoft power point the most and am the most comfortable with it. I am actually learning new ways the presentations can be manipulated and tweaked weekly. It is very user friendly and somewhat interactive. This is actually the method I will most likely use.

The only other presentation tool I use is the activInspire. We have activBoards in each of the classrooms in my school and I thoroughly enjoy working with them. The students also really enjoy them. The students can easily get involved with most lessons by either the pen or a wireless notepad. We have also recently purchased a set of text ready devices where students each have a handheld device where they can type in their answer. The students love anything to do with texting of course since this is their way of communication.

I did try to branch out and look into a few tools I was unfamiliar with. The one I chose was Prezi. I was actually very impressed with the ease of use. The Prezi program has several nice features that would make using it beneficial to both the teacher and the student. I rally like how everything is on one page so you can see all the information that you have gathered. This is very different from Microsoft power point or the active Inspire programs. With those you are only able to see the particular slide you are working on. With the Prezi program it also seems extremely easy to change to ordering and layout of the program which is not so easy with the others. My exploration and the tutorial video of the Prezi program may have changed my mind. I may just use this useful tool fro my presentation.

Collaborative tools fro the 21st Century

The work places of today are filled with collaboration. The higher up in the job fields you go the more collaboration is involved. It is for this reason that must teach students how to collaborate and work as a team if they are to make it in the "real world."
There are several ways that I try to do this in my own classroom. There is usually only a few instances where I require students to work alone and most of those are tests. I feel that when students get out into the work place that they will usually have coworkers working around them. Even in fast foods restaurants you must work as a team to get the orders out in a timely fashion and to the right customer. Then why should we require them to work alone in the classroom.

This week I found several great toll to aid in the collaborative instruction in my classroom. The one that I found the most helpful was from a site called Mission to Learn http://www.missiontolearn.com/2009/08/free-online-collaboration/. this site has great ideas on how to get students involved in classroom collaboration and wanting to learn and work together. There are several great tools on this site that are free, which is a big plus, that worked well in my own class. My favorite was the Stixy program. My students could communicate through it using email or instant messaging. They could do this in class or while they where at home. I think they enjoyed being able to communicate so freely throughout the projects no matter where they were.

http://www.njea.org/news-and-publications/njea-review/march-2011/voicethread

 http://theconnectedclassroom.wikispaces.com/Collaboration_Tools

Week 4 What next?

In this weeks experiment we tested materials ability to fight the forms of heat transfer such as conduction and convection. We where then asked to choose a substance we did not test that we would have liked to. The substances that I chose to test where plastic bags, aluminum foil, cotton rag, and Saran wrap. I would have liked to try one of those thermal blankets you always see people wearing when they have a natural disaster. The seem to be made of a foil looking material and I can bet that they would do better trapping heat than any of my other materials. Heat is trapped or its movement is slowed by the amount of air pockets in certain materials. The more densely packet air pockets the better the R value. This is why the hair of a polar bear is hollow. The air inside helps retain the heat.

My open inquiry design process lesson.

One of the first lessons that I teach is on the engineering design process. I do this through an open inquiry lesson that I try to keep completely student driven. We first briefly talk and discuss the design process as a class. The students then, through a completely open discussion, are asked to give me jobs, scenarios, problems, and research where the design process would be used. As a class they then choose 3-5 of those ideas that they as a class would like to know more about. I go through and make sure they are all classroom feasible and appropriate and let them go.

Students allowed 3-4 in a group and to use the design process in however way they think would best solve the problem of investigate the idea. I try to work as a facilitator of learning in my classroom and not as the know all be all of the subject. This lesson sets that framework. Students are allowed to consult with me or ask me for assistance of any kind. Most of the time they are met with another question to guide their inquiry rather than a solution to their question. We are trying to create self motivated thinking adults and how can they do this if we give just hand out the answers freely.

This lesson usually takes up the first week of real instruction in my classroom. It is a great way for students to learn that they are responsible for their own learning and should see every classroom as a possibility to increase their own knowledge. The design process is a great tool for this. They must learn to follow the appropriate steps to solve and manipulate problems to get to their end goal.

Any suggestions on improvements for my lesson?

Marble Inquiry

To start my inquiry I first created a ramp to be sure that each marble would start off with the same velocity or momentum. This was created very easily by using two tri-squares as legs to make sure they where both level and even, eliminating the need to cut and measure wood. I then place a small piece of smooth plywood over these two squares and attached it using my old friend duct tape. I then drew a start line n the top of the ramp so that each marble would start on the ramp from the same location trying to eliminate as much human error as possible. The only other thing that I should have done was to create some way of releasing the marble without having to actually touch the marble. The ramp was then placed on three different surfaces; laminate hardwood, smooth tile, carpet. The distances traveled and speed of each marble where record over several different runs and then averaged. This data was then analyzed and compared to try and determine if and how much of an affect surface type has on the momentum of rolling marbles.

Of course I determined that the lowest ,momentum resulted from the carpet and fastest on the tile.

In this inquiry I had a hard time getting the marbles to roll straight. If I was the set this up in the classroom i would make the ramp out of pvc pipe to have a more stable path for hte marble to start out wiht. This hopefully would produced a straighter path after it exited the tube.

Ice Caps

What if the Polar Ice Caps melted?

This one be one of the single greatest natural disasters of all time, to me. There would be drastic rises of the sea level plunging many countries and states under water. It would also cause an increase in ocean temperatures. The ocean, as we all know, is a vital part of life. We depend on it for numerous things. It is also a very delicate entity. If the sea levels rise then we loose coral reefs. We than loose the inhabitants of the reefs and so on and so forth. Not to mention the fact that the number of ice bergs floating around would grow exponentially.

I have a reef aquarium in my home. I understand the delicateness of this ecosystem. If the temperatures or chemical balances get off by fractions then I have major losses. It would not take much to throw off the balance of our oceans and a total or even partial melting of the ice caps could do this in a drastic way.

STEM Lesson Plan

In this weeks aplication I learned several new ways to plan a lesson by using the required template. In my system we use what is called the "brain compatible lesson plane" template. It organizes the lesson into seperate "chunks" each involving a different phase in the lesson and a walkthrough. I enjoyed several aspects of this new plan but in parts it is lengthy. I was going to use it daily I would eliminate a few components.

The 5 E's were something that I was already using unconsciously. I always center my lessons areound its main components. I just did not realize I was using the 5 E's.

I do like the STEM strategy. It is very beneficial to all teachers to try and mix some of each subject into the learning. In the real world they will be asked to draw upon their knowledge in this way so why not give them a headstart and teach their brains how to think this way?